电动车（英语：electric vehicle）或电动汽车（electric car）泛指所有能使用电能驱动电动机作为动力的私人轮式车辆。
Electric vehicles (English: electric vehicle) or electric cars generally refer to all personal wheeled vehicles that can use electric energy to drive electric motors as power.
按照动力系统分类，电动车又可细分为纯电动车或电池电动车（BEV）、混合动力电动车（HEV）和燃料电池车（FCEV）。行业术语中的“电动车”通常指充电式电动车辆（PIEV），即纯电动车和插电式混合动力车（PHEV），但广义上也可以包括增程电动车（REEV）、太阳能车和燃料电池车。
特点
与传统的内燃机汽车（燃油车）相比，从能量密度的角度来看，1千克（2.2英磅）的汽油约含43兆焦耳（12千瓦·小时）的化学能，而1公斤重的锂离子电池仅可储存0.15千瓦·小时（0.54兆焦耳）的电能，远低于同重量的化石燃料。但电动机的体积和重量也远低于内燃机，而且不需要导油管、油泵和排气系统等辅助系统，可以省掉大量的设计空间和重量。而且电动车电池理论上只要有电网覆盖的地区就可以进行充电，所消耗的电费成本也远低于石油工业通过开采、精炼、运输和销售后转嫁给消费者的成本，其普及的潜力巨大。但因为电动车大规模发展的历史仍然较短，现有电池技术仍有局限，加上公共充电桩普及度目前仍远低于加油站（燃油车在普及上有近一个世纪的先发优势），所导致的里程焦虑是目前电动车普及的主要障碍。
电动车属于新能源车，车辆整体尾气排放量较低（纯电动车基本上无排放，但供电的发电厂可能会产生温室气体排放和空气污染），行驶时更安静、反应更灵敏、能量转换效率优越且不依赖加油站（前提是有可靠便用的充电桩设施或家用电源）。此外，虽然电池的能量密度远不如燃料，但从油箱/电池到车轮的发动机能量转换效率相差很大，汽油车辆的能量转换效率在14~33% ，柴油车辆在28~42%，电动车则在86%以上。这意味着化石燃料虽然能量密度远高于电池，但大部分能量都被转换成无用功（噪音、振动和废气动能等）浪费掉了，而且由于废热问题必须为发动机配备繁琐且占用空间和重量的冷却系统，而电动机则没有这方面问题。此外因为燃油的燃烧并不是完全可控的，内燃机在低速情况下效率不佳，而且车辆停住不动时也需要维持怠速才不会熄火，所以需要变速器和离合器来转化扭矩；而电动机的输出功率和扭矩基本上与电能输入功率是线性关系，可以用单速传动就做到无级变速器的效果。
According to the power system classification, electric vehicles can be further divided into pure electric vehicles or battery electric vehicles (BEV), hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and fuel cell vehicles (FCEV). “Electric vehicles” in industry terms usually refer to plug-in electric vehicles (PIEV), that is, pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), but in a broad sense, they can also include extended-range electric vehicles (REEV), solar vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.
Features
Compared with traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (fuel vehicles), from the perspective of energy density, 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of gasoline contains about 43 megajoules (12 kilowatt-hours) of chemical energy, while 1 kg of lithium-ion batteries can only store 0.15 kilowatt-hours (0.54 megajoules) of electrical energy, which is much lower than the same weight of fossil fuels. However, the size and weight of electric motors are also much lower than internal combustion engines, and they do not require auxiliary systems such as oil pipes, oil pumps and exhaust systems, which can save a lot of design space and weight. Moreover, in theory, electric vehicle batteries can be charged in areas covered by power grids, and the electricity costs consumed are much lower than the costs that the oil industry passes on to consumers after mining, refining, transportation and sales, so the potential for popularization is huge. However, because the history of large-scale development of electric vehicles is still relatively short, the existing battery technology is still limited, and the popularity of public charging piles is still far lower than that of gas stations (fuel vehicles have a first-mover advantage of nearly a century in popularity), the resulting range anxiety is currently the main obstacle to the popularization of electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles are new energy vehicles, with low overall vehicle exhaust emissions (pure electric vehicles are basically emission-free, but the power plants that supply them may produce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution), quieter when driving, more responsive, superior energy conversion efficiency, and no reliance on gas stations (provided that there are reliable and convenient charging pile facilities or household power supplies). In addition, although the energy density of batteries is far less than that of fuel, the energy conversion efficiency of the engine from the tank/battery to the wheel varies greatly, with gasoline vehicles having an energy conversion efficiency of 14~33%, diesel vehicles at 28~42%, and electric vehicles at more than 86%. This means that although the energy density of fossil fuels is much higher than that of batteries, most of the energy is converted into useless work (noise, vibration, exhaust gas kinetic energy, etc.) and wasted. In addition, due to the waste heat problem, the engine must be equipped with a cumbersome cooling system that takes up space and weight, while electric motors do not have this problem. In addition, because the combustion of fuel is not completely controllable, the internal combustion engine is not efficient at low speeds, and the vehicle needs to maintain idle speed when it is stationary so that it will not stall, so a transmission and clutch are needed to convert torque; the output power and torque of the electric motor are basically linearly related to the input power of the electric energy, and a single-speed transmission can achieve the effect of a continuously variable transmission.