Electric battery common fuels such as gasoline. In automobiles, this is somewhat offset by the higher efficiency of electric motors in converting chemical energy to mechanical work, compared to combustion engines. The usage of "battery" to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 described multiple Leyden jars by analogy to a battery of cannon (Benjamin Franklin borrowed the term "battery" from the military, which refers to weapons functioning together). Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by
Battery electric vehicle Vehicles. In the European Union, on average, between 2009 and 2013 there was a reduction of the electricity Carbon Intensity of 17%. In a Life-cycle assessment perspective, considering the GHG necessary to build the battery and its end-of-life, the GHG savings are 10-13% lower. Although electric cars do not produce any tailpipe emissions, carbon dioxide is still emitted when the electric vehicle is being manufactured. The lithium-ion batteries used in the vehicle take more materials and energy to produce because of the extraction process of the lithium and cobalt essential to the battery. This means the bigger the electric vehicle,