Electric cars keep plugging along

By CECIL SCAGLIONE

Mature Life Features

Electric vehicles, or EVs, has become an umbrella term for any type of battery-powered electric vehicle. They’re also labeled BEVs — battery electric vehicles.

Some run only on battery power, while others combine battery and gasoline power. They can be broken down into three categories.

• EV, a fully battery-powered vehicle.

• HEV, hybrid electric vehicle. It combines an internal combustion engine with an electric-powered motor, switching between the two to improve fuel economy.

• PHEV, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. This is simply a plug-in HEV.

Each varies in cost, fuel efficiency and driving experience.

EVs came on the scene as an option for climate-conscious motorists and account for 5% of new car sales. This adoption of new technology spurred advances in other areas, such as the internet and mobile phones.

You fuel up an EV by plugging a charging nozzle, much like a gasoline pump nozzle, into a port hidden by a flap where the gasoline gas cap is on a gas-driven auto.

While there are public charging stations around the country, they are sparsely spaced, so most manufacturers include a home charger with the purchase of an EV. One end fits into a standard household outlet and the other end plugs into the EV. There are a variety of charging devices available, depending on your budget, that can cut down on the time required to charge the EV.

A full charge gives the vehicle from 200 to 400 miles, so longer trips have to be planned around the location of public charging stations. These stops will take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, depending on the level of charge provided at these stations.

HEVs were the major entrant in the EV market in the early 2000s by perfecting the art of linking an electric-powered motor with the internal combustion engine. When an HEV stops, it most likely idles on the electricity of the battery and kicks back to gasoline when it starts up again. Hybrids typically claim to get 40 to 60 mpg, as much as twice that of a gas-powered vehicle.

Instead of charging through an external port like EVs or PHEVs, HEVs replenish their batteries from the gas engine. They eliminate the hassle of finding charging stations and spending the extra time powering up. While they typically cost a few thousand dollars more than gas-powered cars, they sell for less than plug-in EVs.

For example, the 2022 gaspowered Toyota Rav 4 started at just short of $27,000. The hybrid version was about $3,000 more and the plug-in electric hybrid version topped $40,000.

A PHEV is built to run on both gas and battery power. The key difference is that the power comes from plug-in chargers, making them more like an EV. When the battery power runs out, PHEVs switch to gas like a hybrid. But PHEVs go longer on battery power than hybrids do.

Continuing the Toyota Rav 4 example, the gas-powered version has a 27 mpg city rating, while the hybrid version comes in at 41 mpg, and the PHEV logs 94 mpg.

Mature Life Features Copyright 2023

Jumbo jets disappearing

By CECIL SCAGLIONE Mature Life Features

It looks like the two most familiar jumbo jets — the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 — are going the way of earth’s ancient jumbo critters, the dinosaurs.

The massive cutback in travel resulting from the COVID-19 global shutdown has hastened their demise and allowed the airline industry to further inspect their rationale for dumping these iconic aircraft.

While both will be seen in airports for a few years yet, their replacement boils down to a simple matter of finances. Boeing’s new 787 requires only 300 passengers to be full, about 100 fewer than the 747 capacity. The Airbus 350, with a capacity topping out at 400, takes over from the A380 that had to sell 550 tickets to be full.

Mature Life Features Copyright 2023

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