Nowadays, countries are eager to get more electric cars on the road because moving away from gas-powered vehicles is vital to fighting climate change. China says that most new vehicles sold by 2035 will be electric. The United Kingdom will ban new gas-powered cars in 2030. One of the world's major automakers, General Motors (GM), announced that it would stop selling gas-powered cars by 2035.
The key to an electric future is batteries. Automakers are racing to pack the most energy into the smallest one. The lithium-ion (锂离子) battery is what powers our mobile devices, which can be recharged again and again. Making these batteries has an environmental cost. Lithium is taken from the earth, like the oil used to make gasoline. But the long-term cost is much smaller. "Once you burn gasoline, you can't recycle it, "says Jessika Trancik, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."But when you use up a battery, you can still recycle the material. "
It's up to governments to make electric cars accessible to everyone. National policies can help. In the United States, an electric Chevy Volt costs about $35,000. Trancik says charging stations must also be made widely available. As part of an effort to fight climate change, America plans to build half a million of them in the US by 2030. She hopes enough charging stations will be built soon. "It's important to put chargers where many different people can have access to them," she says. "Not just wealthier people. "
Last year, almost 5% of approximately 67 million new cars sold worldwide were electric. For Venkat Viswanathan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, green electricity is part of the solution to climate change, and electric cars are just the beginning. He sees a future of solar-powered homes and electric flying cars. "Soon, a plug-in vehicle might be as cheap as a gas-powered car. It is now abundantly clear that electric is the future, "he says." It will be a totally new world. "
