As stated before here at SolarPowerDIY.info we will be taking a look from time to time into other alternative energy sources as well as our main focus which is solar energy. Today we take a look at the idea of changing to electric powered cars and other vehicles (also known as PHEV’s) to help off set the rising cost (financial, environmental and political) of traditional fossil fuels.

Filling up at the gas station is becoming an extremely expensive necessity. With sky rocketing fuel prices and uncertain / uneasy foreign relations with the major oil companies, most of the worlds western countries are for the first time starting to take alternative energies and concepts such as electric powered cars seriously.

Added to the economic and political issues are the increasingly alarming environmental issues, particularly the harmful effects of carbon emissions given off by the combustion of fossil fuels. Added to this we have the concern that fossil fuels is an extremely slow renewing energy source, one which we are using up much faster than can generated, which in turn leads us to fuel shortages.

It is no surprise then, that governments and the major players in the energy stakes are starting to pour money into the researching and development of alternative energies for our transport needs, in particular natural gas, solar and electric powered cars.

Electricity, whilst not the cleanest of fuel sources, is much, much cleaner than fossil fuels its also much cheaper, is locally produced and regulated, which means we are not held to ransom by foreign countries in particular those with conflicting political ideologies, even more reasons to move to electric powered cars.

With the likely shift to solar power for residential energy needs, there will be more than enough electricity resources available to run our electric powered cars.

Currently our cars spew out massive amounts of carbon emissions, these emissions are next to impossible to thwart as they are being given of by millions of cars all over the globe. Alarmingly the numbers of car owners on earth looks set to triple as the residents of the increasingly wealthy china move for the first time into car ownership. Producing electric powered cars on the other hand makes the task of controlling emissions much simpler as the majority of emissions would be generated at power plants, this in turn leads to localized emission hot spots which would be much easier to control.

Over the next few articles we will take a further look into the pros and cons of gas, solar and electric powered cars and vehicles.

In the meantime you can help the environment and save some money by looking into DIY Solar power