New Type Energy||Renewable Energy

Have you pulled your car up to the gas pump lately and been shocked by the high price of gasoline? As the pump clicked past $20, $30, $40 or even $50, maybe you thought

about trading in your car for something that gets better mileage. Or maybe you're worried that your car is contributing to the greenhouse effect.

The auto industry has the technology to address these concerns. It's the hybrid car. There are a lot of hybrid models on the market these days, and most automobile

manufacturers have announced plans to manufacture their own versions.

How does a hybrid automobile work? What goes on under the hood to give you 20 or 30 more miles per gallon than the standard automobile? And does it pollute less just because

it gets better gas mileage? In this article, we'll help you understand how this technology works, and we'll even give you some tips on how to drive a hybrid car for maximum

efficiency.

Many people have probably owned a hybrid vehicle at some point. For example, a mo-ped (a motorized pedal bike) is a type of hybrid because it combines the power of a gasoline

engine with the pedal power of its rider. In fact, hybrid vehicles are all around us. Most of the locomotives we see pulling trains are diesel-electric hybrids. Cities like Seattle have

diesel-electric buses -- these can draw electric power from overhead wires or run on diesel when they are away from the wires. Giant mining trucks are often diesel-electric hybrids.

Submarines are also hybrid vehicles -- some are nuclear-electric and some are diesel-electric. Any vehicle that combines two or more sources of power that can directly or indirectly

provide propulsion power is a hybrid. Most hybrid cars on the road right now are gasoline-electric hybrids, although French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen has two diesel-electric

hybrid cars in the works. Since gasoline hybrids are the kind you'll find at your local car dealership, we'll focus on those in this article.

Gasoline Power vs. Electric Power
The gasoline-electric hybrid car is just what it sounds like -- a cross between a gasoline-powered car and an electric car. Let's start with a few diagrams to explain the differences between a gasoline-powered car and a typical electric car.

A gas-powered car has a fuel tank, which supplies gasoline to the engine. The engine then turns a transmission, which turns the wheels.An electric car, on the other hand, has a

set of batteries that provides electricity to an electric motor. The motor turns a transmission, and the transmission turns the wheels.

The hybrid is a compromise. It attempts to significantly increase the mileage and reduce the emissions of a gas-powered car while overcoming the shortcomings of an electric car.

To be useful to you or me, a car must meet certain minimum requirements. The car should be able to:

Drive at least 300 miles (482 km) before re-fueling Be refueled quickly and easily Keep up with the other traffic on the road A gasoline car meets these requirements but produces a relatively large amount of pollution and generally gets poor gas mileage. An electric car, however, produces almost no pollution, but it can only go 50 to 100 miles (80 to 161 km) between charges. And the problem has been that the electric car is very slow and inconvenient to recharge.

A gasoline-electric car combines these two setups into one system that leverages both gas power and electric power.

Gasoline-electric Hybrid Structure  Gasoline-electric hybrid cars contain the following parts:

Gasoline engine - The hybrid car has a gasoline engine much like the one you will find on most cars. However, the engine on a hybrid is smaller and uses advanced technologies to reduce emissions and increase efficiency.
Fuel tank - The fuel tank in a hybrid is the energy storage device for the gasoline engine. Gasoline has a much higher energy density than batteries do. For example, it takes about 1,000 pounds of batteries to store as much energy as 1 gallon (7 pounds) of gasoline.