While there are a bunch of
hybrid vehicles already running around for years, including some city
busses, ships and aircraft, but also cranes and rail, the hybrid cars
are a very recent trend. Pressed by the environmental concerns and
diminishing oil reserves, instead going for broke and introducing new
technologies or even completely switch over to some environment
friendly solution, like the electric car or the car running on water
steam, the companies decided that reducing the pollution is enough if a
compromise is made, namely the huge oil companies got liberated and the
mix between an electric car and the combustion engine car is
introduced. How far this step forward propelled the mankind remains to
be seen, but baby steps seem larger.
Nevertheless, hybrid cars are already upon us and the confusion starts
when you are interested in finding out how that thing now actually
works. Two ideas exist and are used, with variations, namely the
parallel hybrid and the serial hybrid car. Variations include mild
parallel hybrid, plug-in hybrid electrical vehicle and the fuel
cell/electric hybrid.
Parallel hybrid cars have two engines, the regular combustion engine
and an electric motor. In this case, both engines can work together, in
parallel, or individually, producing movement. The trick seems to be
that whenever it is possible, or was thinkable while the programmers
produced the controlling mechanisms, the combustion engine should be
off. In urban traffic, where there is a lot of idle times, stop and
goes, reversing, then the electric engine is sufficient. With higher
accelerations comes the roar and combustion engine adds the tiger in
the tank. Additionally, the combustion engine feeds the electric power,
batteries, or capacitors, depending on the model, providing the energy.
Additionally, recaptured energy through regenerative braking, or
similar gadgets, fuels the batteries as well, but also provides for
powerful braking mechanisms by converting the kinetic energy into
further load of electricity to the storage bin.
Series hybrid has only an electric drive, which is powered by a single
speed internal combustion engine. In plain English, the engine runs at
one speed all the time, fueling the electric motor, which in turn has,
besides the engine also batteries, capacitors and a generator as a
source. Some hybrids leave the batteries out altogether, because
capacitors are more than able to handle the electric load and storage.
Mild parallel hybrid uses the electric motor to give a smaller
combustion engine the additional output during acceleration, but to
generate power during the deceleration. The plug-in hybrid electrical
vehicle is an electric car with a combustion engine as a back-up, you
can drive either way. Fuel cell/electric
car is the same, only the combustion engine is replaced with a fuel
cell.

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