Lets face it, filling up at the pump is painful now a days. With gas prices continuing to rise, more and more people are looking into buying a hybrid vehicle. But just what is a hybrid vehicle? How does it work? And what types of cars are available?
Obviously most people are familiar with a gas powered car and have at least heard of an electric car. A gas powered car has a fuel tank, which supplies gasoline to the engine. The engine then turns a transmission, which turns the wheels. An electric car has a set of batteries that provides electricity to an electric motor. The motor turns a transmission, and the transmission turns the wheels. A hybrid vehicle is a cross between a gas powered car and an electric car.
The hybrid car has a gasoline engine much like the one you will find on most cars. However, the engine on a hybrid is smaller and uses advanced technologies to reduce emissions and increase efficiency.
Improving Fuel Economy
Besides a smaller, more efficient engine, today s hybrids use other tactics to increase fuel efficiency. Some of these things include:
Recover energy and store it in the battery. Whenever you step on the brake pedal in your car, you are removing energy from the car. The faster a car is going, the more kinetic energy it has. The brakes of a car remove this energy and dissipate it in the form of heat. A hybrid car can capture some of this energy and store it in the battery to use later.
Sometimes shut off the engine. A hybrid car does not need to rely on the gasoline engine all of the time because it has an alternate power source the electric motor and batteries. So the hybrid car can sometimes turn off the gasoline engine, for example when the vehicle is stopped at a red light.
Use low rolling resistance tires. The tires on most cars are optimized to give a smooth ride, minimize noise, and provide good traction in a variety of weather conditions. But they are rarely optimized for efficiency. In fact, the tires cause a surprising amount of drag while you are driving. Hybrid cars use special tires that are both stiffer and inflated to a higher pressure than conventional tires. The result is that they cause about half the drag of regular tires.
Use lightweight materials. Reducing the overall weight of a car is one easy way to increase the mileage. A lighter vehicle uses less energy each time you accelerate or drive up a hill. Composite materials like carbon fiber or lightweight metals like aluminum and magnesium can be used to reduce weight.
Some Hybrids on the Market Today
While hybrid cars may come with a slightly higher price tag, the overall savings in gasoline over the life of the car is probably worth the price. Here are a few of the hybrid cars on the market today:
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