第2857期:We are electric

We're talking about electric cars. OK, Richard, so what exactly is an electric car? Well, simply, it's a car driven by an electric motor – a motor that runs on a battery.我们来谈谈电动车。好的，Richard，那么电动车到底是什么？简单来说，就是由电动机驱动的汽车——而电动机是依靠电池运作的。OK, so presumably they're becoming more popular because they're more environmentally friendly than regular petrol or diesel cars. Exactly. I mean, the batteries are charged by electricity, which comes from a normal power station.好的，所以它们越来越受欢迎，大概是因为比普通的汽油车或柴油车更环保。确实如此。电动车的电池是通过发电站提供的电力来充电的。But the cars themselves produce no emissions whatsoever. So there's no noxious fumes. Are they more expensive, though? Yes, they are more expensive.但电动车本身完全不产生排放物。所以没有任何有害废气。不过它们更贵吗？是的，它们确实更贵。But that price is coming down because obviously a lot of governments are giving tax advantages. So they're getting a bit cheaper and they're much cheaper to run. For instance, with the Nissan Leaf, which is the most popular electrical car today, according to UK figures, it costs 1.75 pence a mile to run as opposed to a petrol car, which is 10 pence a mile.但价格正在下降，因为显然有许多政府提供税收优惠。这样电动车的价格逐渐降低，并且使用成本也便宜得多。例如，根据英国的数据，目前最受欢迎的电动车——日产聆风，其运行成本是每英里1.75便士，而汽油车则是每英里10便士。So not even 2p a mile. Exactly. Much cheaper.所以每英里甚至不到两便士。没错，便宜很多。However, of course, the batteries are very expensive and you have to replace them after a certain amount of time. OK, this is something I get a bit confused about – the recharging. I mean, you can't go very far in an electric car, can you? Yes, going back to the Leaf, they reckon you can go for about 100 miles, maybe 120 miles without recharging.不过当然，电池非常昂贵，并且使用一段时间后必须更换。好的，有件事我有点迷糊——充电。我是说，电动车行驶不了太远，对吗？是的，回到聆风这个例子，据说一次充电可以行驶大约100到120英里。So going around town, it's no problem. You go to work, come back again and it recharges overnight. Now, how does it do that? You just plug it into the mains and then about eight hours later, it's fully charged, ready to go the following day.所以在城市里开车完全没问题。上班、回家都够用，晚上就能充满电。那么它是怎么做到的呢？你只需要把它插到普通电源插座，大约八小时后就能完全充满，第二天即可使用。OK, so you have to be able to park the car in a place where you can recharge it. Yes, that's a difficulty for some people. Well, if you live in a block of flats, for example, there's nowhere to recharge your car.好的，所以你必须把车停在能充电的地方。是的，这对有些人来说是个难题。例如，如果你住在公寓楼里，可能没有地方给车充电。Well, unless you've got a parking space and the people owning the flats, they put in a recharging point for you, it can be difficult. Now, we've seen a few of these charging points in Europe recently. Are there going to be more of those in the future? Yes, I didn't get figures for how many charging points they've got, but obviously it's increasing hugely.除非你有固定车位，而且大楼管理方愿意安装充电点，否则会很困难。我们最近在欧洲看到过一些充电站。未来会有更多吗？是的，虽然我没有确切数据，但显然数量正在快速增长。And the advantage is a lot of these charging points are quick charge points. They reckon they can fill up a car battery to 80% within half an hour. Right, so you could maybe, for example, go to the supermarket and do your shopping and by the time you come back, the car has recharged.而且很多充电点都是快速充电站。据说可以在半小时内把电池充到80%。对，所以你可以，比如去超市购物，等你回来时车就充好电了。Exactly. And of course, it's very, very cheap. So I suppose this slight difficulty of recharging is why hybrids are also got a place in the market.没错，而且价格也非常非常便宜。所以我想，充电方面的这个小麻烦也是混合动力车仍然占据市场一席之地的原因。Yes, of course, they've got the advantage of, they've got an electric engine and a petrol engine. So they use the electric engine in the towns and the petrol engine for those longer distances. So they have much better range.是的，混合动力车的优势在于同时拥有电动机和汽油发动机。所以在城市里使用电动机，在长途时使用汽油发动机。因此续航能力更强。And I suppose people don't need to worry about the fact that the battery might be running low and they're not near a recharging point. Exactly. And that's why the biggest selling hybrid, the Toyota Prius has sold 1.6 million cars since they introduced it in 1997.而且我想，人们就不用担心电量不足，附近又找不到充电站的问题。没错。这也是为什么最畅销的混合动力车——丰田普锐斯，自1997年推出以来已经卖出了160万辆。OK, so people are taking these on board then? Definitely. Well, as I said, they're much cheaper to run. Tax advantages. 好的，所以消费者已经接受这些车了吗？当然。正如我所说，它们的使用成本更低，还有税收优惠。