Electric vehicle
A car driven by a motor running on electricity stored in a battery. It emits no exhaust while driving.
The history is long: the first car to exceed 100 km/h, in 1899, was electric. Steam, electricity and petrol were then in competition, but batteries were heavy and range was short, and the electric car lost to cheap petrol cars. What made its return possible was the lithium-ion battery, which had grown up serving mobile phones and laptops.
A motor turns most of the battery's electricity into motion. Since no heat engine is involved, it is not bound by the ceiling of Carnot's theorem[1]. The weaknesses are the battery's cost and weight, charging time, and securing battery materials. And although nothing is emitted on the road, total emissions depend on how the electricity is generated. Electric vehicles made up about a quarter of new car sales worldwide in 2025, though uptake differs greatly from country to country.
Related terms
- Lithium-ion batteryA battery that charges and discharges as lithium ions shuttle between the positive and negative electrodes. Used everywhere from phones to electric cars.
- Hybrid vehicleA car that carries both an engine and an electric motor and uses each where it works best. It recovers energy into a battery when slowing down, which improves fuel economy.
- All-solid-state batteryA lithium-ion battery whose liquid electrolyte is replaced by a solid material. It is expected to be harder to ignite and to store more energy.