Many people are not aware of the research many companies are carrying out to come up with the environment saving cars which are referred to as green cars or hybrid cars. For a long time, diesel or gas vehicles have hugely contributed to tearing down our ozone layer leaving our nature exposed to dangerous sun rays and emission of CO2 creates greenhouse effects to our globe. To counter these effects which are contributing to our climate change, many car industries are spending a sleepless night trying to come up with electric cars or cars which combine fuel and electricity for less emission of gases.
Hybrid cars date back to about 100 years ago. The hybrid car uses two power sources which could be combining an electric motor with a gasoline engine. These cars are referred to as HEVs (Hybrid Electric Vehicles ). This technology has been in existence since the creation of industry though any people are not aware of this. In 1899 an engineer Ferdinand Porsche built the first electric car and named it engineer Ferdinand Porsche. An electric motor received power from a gasoline engine and drove the car’s front wheels. These cars were expensive to produce and to sell but in 1904 Ford started massive production of hybrid cars lowering the cost and making them available to many. Unfortunately, the technology got lost in between and for about the next 50 years no one bothered much about them until the 1960s when legislation that encouraged the use of electric cars in the USA.
Many hybrids cars like Toyota RAV-4 EV and GM EV1 in the early 1990s failed to make a profit and attract sales ending their production.
In 1999 The honda insight the mass production of hybrid vehicles but IN 2000 the Toyota Prius made the rebirth of hybrid cars and many car industries refer to its technology to build hybrid cars.
There are two main types of hybrid cars which are parallel hybrid and series hybrid.
Parallel hybrid – It has an electric and combustion engine. The two engines are connected to one transmission making it possible for the two engines to power the vehicle at the same time. The fuel generator uses fuel to run and in turn charges the batteries. This hybrid is considered the best for long travel and also fuel-efficient. Toyota Prius, Honda insight and Chevy Malibu are good examples of a parallel hybrid.
Series hybrid – In this hybrid, the gasoline engine is used to recharge the batteries which in turn power the electric motors for motion. The challenge for this type is its expensive because it requires large batteries and the gasoline engine powers the car in case of longer distances.
The Least expensive type is the mild hybrid where it electric motor steps in when the gasoline engine needs more power.
Right now electric car sales and usage only cover a small fraction and we are still burning more fuel but this may drastically change with time. By 2040, over 50% of car sales could be hybrid cars. They are close to the gap between them and fuel-powered cars since they will be then cheaper to buy and to operate. This will make the combustion-powered vehicle obsolete since they will be economical.
For fuel-efficient and environment-friendly cars, these gasoline-electric cars are playing an important role when it comes to replacing the combustion-powered vehicles. Hybrids remain popular compared to electric cars although we have to see if one day we will fully go to electric cars. The governments now need to set up regulations to have standards when building these cars so that we don’t find ourselves in crisis in the future.
We just hope in the future we will replace completely the combustion engines and safe our natural house.
