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Breyhauna Johnson
Professor Debra Dagher
UWRT 1102
6 April 2015
The Mass Adoption of Electric Vehicles
The future could be right in front of us, but blinding eyes are blocking our views and
scaring us into believing it is so far away. New ideas and even older, transformed ideas are right
in front of us, waiting to be recognized. Electric vehicles arent a new concept, but they could be
the next big thing, if we let them. They could have many up-sides, but the down-sides are
keeping people from realizing their full potential. I first learned about EVs as a sophomore in
high school. My teacher showed a documentary about them being introduced and then banned
right after in the 1970s. I became interested then, wondering why the government would try to
take away a brilliant idea. I started doing research about this and learned some motives behind
the governments decision. I then applied to the Young Scholars program at NC State to do
research over the summer and got accepted. That summer I worked with NC States Future of
Renewable and Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center to learn
more about different types of renewable energy. I explored many aspects of renewable energy as
a whole and really liked the whole concept of electric vehicles. Its another way to use what we
already have and incorporate into something else to make it a more safe and efficient way to live.
I got to experience how they work and how the charging stations operated in Raleigh. From that
moment on, I decided to focus my career path in the direction of renewable energy. I wanted to
do more research this time on the impact that EVs would have in our world.

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Most people today would be affected by the integration of EVs into our society. This
would be a significant change to most peoples daily lives if they chose to own one themselves.
The integration would impact our homes, cities and our personal lives. People would be saving
more money, as well as learning to adapt to new technologies. These new technologies include
the charging stations that would be placed in homes as well as in cities. With the charging
stations, more people will have interest in learning about them and EVs themselves. This
creates more jobs and allows education to be instilled into minds. In the process of adapting to
these new technologies, these technologies could start an upbringing of acceptance to newer
technologies being introduced. Along with the education, we would also experience more
convenience. For example, we could charge our batteries in the EVs overnight as we slept, not
having to worry about stopping for gas in the morning before work. This kind of convenience
can make living easier and simpler and is the reason newer technologies like this continue to be
created every day.
The impact that the integration of electric vehicles into society will have depends on who
is asked. Many people are either for electric vehicles or completely against them, while some are
still unsure about them. There are many questions raised on the efficiency of electric vehicles
involving the battery life and time it takes to charge the battery back to full life. Not to mention
the range the average person can travel on an EV battery. The current range for a typical battery
in an EV can be anywhere from 80-250 miles (Lim, Mak, Rong). While most people today
travel less than eighty miles a day, this number is not ideal for family trips, long rides, etc.
Kevin Bullis from MIT Technology Review posted an article about Teslas Model S EV that can
go up to 250 miles fully charged, stating, I couldnt help feel that electric vehicles are the
future, and that Teslas strides in batteries and supercharging could bring that future here sooner

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that Id thought. In this statement, Bullis is speaking about the supercharging stations that now
exist in the U.S., sixteen of them in fact. He speaks in the article about the range anxiety that
many advocates of EVs, as well as non-advocates, express. Although the range anxiety exists,
there are also other concerns such as how much change will have to occur in order for electric
vehicles to effectively exist. One of these concerns include having to install charging stations in
order for people to have a place to recharge their batteries other than their homes. Even with
charging stations being installed, the factor of time is still an issue to some people. Stopping at a
gas station to refuel only takes a couple of minutes, while charging your electric vehicle can take
anywhere from six to eight hours when it is completely dead (The Sierra Club). This is not an
ideal time to most people, as most people are on a time crunch, either for work or to get home,
and do not have time to spare on charging their battery. While all of these are valid concerns, on
the contrary there are a numerous amount of benefits. Some of these benefits include less carbon
monoxide emissions into our environment, tax benefits from the purchase of an electric vehicle,
and saving lots of money from gasoline expenses. Greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced
enormously by changing the way most energy is produced today. This mostly includes the coal
powered plants that we get most of our energy today from. We can reduce up to 60 percent of
greenhouse gas emissions by using natural gas power plants or any other renewable energy plant
(Delucchi). There is also the fact that most of the energy produced from an EV will go to the
wheels. An estimated 59%-62% of the energy produced in an EV goes to powering the car
(All-Electric Vehicles). Exploring these concerns and benefits is a great way to do some
research on something that may be effecting the near future.
While doing my research, I came across various aspects of electric vehicles. I learned
about the history, how they worked and what different experts have to say about them. While all

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of these aspects are very interesting, I decided to focus my paper on the pros and cons of the
adoption of electric vehicles into modern society. This seemed like a way to make my research a
little less than just plain research and more of an opinionated research essay. I explored many
aspects of electric vehicles, thus learning a lot and deciding what I should write about them. I
found that the benefits or pros to EVs were the most convincing to me; I couldnt find enough
arguments against EVs to outweigh any of the positive aspects. I believe that the mass adoption
of electric vehicles into society will do nothing but great things, adding to the newer and greater
technologies that continue to exist on a daily basis.
As I learned many pros and cons to owning an electric vehicle as well as forming an
opinion about the mass adoption of them, I am still curious about many other aspects of them. I
found a few facts about how they worked, but I would love to know more about the motors in
them and how they operate different than and internal combustion engine. I would also like to
learn more about the governments take on EVs and why the mass adoption is not happening
sooner. The discoveries that I made about EVs were fascinating and I would like to own one in
the near future. I truly believe these are the cars of the future and most people would thrive from
owning one. The range anxiety has still remained to be one of the biggest reasons why many
Americans have doubts about EVs. If I were to continue my research, my inquiry would lead
me to finding ways to improve the battery life of an EV so people can start taking advantage of
its potential.

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Works Cited
"All-Electric Vehicles." All-Electric Vehicles. U.S. Department of Energy. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
Bullis, Kevin. "How Tesla Is Driving Electric Car Innovation." How Tesla Is Driving Electric
Car Innovation. MIT Technology Review, 07 Aug. 2013. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
Delucchi, M. A., C. Yang, A. F. Burke, J. M. Ogden, K. Kurani, J. Kessler, and D. Sperling. "An
Assessment of Electric Vehicles: Technology, Infrastructure Requirements, Greenhousegas Emissions, Petroleum Use, Material Use, Lifetime Cost, Consumer Acceptance and
Policy Initiatives." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical,
Physical and Engineering Sciences 372.2006 (2013). Web. 06 Apr. 2015.
Michael K. Lim, Ho-Yin Mak, Ying Rong (2015) Toward Mass Adoption of Electric Vehicles:
Impact of the Range and Resale Anxieties. Manufacturing & Service Operations
Management 17(1):101-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.2014.0504
"The Sierra Club." Electric Vehicles: Myths vs. Reality. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

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Peer Review
I received lots of feedback from my peers after I wrote my paper. After a few lines, they
suggested that I write more to explain myself a little better. Most of these suggestions I took into
consideration and elaborated on some things. Some of them I felt as if I already had enough
written and had explained myself pretty well, so I didnt change anything. I also received
feedback about not using as many contractions in my essay, and I tried to cut back on them.
I gave lots of feedback to my two peers as well. I wrote on one of their papers that talked
about Haiti how much I loved her explanation of one of the organizations. I told her I wanted to
incorporate that kind of writing into my own. I also commented on her paper a few ways I
would change some of the wording to express what she was trying to say a little clearer, as I was
a little confused reading it at some points. My other peer I commented on how well he was
following the guideline to writing the research essay, as his was pretty spot on with following it.