1. The basics

1.1 Electric vehicle issues

The idea of using electrical energy to propel vehicles has been around since the 19th century, for both rail and road transport. In the case of road travel, one of the crucial issues is on-board energy storage, which largely determines the vehicle's autonomy, i.e. the distance it can cover without recharging. At the beginning of the 20th century, advances in internal combustion engines led to the disappearance of battery-powered electric vehicles, which had undergone an initial phase of development (figure 1 ).