How Hybrid Vehicles Work: Simple & Quick Explanation
Posted by admin at 12 February 2015, at 22 : 43 PM
Hybrid Electric Vehicles combine a traditional internal combustion engine with an electric motor. Hence hybrid vehicles have two different sources of power. The power of electricity is known to mankind for more than a hundred years. The great thing about electricity is that it doesn’t pollute the air, in fact, it doesn’t pollute anything. Electricity is the cleanest source of energy that we can manipulate. And we use the biggest advantage of electricity to solve our biggest problem – survival in a world we are constantly contaminate. Hybrid vehicles are green vehicles, designed with the focus on efficiency and protection of the environment.
Hybrid vehicles are a symbol showing how our world is changing. In the past century, cars were not designed to be efficient, or at least that wasn’t a priority. The automotive industry was building cars with big eight liter engines to get maximum horse power. Fact is, the Japanese manufacturers are able to get the same horsepower in a 2.5L engine (Mitsubishi Evo 9). So things could have been done better, no doubt. But auto manufacturing is mainly a learning process in which engineers are constantly gaining new knowledge and introduce new ideas.
But it’s never too late and the auto industry is beginning to make a turn. This turn is the hybrid vehicles. Some people just don’t like how those hybrid vehicles look on both in and out. They find their design too weird and prefer the muscular look of a Mustang or Camaro, etc.. But the automotive philosophy is different now. The new concept that is applied on every part of the car is called “efficiency”. So you shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that hybrid vehicles are looking more and more like space ships.
With that in mind, have you ever wondered how hybrid vehicles are constructed? According to the laws of physics, we have two type of energy – kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion, but if it’s not captured, it just transforms into something different that we never really take advantage of. In the particular case of cars, when the driver hits the brake pedal, the kinetic energy generated by the car during its motion transforms into heat in the braking discs. But hybrid vehicles have changed all that. Now, this kinetic energy is used by a generator inside the car that converts into electrical energy which is stored in a battery. Isn’t that genius! From that moment on, this electrical energy is used to move the vehicle by means of an electric motor, which does the opposite task of the generator (transforms electrical energy into kinetic energy). Other types of energy produced as the motor works are also converted and server suppliers for the battery. In that way, all the kinetic energy generated by the motor during its normal operating is stored so that it can be reused at a later time.
So, that is how Hybrid vehicles work. 🙂