Electric Vehicles: The Next Generation of Cars?

Rafi Davidovics (’26)

Traditionally cars have been fuelpowered, but there's a new kid on the car block: Electric Vehicles (EV). Have you ever wondered how EVs get from point A to point B? Is it the same as an internal combustion car but wired to a battery or is there something else going on here? Surprisingly, the operating principle behind most electric cars predates the internal combustion engine by several decades. A Dutch professor named Sebranda Stratting built his small electric vehicle in 1834. The catch was that the battery was not rechargeable like the cars we have now.

The principle that drives electric cars is magnetism. Everybody knows how two positive or negative magnets will repel each other, and a negative with a positive will attract. So let's imagine an experiment using two magnets. One is fixed and the other mounted on a rotating shaft, if the two poles nearest each other on both magnets share the same polarity, say north to north, the magnet on the shaft will be repelled by the fixed magnet and will rotate so that the south pole of the magnet on the shaft is facing the north pole of the magnet that is fixed. If this experiment was used in electric cars, however; we would only be able to get a half rotation. This is where electromagnetism comes into play. In a fixed or permanent magnet, like the kind on your fridge at home, those magnetic poles are rigid and never change, north is always north and south is always south, however; on an electromagnet, the poles can be reversed. Imagine one of our experimental magnets is now an electromagnet, if the south pole quickly flips over to the north the fixed magnet will repel the moving magnet another half of the way making it a whole spin. To see how this works imagine a circuit with a battery and a light bulb. The electron flow occurs in one direction from the battery to the light bulb. If you flip the battery one hundred and eighty degrees and put it back in the circuit the electrons will still flow just in the opposite direction and the circuit will still work. Electromagnets like light bulbs will work regardless of the direction the electrons are flowing. Brilliantly the polarity gets reversed along with the flow of electrons so to keep the magnet in permanent repel mode you have to keep flipping the battery to keep the polarity correct. The problem with flipping the battery is that every time you wanted to move one rotation you would have to go to the mechanic and get your tire flipped, meaning that just to get to school every morning I would have to go to the mechanic 5280 times. The solution to this problem is the inverter module. The inverter on the EV draws current from the battery through the combination of quick switches and slick circuitry. This flips the flow of electrons back and forth nearly sixty times every second.

So now that we know how they work let's talk about some of the advantages. First of all, EVs tend to be more efficient than the typical gas model, and EVs are less likely to fail or require expensive maintenance. Another cool thing EVs can do is that they can recharge themselves even while driving. It does this by utilizing the kinetic energy created by the kinetic energy created while breaking, or even just the friction of the road while you are driving.

Overall electric vehicles are incredibly interesting new ventures into the realm of transportation. From FedEx shipping introducing their new fleet of electric trucks to charging stations being added to our local Memphis infrastructure, EVs are certainly not going away anytime soon.