Hybrid Cars – What Makes Them Work?

They are appearing all over the roads: hybrid cars. But what makes them actually work? We understand that they combine the technology of a standard combustion engine and that of an electric engine, but how were these two technologies fused successfully? Here is what you need to know to understand how such cars work.

What it Means

Technically, any car that uses more than one source of power is a hybrid car. Today, when we say hybrid we mean a vehicle that has melded electric and gas power.

What Parts are Involved?

To work properly a hybrid car requires a number of features: a combustion engine, a fuel tank, an electric motor, a generator, batteries and a transmission. This is what each does:

1. The combustion engine, which is usually much smaller than a typical engine, is responsible for burning fuel to generate driving power.
2. The fuel tank holds the fuel used by the combustion engine.
3. The electric motor can both draw power from the batteries and work with a generator creating energy to store in the batteries.
4. The batteries store energy for the electric engine to use.
5. The generator uses the movement of the car to create the electricity to be stored in the batteries.
6. The transmission does the same thing any transmission does; it allows the engine to work in a narrow range of speed while producing a wide range of speed for the car.

How it Works on the Road

In conventional cars all the power that drives the car comes from the engine. In order to meet all driving conditions, engines are relatively large and heavy. That means that they expend a lot of their power to move themselves.

In a hybrid car the combustion engine is small, but enough to power the vehicle under normal driving conditions - such as when driving at a consistent speed on a level piece of road. When you hit a hill, though, the electric engine kicks in and helps the car maintain power in face of the new challenge.

Other Interesting Tricks

When a car is in motion it represents a certain level of energy. When you apply the brakes you are removing that energy from the car. In a conventional car that energy is lost as heat and friction, while in a hybrid car, that energy can be partially captured and stored for future use in the batteries.

Another thing that hybrid cars do is to shut off when stopped. In a conventional car when you roll up to a stop sign or drive through window your car keeps idling. Hybrid cars don’t need to do that because their electric engine is ready to go as soon as you step on the accelerator. As long as there is sufficient power stored in the batteries, a hybrid car will turn its combustion engine off when stopped, saving large amounts of fuel.

Other techniques manufacturers use to increase efficiency include lower resistance tires, lighter materials in the design of the car and improved aerodynamics. All these add up to a much more efficient vehicle that gets significantly better gas mileage.

More than One Way

The fact is that there are many ways to make the technology work in such a manner as to be effective for driving. Some manufacturers apply a power split device to manage both engines, other make use of a parallel design, but the goal of all manufacturers is identical: improved gas mileage in an affordable vehicle.

An increasing number of vehicles are being offered in a hybrid variation. Many car companies are also working on providing the public with electric vehicles alongside their hybrid and combustion siblings.

All of these options are designed to decrease our dependence upon hydrocarbon fuels and the environmental impact that we continue to have upon the planet.

Michael Rupkalvis works with the LedBulbsandLights website. The site features a variety of different types of environmentally-friendly LED products, including bi-pin LED bulbs and other LED lights.