Ever since the Toyota Prius
shook up the automotive world, many companies were trying to follow
suit and jump in on the bandwagon. The technical idea and the science
behind the hybrid cars was based on the electric cars of the past,
fused with the combustion engine. Many ideas were floating around and
some of them were followed up upon. While it was without problems
possible to manufacture a midsize car or a sports utility vehicle, it
took a while to develop technology which would support a hybrid sports
car. Actually, the first hybrid sports car is usually a mild hybrid,
meaning that the hybrid part is only used as a boost.
In order to understand what a mild hybrid is, it is necessary to
understand the technology. The idea with hybrid cars is to provide an
electric car with a combustion engine to power the electric part.
Depending on the system, it may be parallel, which means that the
electric motor is running the car, the combustion engine kicks in when
additional power or acceleration is needed; the serial hybrid uses the
internal combustion engine to feed the electric motor, which is running
the car. It is possible to provide a plug-in option, generally to the
parallel hybrid car, to allow the electric motor to be charged
externally, whereby batteries or some other kind of energy storage may
be necessary.
A mild hybrid uses the electric motor to boost the performance of the
internal combustion engine. Overall, it may be regarded as a fake
hybrid, because the internal combustion engine is running all the time,
with the electric motor kicking in when additional power is being
required. While the concept is a sound one, it defies almost everything
a hybrid vehicle was invented for, low exhaust fumes, fuel efficiency
and the sort. But there are plenty of people, predominantly male, who
do not care as much about the environment, but they feel strongly about
the speed, the adrenaline rush and some minor Freudian reasons.
Toyota was the first one to present a hybrid sports car concept with
the FT-HS Hybrid Sports Concept, where the 400 horsepower strong
possible Supra Hybrid looked just swell at the 2007 Detroit car show.
Honda needed just a little bit more to present their SHSC Honda, the
Small Hybrid Sports Concept. This got converted into the CRZ concept, a
two door coupe, which is supposed to be available by 2011.
Interestingly enough, both hybrid giants have lost the race to the
Fisker Automotive, who plans to unveil the Karma hybrid plug-in model
sometimes late in 2009. It is supposed to be a serial hybrid plug-in
model.

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