It is a passenger, commuter vehicle, powered by a ‘hybrid’ engine. What that means is an engine that combines two or more sources of power. In most cases, they will be gasoline and electricity.
There are two types of gasoline-electric hybrid cars:
(i) the parallel hybrid, and
(ii) the series hybrid.
Both use gasoline-electric hybrid technology but in radically different ways.
Our scientists from Hybrid center online quotes and summarized the differences as follows:
- In a parallel hybrid car, a gasoline engine and an electric motor work together to move the car forward,
- In a series hybrid, the gasoline engine directly powers an electric motor that either power the vehicle, or charges batteries that will power the motor.
Different Types of Hybrid Cars
- uses both a fuel tank with gasoline and a set of batteries. Both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time.
- fuel tank and the gas engine connect to the transmission and the batteries and electric motor connect to the transmission separately.
- gasoline engine turns a generator
- generator either charges the batteries or powers the electric motor that is used to turn the transmission.
- the gasoline engine is not used to power the vehicle directly.
- all of the components eventually connect with the transmission
Hybrid cars typically produce less power. They are however very lightweight and well designed to compensate for that. Typically, carbon fiber or aluminum is used.
Aerodynamic characteristics are more prevalent than on most other cars, cutting down on drag and wind resistance, noise etc. Excellent fuel economy and helping the environment by cutting down on pollution are definite bonuses from driving these vehicles.