Earlier this year snakes of people camped outside Tesla stores to place orders for the Model 3 electric car, handing over $1,000 deposits even though they had not seen the vehicle’s full design or specification.

今年早些时候，人们在特斯拉(Tesla)门店外面露宿排队，预定Model 3电动汽车，并交了1000美元订金，即便他们还没有见过这款车的完整设计或规格参数。

The company, the biggest carmaker never to use an internal combustion engine, has achieved a market value of $33bn when producing just 50,000 cars a year — compared with a valuation of $47bn for General Motors, which last year made more than 6m cars.

特斯拉是世界上最大的从不使用内燃机的汽车制造商，该公司在每年仅生产5万辆汽车的时候，市值就已达到330亿美元，相比之下，通用汽车(General Motors)的市值为470亿美元，而去年该公司的产量超过600万辆。

Yet despite Tesla’s sales success, take-up of electric vehicles among consumers remains tiny. Fully electric cars (those without a combustion engine) account for less than 1 per cent of new car sales in the UK — which only rises fractionally when hybrids are included.

然而，尽管特斯拉在销售上取得成功，但接受电动汽车的消费者仍然很少。纯电动汽车（那些没有内燃机的汽车）在英国新车销售中的比例不足1%——即便算上混合动力车，这个比例也只是略有提高。

Road transport accounts for more than 17 per cent of global CO2 emissions, according to figures from Transport & Environment, an environmental lobby group. Migrating car use to electric vehicles could make a big contribution to curbing man-made carbon emissions. Greg Archer, a director at the group, says: “Combined with the rapidly falling costs for batteries and renewable electricity, it is clear electro-mobility is becoming increasingly affordable and offers an unrivalled opportunity to decarbonise vehicles.”

环保游说组织“交通运输与环境”(Transport & Environment)的数据显示，全球二氧化碳排放中有逾17%来自道路交通。转向电动汽车可能对遏制人为的碳排放做出重大贡献。该组织董事格雷格•阿切尔(Greg Archer)表示：“加上电池和可再生电力成本快速下降，电力交通显然越来越容易承受，为汽车低碳化提供了无与伦比的机遇。”

Large carmakers such as Volkswagen and Fiat are developing either electric or hybrid technology, but this is partly based on attempts to meet stringent environmental emissions standards across their product ranges rather than necessarily satisfying public appetite.

大众汽车(Volkswagen)和菲亚特(Fiat)等大型汽车制造商正在开发电动或者混合动力技术，但这在一定程度上只是为了让它们的产品组合在总体上符合严格的环境排放标准，而不一定是为了满足公众胃口。

“You have to bear in mind that today for the majority of people, electric vehicles aren’t the right solution for them yet,” says Erik Fairbairn, chief executive at charging infrastructure group Pod Point. “We need to see a development of the tech before we see it becoming mainstream.”

充电基础设施运营商Pod Point的首席执行官埃里克•费尔贝恩(Erik Fairbairn)表示：“你必须注意，对绝大多数人来说，电动汽车还不是合适解决方案。我们需要看到这种技术的发展，然后才会看到它成为主流。”

Three barriers stand in the way of mass adoption of electric powered vehicles: price, range and ease of charging.

电动汽车的大规模普及面临3个障碍：价格、续航里程和充电便利性。

The greatest contributor to the price is the battery, which can account for a significant portion of the cost of an electric car. The dominant force in battery powered cars is costly lithium ion technology, the same used in laptops and mobile phones.

影响价格的最大因素是电池，它可以占到电动汽车成本的显著比例。影响电池动力车的主导因素是成本高昂的锂电池技术，后者同样应用于笔记本电脑和手机上。

A welter of other options are being pursued, from magnesium-based batteries to those that use silicon rather than carbon anodes. Solid state batteries, which promise much greater power and more flexible sizes, are also being investigated.

人们正在寻求其他诸多选择，从镁基电池，到那些使用硅而非碳阳极的电池。固态电池也在研制当中，这类电池有望提供更多电力，尺寸也更灵活。

Other alternatives to combustion engines include hydrogen fuel cells, which use the planet’s most abundant element to drive their motors.

