Archive for the ‘Hybrid Cars’ Category
Hybrid Cars
In the modern era, when industrialization is in full swing and earth is being constantly threatened by green house gases, ozone layer depletion, increasing temperature; it’s now upon us to come up with ideas that lead to protection of earth. Automobiles are amongst the largest polluters since their development. We need some alternative option now ;one such alternative is hybrid vehicles.
The idea of hybrid vehicles is not new. The earliest hybrid vehicles were made in the early 1900’s, when it did not attain much popularity. Hybrid vehicles generally are smaller compared to their non hybrid counterparts. Hybrid vehicles usually employ various techniques to efficiently utilize the energy produced by a conventional engine to minimize the emissions.
One such technique is “Regenerative Braking”, in which during the brake application period, the kinetic energy of vehicle is utilized to charge a battery instead of wasting it as heat in a normal conventional brake system. Another most common technique is “Automatic Start Stop System”, in which an electric circuit is employed which shuts down the engine when idle and restarts it automatically through various sensors. This is useful where we are stuck in traffic.
Hybrid vehicles can be mainly classified in three types:
** Full hybrid: This vehicle can run on just the engine or just the batteries, or a combination of both. Ford’s hybrid system, Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive and General Motors technologies are full hybrid systems.
** Mild Hybrid: This vehicle runs along with conventional engine as electric motor does not pack in it much power. It utilizes the system such as “Regenerative Braking”.
** Plug in Hybrid: This vehicle carries a large capacity battery which can be charged by plugging it to a power source. It also carries a conventional engine which is used just in case, the battery drains out.
Hybrid vehicles are the future, as we see a new technology is being born almost every month, which offers better economy, reduced emissions, low noise production. Toyota Prius is the most popular hybrid vehicle, around 2 million units of it have been sold in April 2011 alone.