## 2 What Is the Problem with Electric Powertrains? If one agrees that the need for transport will not disappear in the mid-to-long term, what is viewed as the replacement for cars with ICEs? Are they cars like those made by Tesla? Maybe the excellent marketing of Tesla has also contributed to the previous cocktail of confusion. Media loves the \"New [PERSON]\" and they are ready to amplify any argument that can extrapolate the gorgeous evolution ofcell phones to any other industrial sector i.e., powertrains. In the end, are not powertrains in the \"same place\" that they have been for the last 140 years or more? How can so old a concept be innovative? How can it be cool and techie if they continue to burn things inside the motors? Conclusion: Welcome to the \"new electric motors and batteries\" in cars that do not pollute at all! The bad news is that all this magic about electric cars is not true. Electric motors and batteries are not new, neither are they clean, and overall, they are not free of problems--specifically, two big problems. First big problem is that the electric motor does not use a source of energy but a vector of energy. This is electricity, which does not exist as a source and cannot be accumulated; it has to be generated when consumed. Batteries were invented a long time ago as piles of chemicals, which can be easily transformed into electricity when needed. They are the leader technology to mobile systems that consume electricity. However, batteries are a totally immature technology in the range of power and energy needed for ground transport. So, they cannot compete successfully with fossil fuels. It does not matter what Mr. [PERSON] says about Tesla's ion-lithium batteries in his speeches; this is the real situation. Toyota's research and development chief said few years ago that we needed a Novel Prize-winning type battery to make plug-in electric vehicles a real option for ICE car alternatives. And we have not heard even news of such a battery yet. Why is it a so immature technology? Because of five reasons or concepts: refueling (charging time); energy density; durability (life span); recycling; and materials supply. These arguments are ordered from worst to best from the point of view of customer perception, and are briefly discussed in the following:  
* Refueling is unacceptably long for customers that like to use their cars out of cities and need to charge their batteries in the middle of a trip. Nobody offers/foresees solutions that safely charge the batteries of a car in less than 30 to 45 min without severe penalty to the batteries' life span. Imagine rush days such as holidays periods; refueling would become a nightmare when all batteries empty within a radius of about 150 km from big city centers. Only captive fleets or fix-route trips, which allow overnight charging, are free of this big issue of electric cars. * Energy density is unacceptably low for out of city driving. When a vehicle's speed grows, the power consumption grows exponentially, and the mileage of electric cars reduces accordingly. On hilly roads, the problem grows linearly, and with loaded cars it grows once again. Batteries will last for less than 100 km of motorway driving, in a hilly place with the holiday luggage of a four-member family. Once again, only captive fleets or fixed-route trips are realistic options for these cars. * Durability of batteries is mainly a question of carbonaceous material in the anode and cathode. Simply speaking, carbon nanostructures hold the ions during the electron exchange once and another time during electric to chemical transformation. This process deteriorates the carbonaceous material structure, leaving fewer \"places\" for ions and leading to reductions of the battery capacity, in the end making batteries non-useful. Carbon scientists worldwide are working hard to solve this problem, but no competitive solutions are ready or foreseen for the next two decades.