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Research Pathway


Kayden and I are grouped together for the reader response assignment. We tried to think of a specific topic to start our assignment. After various discussions, we decided that we wanted to focus on electric vehicles that runs on an electric motor rather than the conventional internal combustion engine. We first use ChatGPT v3.5 to gain an overview of how electric vehicles work, functions and features of it, and ultimately decided to choose this topic as we believe electric vehicles are the future.

We believe the electric vehicles are the future for many reasons in which we will be stating some of them here. One of the reasons is that having an electric car can lead to saving maintenance costs. We did our research using Google Scholar and found an article in KIA Singapore`s website titled "Are electric cars cheaper to maintain?". There is a part in the article that stated "No oil to change, no gaskets to replace, no valves to clog up, electric cars do not have internal combustion engines, so these costs disappear". This quote tells us the issues a typical vehicle that runs on an internal combustion engine has but not on an electric vehicle. Thus, this makes an electric car cheaper to maintain as it eliminates all those typical issues as it does not run on an internal combustion engine. We took a screenshot of a table compiled by Ingrid Malmgren in her article, "Quantifying the Societal Benefits of Electric Vehicles", to show the comparison of both a traditional and electric vehicle maintenance fees as shown below in Table 1. We found Ingrid Malmgren's article using Google Scholar.


Table 1

Note. This table was compiled by Ingrid in 2016, comparing the cost price of the maintenance of a traditional vehicle and electrical vehicle. From "Quantifying the Societal Benefits of Electric Vehicles", By I, Malmgren, 2016, World electric Vehicle Journal, 2016, p. 3.


Kayden and I wanted to know more about the components that forms both an electric vehicle and a gasoline vehicle. We manage to find some information using Google. We saw an overview of functions and features of an electric and gasoline vehicle as shown below in Figure 1 and Figure 2.


Figure 1

US Department of Energy (n.d). How do All-Electric Cars Works? [Photograph]. US DOE. https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/how-do-all-electric-cars-work


Figure 2

US Department of Energy (n.d). How Do Gasoline Cars Work? [Photograph]. US DOE. https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/how-do-gasoline-cars-work


Additionally, driving an electric vehicle certainly reduces carbon emissions and thus, resulting in lesser air pollution. We also found another relevant article using Google Scholar, "Quantifying the Societal Benefits of Electric Vehicles", written by Ingrid Malmgren (2016), shared in her article that driving a Nissan Leaf electric vehicle over a Honda Civic gasoline powered vehicle result in carbon emission of 4096 pounds per year.

The huge reduction in carbon emissions certainly tells us how an electric car can help to better the air pollution in our environment. All in all, with these reasons, we believe that the electric cars we see in our modern world today are the future due to its benefits it brings to our world.

For our reader response assignment, we had to boil down to a certain component of an electric vehicle. For that, we had to pick a certain model and we decided on the Tesla Model S. We decided to research on its electric motor for our assignment as we were amazed as to how vehicles transition form using gasoline to now having electric vehicles that uses electricity as propulsion instead! We found that there are currently  2 versions of the Tesla Model S (TESLA, n.d.). The 2 versions are called "Tesla Model S" and "Tesla Model S Plaid". The main difference between the 2 versions is the electric motor. Tesla Model S uses the "Dual Motor All Wheel Drive" system whereas the Tesla Model S Plaid uses the "Tri Motor All Wheel Drive" system. We manage to screenshot a picture of a Tesla Model S Plaid as shown below in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Tesla (n.d). Overview picture of a Tesla Model S Plaid [Photograph]. https://www.tesla.com/en_sg/models

For our reader response assignment, Kayden and I will be looking more in depth to the 2 different types of electric motor that is being used for the Tesla Model S. We will be researching further into the features and functions of both of the electric motors. All in all, this research pathway write-up shows how we have researched so far!


References

Malmgren, I. (2016). Quantifying the Societal Benefits of Electric Vehicles. MDPI. https//dx.doi.org/10.3390/wevj8040996

KIA Singapore (n.d). Are electric cars cheaper to maintain? KIA. https://www.kia.com/sg/discover-kia/ask/are-electric-cars-cheaper-to-maintain.html

TESLA (n.d). https://www.tesla.com/en_sg/models

TESLA (n.d). https://www.tesla.com/models/design#overview

US Department of Energy (n.d). How do Gasoline Cars Work?  US DOE. https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/how-do-gasoline-cars-work

US Department of Energy (n.d). How All-Electric Cars Work?  US DOE. https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/how-do-all-electric-cars-work

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