What Is A Hybrid Car?
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By hybrid car we refer to any vehicle that relies on two separate power sources for propulsion. Among the power sources for a hybrid car there are gasoline or diesel fuel, on-board or out-board rechargeable energy storage systems (RESS), hydrogen, wind, compressed or liquid natural gas, solar, coal, wood or other solid combustibles, etc. The term hybrid car or vehicle is used most frequently to refer to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in which an internal combustion engine is combined with one or more electric motors.
As mentioned above, there are other hybrid vehicles beside the hybrid car we will mainly deal with here. Just think of mopeds and electric bicycles. These are the rather basic forms of hybrid vehicles. The combination between a gas engine or a battery and the physical power of the muscles is definitely superior. Then there are hybrid heavy vehicles like railway locomotives, buses, heavy goods vehicles, ships or mobile hydraulic machinery. Usually, the term hybrid car-vehicle is used to refer to hybrid electric vehicles. This category includes the next types of automotives: AHS2 (Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Chevrolet Silverado, Cadillac Escalade, Saturn Vue), Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Insight and many others. A gas-electric hybrid car usually takes its power from an internal combustion engine (gasoline or diesel engine) and an electric battery.
The beginnings of the hybrid car date back to the late 1900s when David Arthurs, an electrical engineer from Arkansas, invented the braking regenerative hybrid. Besides the hybrid car as mentioned above, which uses two or more different propulsion devices, there are also vehicles which use distinct sources of energy or input types but only one engine. These are also considered by some people to be similar to the hybrid car. Actually the latter should be more appropriately called dual mode vehicles (electric trolleybuses, dual mode buses, flexible-fuel vehicles, etc).
There are lots of advantages to buying a hybrid car, and the green considerations are not the only ones. First of all, you get to do something for the environment and humankind, but you also save money on fuel. There is a triple combination of factors that make the design of a hybrid car so appropriate for our times: first there is the combination gas-electricity, secondly, the battery comes with a high storage capacity, and thirdly, the kinetic energy wasted by braking is recuperated and reused.
