Cars have been around for so long that when buying a new car we are already familiar with terms like horsepower, torque, we know between a mechanical transmission and an automatic. If it works with diesel or gasoline engine.
In recent years, new terms and concepts and many acronyms have been imposed. which refer to the type of energy used by the vehicle and the way the engine it integrates works. In the case of electric cars, their names come from English. Let’s see
EV – Electric Vehicle. It refers to electric vehicles with zero emissions.
BEV – Battery Electric Vehicle. Battery electric vehicle. They are propelled solely by electrical energy through one or several electric motors and are powered exclusively by the energy stored in the batteries that are charged by regeneration or by plugging the car into the electrical network.
HEV – Hybrid Electric Vehicle. It is a hybrid electric vehicle (conventional), which integrates two types of engines, one combustion (gasoline or diesel) and another electric. Also known as «non-plug-in hybrids» they recharge their batteries by using the heat engine and the car’s energy recovery system. They do not need to be connected to the electrical network.
PHEV – Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, like the HEV, combines a heat engine and one or more electric motors in its propulsion system. The difference is in account with a higher capacity battery that is recharged through a connection to the electrical network.
MHEV – Mild Hybrid Electric Vehicle. Semi-hybrid electric vehicles, also known as light hybrids, are those that integrate an internal combustion engine and a small electric motor (auxiliary 48 volts), which fulfills the function of giving more torque (force) to the power train.
FCEV – Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle. Fuel cell electric vehicles, better known as “hydrogen cars”, are those that integrate an electric motor and one or more batteries that obtain their energy through the injection of hydrogen.
E-REV: Extended Range Electric Vehicle. Extended range electric vehicle. They are powered by the energy of a battery and have a small combustion engine to recharge it, thus achieving a wider range of autonomy. In these, the combustion engine does not move the wheels of the car in any case, it works as an electric generator that recharges the battery.
Battery pack. An electric car battery is made up of modules, which are many boxes of many individual cells that have been wired together. Then the modules interconnected to form the battery pack. The set can weigh up to half a ton or more. A key fact: The hours or charging cycles of the batteries are decisive when buying a used electric car, and not the kilometers traveled, as happens with cars with combustion engines.
Power. Electrical power is measured in kilowatts (one kilowatt equals 1,000 watts); the abbreviation is kW. To get an idea of how much energy that is, remember that the old light bulbs were 60, 75, or 100 watts. One kilowatt equals 1.34 horsepower, so a 100 kW electric motor equals or has 134 horsepower.
Battery capacity. The group of batteries of a vehicle is assimilated to the gasoline tank because there, the energy is stored. The energy capacity of a battery is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh), which is the number of kilowatts that it can deliver over a period of time, in hours.
Load range. This term is key because it is the one that tells us how many kilometers can be traveled on a single charge. For this, the United States EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) standard is used, considered as a very useful tool to easily know the approximate autonomy of electric vehicles, which depends on the capacity of the battery, which is measured by the amount of kilowatt hours (kWH) and how the vehicle consumes it.
Engine. Almost all electric cars have one, two or, in rare cases, three or even four electric motors that drive the rear or front wheels, or in some both axles. Electric motors generate maximum torque at zero rpm, literally from the moment they start turning, which is why they are so reactive and fast compared to gasoline engines.