替代内燃机的其他选择包括氢燃料电池，后者使用地球上最充足的元素来驱动汽车。

Toyota, which led hybrid adoption with its Prius cars, has already launched a fully hydrogen-powered model. Once purchased, the cars are supposed to be virtually free to run, with the cost of an electric recharge being minimal.

率先在普锐斯(Prius)汽车上采用混合动力的丰田(Toyota)，已推出了完全由氢燃料提供动力的车型。一旦买下这款车，就有望近乎免费驾驶，充电成本非常低。

The second, and most significant, public concern about electric vehicles is the range. Recent models such as the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3 are limited to go under 100 miles — though BMW offers a range extender in the form of a petrol-driven engine to recharge the battery as it drives.

公众关于电动汽车的第二个、也是最重要的担忧是续航里程。最近推出的日产聆风(Nissan Leaf)和宝马(BMW) i3等车型的续航里程不到100英里，尽管宝马电动汽车在行驶时可以用汽油发动机为电池充电，将其用作一种里程扩增器。

Tesla’s Model S and X cars, which claim to travel in excess of 250 miles on a charge, remain prohibitively expensive for many, costing between $70,000 and $120,000. Carmakers are pushing to hit a sweet spot on technology and price — a $35,000 car that can travel more than 200 miles.

特斯拉的Model S和Model X汽车售价在7万美元至12万美元之间，对许多人来说依然极为昂贵——这两款汽车宣称充电一次行驶里程超过250英里。汽车制造商正在努力在技术和价格上达到一个最佳平衡点，即一款售价3.5万美元、续航里程超过200英里的汽车。

Tesla’s Model 3, still at least two years from the road, is one example of a vehicle capable of both, but rival models are well under way. The Chevy Bolt, an all-electric car from General Motors, will have roughly the same range and price, while mass-market manufacturer VW has pledged that a quarter of its sales will be electric cars by 2025.

特斯拉的Model 3就是一款能够达到这两项要求的汽车，但它至少还要两年才会上路，而竞争对手的车型也在研制之中。通用制造的纯电动汽车Chevy Bolt将会有几乎同样的续航里程和价格，同时大众市场汽车制造商大众承诺，到2025年其四分之一销量将是电动汽车。

Once the technology and price reach the right point, adoption could rise to 7-10 per cent, predicts Pod Point’s Mr Fairbairn, “at which point Joe Public will see them everywhere”.

Pod Point的费尔贝恩预计，一旦技术和价格达到合适水平，普及率可能升至7%-10%。“在某个点上，电动汽车将随处可见”。

The ease and speed of charging both at home and en route are the final hurdle. In the UK, there are about 25,000 installed charging points, of which around 3,000 are publicly available in car parks or on high streets. So-called “destination chargers” — at workplaces, hotels and leisure sites — are also increasingly common. But more are needed to make electric motoring a reliable option for many.

在家中和路上充电的便利性和速度是最后的障碍。英国目前有大约2.5万个充电站，其中大约3000个在停车场或商业街，对公众开放。所谓的“目的地充电站”——在工作场所、酒店和休闲场所——也越来越普遍。但还需要建设更多的充电站，从而让电动汽车成为许多人的可靠选择。

“Everywhere you park you need charging points,” says Mr Fairbairn. Unlike petrol stations, where motorists can fill up in a few minutes, electric charging takes much longer.

费尔贝恩表示：“你泊车的地方都需要有充电站。”与几分钟就能加满油的加油站不同，电动汽车充电花费的时间要长得多。

Current technology allows batteries to deliver around 30 miles of range for every hour of charging. It would take the power output of 1,000 kettles to charge a car fully in two minutes, says Mr Fairbairn — and rapid charging is damaging to most batteries. “The nature of electricity doesn’t support the power transfers you need for two minute-charging, even a long way in the future,” he says.

当前技术意味着电池每充电1小时可行驶30英里。费尔贝恩表示，在两分钟内充满电将需要1000个电水壶的电力输出，而且快速充电会对大多数电池造成损害。他说：“电力本质上不支持两分钟充电所需要的那种电力转换，即使在很遥远的未来也是如此。”