Electric vehicles are beginning to become popular in the national market, with more than a dozen offers already available, with different types and with increasingly affordable prices.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

The origin of electric vehicles dates back to the 19th century, however, the start of mass production of combustion vehicles by Henry Ford, accompanied by a considerable drop in prices, led to the decline of these vehicles. Throughout the century. XX, several initiatives tried to promote their use of these electric vehicles but only in the last decade, due to the increase of the environmental concerns and the escalation of the fuel price, these vehicles started to be considered a viable alternative. This use led to the creation of infrastructures that make it possible to load them.

Electric vehicles have an increasingly “consensual” design and are characterized by the absence of gearboxes and clutches, by the fact that they have all their torque at startup and by having regenerative braking, allowing them to take advantage of the braking energy to charge the batteries and slow down the car faster when you take your foot off the accelerator.

In Portugal, the MOBI.E network was created to manage the network of charging stations for electric vehicles, with more than 500 charging stations distributed throughout the country. This network also includes the new fast charging stations (PCR), of paid use, and the normal charging stations (PCN), of free and free access. A PCN (3.7kWh) allows the charging of the battery of a tram in a period of approximately 6 to 8 hours. A PCR (of 22kWh) allows you to charge the same vehicle in less than an hour. These also allow 80% of the battery to be charged in 20 minutes and are located mostly in service areas and main urban centers, in order to promote the daily use of these vehicles.

If you plan to buy an electric vehicle, take into account the type of use of the vehicle and the autonomy of its batteries, vehicles with batteries with a capacity of 20kWh have a typical range of up to 150km, whereas vehicles with batteries with a capacity of more than 80kWh have autonomies more than 300km.

If you are considering buying a car for your daily commutes, make a comparison with an equivalent electric vehicle and consider the kilometers you travel annually. For this analysis, all costs associated with the acquisition and use of your vehicle were considered, however others may be added, to further refine your comparison, such as the costs associated with parking on public roads.