Here in this article, we are going to give you the answer to the most famous question of every electric car lover’ why don’t electric cars have alternators, so read this article to know more about this thing.
Switching cars from a normal one to an electric one is a big decision to make and it is obvious for you to get interested in the internal factors of an electric car that is very much different from the regular cars. After knowing some matters you will find out that electric cars do not have an alternator.
This part is an essential and necessary part in all Internal Combustion Engine ICE vehicles from trucks, cars, vans, etc but why does an electric car not have one? Here we are going to find out about this, so continue reading.
What Is Alternators?
Before giving you the answer to the question that asks why don’t electric cars have alternators we would like to talk about alternators. In order to understand why ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) powered cars have alternators and electric cars do not you need to know what is alternators and what does it do in the car.
So the basic thing is that an automotive alternator is basically a type of generator that produces alternating current. There is a belt that comes from the engine of the vehicle and there is a pulley that is connected to the alternator’s rotor.
There are mostly two things that allow the current to flow through them and that is copper wire rolls or permanent magnets. The current flow inside the car creates a magnetic field. As the shafts inside the case rotate the magnetic field lets the current flow spread on the set coils of the matching stationary.
You need to know this information since you asked questions like why don’t electric cars have alternators. Because of the rotor alternate polarity of the magnetic field, the direction of the magnetic flow of current flow flip flops many times each time and that reverses the direction of the alternators.
This is called the alternating current and this got converted with diodes and became a direct current. In easy terms, it can be said that the alternators are electromagnets that can convert mechanical energy into electric energy. The alternator sends that produced electrical energy straight to the battery of the vehicle.
For any Internal Combustion Engine ICE vehicle as long as the alternators are working fine the battery of the vehicle does not die. Instead of that the alternator repeatedly recharges the battery of the vehicle while the engine is running.
Why Don’t Electric Cars Have Alternators
We have already told you what are alternators and what they do in an engine-powered vehicle and now we are going to talk about the reason why electric cars do not have that or to be more clear why electric cars do not need alternators and give you the answer to the question that asks why don’t electric cars have alternators.
There are mainly two reasons behind this and those are it does not need it and the other reason is it had something far better than alternators. So you might remember when we say that the alternator is basically the mechanical energy that is produced by the engine with the help of fossil fuel.
We all know that an electric car does not have any of those things like an engine or fuel. Instead of that an electric car has an electric motor and that has a battery which can be recharged. Now car makers can use the battery and make it spin the motor and then use the motor to spin the alternators to produce electricity.
But there is no need for this because it will only complicate the process instead it uses the electricity that comes from the battery to generate electricity. That is why we say that installing an alternator in an electric car is completely pointless and it will make the process unnecessarily complicated.
So we told you the reason why don’t electric cars have alternators because electric cars do not need one and now we are going to tell you what electric cars have that is far more effective and efficient than electric cars.
If the need is to only convert the DC ( Direct Current) from one voltage to another then there is no need to use an alternator because there is a more simple and effective method is available to do that. There is a device that is called a DC-to-DC convertor. That is basically an electronic device that takes DC at one specific voltage and converts the DC to a completely different voltage.
It is the same amount of energy if you convert the higher voltage that means you have got lower current and if you have a higher current that also means that you have a lower voltage. Car makers put these DC-to-DC converters on electric cars instead of alternators because it makes the process a lot easier and more effective.
Conclusion
This article contains the answer to the question that asks why don’t electric cars have alternators and we gave all the needed information about this matter so what is your opinion? You can share your opinion through our comment section.
To sum it up we want to say that electric cars are already empowered by electric motors and that is the reason why electric cars do not have alternators because they do not need one.
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