How Do Hybrid Cars Work?

Introduction
With rise in the fuel price interest in Hybrid cars is also soaring. Let's take a looks at how do Hybrid cars work.

Hybrid cars are certainly a part of the Green movement. Eficiency of combustion engines is greatly enhanced and extended in hybrid cars by use of battery and electric motor. Engine is assisted by electric motors to reduce gasoline cosumption. Many Hybrid cars use a smaller
engine than their conventional brethren, as the engine in Hybrid car is assisted by electrical motor which further reduces the fuel consumtion.
Contrary to popular belief, the batteries of these Hybrid cars are not charged by plugging in but batteries on-board get recharged by the kinetic energy produced during braking and by the engine.

Full Hybrids and mild hybrid cars
There are basically two types of Hybrids: full Hybrids and mild Hybrids. In full Hybrid both the the engine and electric motor work together to drive the car. When at a stop, the engine is turned off. When moving forward only the electrical motor drives the car. Example of full hybrid types are Ford and Toyota.In mild Hybrids the electric motor is primarily used to supplement the combustion engine under heavy demand. In mild Hybrids the electric motor is much smaller. This motor never drives the vehical on its own. It turns off the engine when the vehical is at standstill. The example of mild types Hybrid are Honda and General Motors.

Series versus Parallel hybrid cars

In a series type Hybrid, the batteries are charged by engine and the electric motor drives the vehicle. The vehicle is never driven directly by the engine.

In a parallel type Hybrid the fuel tank supplies fuel to the combustion engine and at the same time the batteries supply power to electrical motor. Both the motor and engine is used to drive the vehicle together.

Presently all hybrids are of parallel type. But in near future we will have a pluggable series hybrid.

The Pluggable Hybrids Cars
Though the pluggable hybrid need not be plugged in, it has a ability to be plugged in. This enables the batteries to get recharged when the vehicle is not in use. This definitely extends the hybrid's range, which was a limitation of electric vehicles in the past.

Hydrogen Hybrids Cars
Unlike the hybrids in which batteries are used with a electric motor, in hydrogen Hybrids Hydrogen gas is used to supplement the fuel from the fuel tank. This method is mostly used in fleet vehicles. In this type of Hybrid the Hydrogen gas is generated by electrolysis of water by the power generated by engine. Additional power is generated by mixing the Hydrogen gas with gasoline in the cylinder head.This increases the efficiency of the engine. The Hydrogen gas used is called oxyhydrogen or HHO. This method can be easily adapted to existing vehicles. The plain tap water is used to produce Hydrogen in HYdrogen Hybrids.