Building Electric Vehicles
Lesson Objectives:
At the end of the workshop, students will be able to:
Explain the environmental impact of driving electric cars instead of gas powered cars
Work as a team to follow a guide and build an electric go cart
Analyze information about the pros and cons of switching to electric vehicles
Compare and contrast the mechanisms of electric and gas powered vehicles
Essential Questions:
What are the benefits of more people opting to drive electric vehicles?
What is better about an electric car than a gas powered car?
What can we use to make electricity that is better for the environment than fossil fuels?
Explore our resources
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Standards Alignments
Explore the ways our program aligns with CCSS + NGSS standards.
Vocabulary
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Additional Resources
Explore relevant videos, podcasts, and short films here!
EV Adventure Activity
Plan an electric vehicle road trip and find charging stations along the way to stop at! Discover how different a road trip can be in an electric vehicle!
EV Jingle
Write a jingle to advertise electric vehicles using new vocabulary. Once completed, record or perform your jingle!
Mapping Charging Stations
Create a map of your town and label the available public charging stations. Then research how much each station costs and how many stations are available at each location!
Infographic
Learn more about electric vehicles with this infographic.
Lesson Reflection
Print and send home this reflection activity to show families what their student learned.
Background Information
What is an Electric Vehicle?
An EV, or electric vehicle, is a vehicle that can be powered by an electric motor that draws electricity from a battery and is capable of being charged from an external source. There are different types of electric vehicles each with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Overall, electric vehicles positively impact the environment due to their efficiency and limited use of fossil fuels.
Different Types of Electric Vehicles
BEV: Battery- Electric Vehicles are fully electric vehicles with rechargeable batteries and no gasoline engine. All energy to run the vehicle comes from the battery pack which is recharged from the grid. BEVs are zero emissions vehicles, as they do not generate any harmful tailpipe emissions or air pollution hazards caused by traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.
PHEV: Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles have both an engine and electric motor to drive the car. Like regular hybrids, they can recharge their battery through regenerative braking. They differ from regular hybrids by having a much larger battery, and being able to plug into the grid to recharge. While regular hybrids can (at low speed) travel 1-2 miles before the gasoline engine turns on, PHEVs can go anywhere from 10-40 miles before their gas engines provide assistance. Once the all-electric range is depleted, PHEVs act as regular hybrids, and can travel several hundred miles on a tank of gasoline.
HEV: Hybrid Electric Vehicles, or HEVs, have both a gas-powered engine and an electric motor to drive the car. All energy for the battery is gained through regenerative braking, which recoups otherwise lost energy in braking to assist the gasoline engine during acceleration. In a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle, this braking energy is normally lost as heat in the brake pads and rotors.
EREV: Extended Range Electric Vehicles are a slightly different take on the well known PHEV - both have electric motors and both are powered by batteries but that’s where the similarities end. The EREV uses a combustion engine purely as a generator and as such there is no connection between the engine and the drivetrain. Usually a gasoline engine, the generator has a sole purpose of charging up batteries when they run low. These cars were specifically designed to offer - in theory - electric driving without the battery charging limitations.