Why are electric cars so slow and heavy?
Electric motors are very efficient and lightweight however the energy stored by a battery is no match for a gasoline tank. This problem means that yes you can have an electric vehicle but it is not comparable to a gasoline powered one. See my article Battery Exchange, the answer for Electric Cars on how it would be possible to come very close to getting the same usefulness from EVS as we get from our gasoline powered cars. Of course it is true that most of us drive less than 40 miles a day so we don’t really need the energy storage capability of a tank of gas. Most of the problem is that batteries are very heavy; the best so far is a lithium battery that can store nearly 300 watt-hours per kilogram, it takes about 20000 watt-hours to propel a compact car at 65 MPH for one hour. This means that a lithium battery would weigh 66 kilograms or about 150 pounds for an hours use. Lithium batteries are not available for electric cars so if you had to use a plain old lead acid battery it would
