Zero Emissions

• Electric propulsion is a cheap, environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional, gas-powered engines. Logically, since electric vehicles do not use gasoline, they emit none of the harmful greenhouse gases associated with internal combustion engines. The only emissions associated with electric propulsion are those caused by oil and coal plants to produce electricity. Even then, this problem can be solved with alternate energy sources, like wind or solar power.
  
  

Efficiency

• Electric propulsion is very efficient in vehicles. For an electric car, 70 to 80 percent of the energy produced by the battery is harnessed for propulsion. By comparison, a gas-powered vehicle that makes 30 miles per gallon only harnesses 5 to 10 percent of its energy for propulsion. This is a significant amount of wasted energy. If that same vehicle devoted 70 to 80 percent of its fuel energy to propulsion, its mileage is increased considerably.
  
  

Cost of Running

• Cost is always a large motivator when it comes to cars, especially with the rising gas prices. Luckily, electric propulsion is not only clean and efficient, but it is much cheaper. "Scientific American" reveals that the cost of charging the electric propulsion engine in a plug-in hybrid is equivalent to 75 cents per gallon, "a price not seen at the pump for 30 years," according to Scientific American.
  
  

Versatility

• The advantages of electric propulsion are not limited to conventional vehicles. Space technology can benefit as well. There are two kinds of electric propulsion in rocketry: ion drive and plasma thruster. Ion drive was used to propel the Deep Space 1 probe in 1994, and has the potential to be used as fuel for delivering cargo to space stations. Plasma thruster technology is a Russian method that has been used on military satellites. Both technologies share the same advantages. It is more efficient, so it saves propellant. Electric propulsion technology is also simpler to construct.