Friday, December 19, 2008

Hybrid Car - what is it?

There are more and more reasons why people are these days thinking about hybrid automobiles. First they are getting annoyed with their usual gas-guzzling conventional car because of the constant increase in fuel prices. And the second reason is the environment. People are becoming aware of the dangers of global warming are are actually making an effort to make a difference by either buying or renting a hybrid car. Hybrid is just one of the more environmentally friendly answers. Some people with cars are now leaving them at home and walk from home to the place where they work. Some are using trains in order to save some money.

But a lot of people just don't have the chance to use other means of transport to work. Lots of them even need their car during their job. Renting or buying a hybrid car can cut the fuel costs in half. Just think about it, you can effectively travel more than 60 miles per gallon with hybrid cars. It is not all in the gas consumption. The best and the most advanced normal cars can sometimes use even less fuel than hybrids (the really small ones that is) but even they don't even come close to hybrids when it comes to saving the environment.

Hybrid cars have a lot less pollutants than conventional automobiles. This means that not only will you lower fuel consumption, but you will also decrease the level of pollution that is poisoning the environment and us humans. With hybrid cars, everyone can benefit.

So how do hybrid cars run, how are they different?

First of all there are the costs. Hybrids are cost more money than normal cars. But with the money saved by fuel and even with some tax incentives you can get you can, during the hybrid car lifetime, save enough to make hybrid cars cheaper as conventional ones. And even if you just break even or even if your hybrid car ends up being more expensive - you are making something for the environment and making a world a better place.

The technology behind the hybrid car is quite simple. Hybrid cars mix electricity, which is the cleanest energy source available, and internal combustion fuel engine to run the car.

Hybrid cars run on both electricity and gasoline energy. First of all - when you start the car and the car is in idle mode or not running, the gasoline engine turns off. At this time the car is solely running on electricity. This is also the reason why hybrid cars are so quiet. And this will also explain why hybrid has less fuel consumption. Once you step on the accelerator, the internal combustion engine will automatically start up again.

There are also hybrid cars that can run solely on electric energy. This is useful if you are only using the car for local driving. You don’t even need to pour gasoline in the car. The traveling range can be however limited, so it is not very suitable for driving to far away places.

You can have a back up internal combustion engine that will be only turned on when needed - when the battery is discharged.

A good thing about todays hybrid cars is they don’t need to be plugged in like the electric car. They use kinetic energy to recharge the battery.

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