Hybrid Cars: A Technological Marvel

In 1997, the Opel GT was one of the first hybrid cars to hit the market, with its internal combustion engine and electric motor connected to the mechanical transmission. This parallel hybrid system allowed for simultaneous power transmission to the wheels, making it an efficient choice for both stop-and-go traffic and highway driving. The Honda Insight, introduced in 1999, soon followed in the Japanese market, showcasing the potential of hybrid technology.

Technology Behind Hybrid Cars

Hybrid cars can be categorized into three main types: parallel, series, and power split hybrids. A parallel hybrid system has an internal combustion engine and electric motor connected to a conventional transmission, allowing for simultaneous power transmission to the wheels. This setup enables the internal combustion engine to act as a generator, recharging the battery pack when needed. Parallel hybrids are more efficient than comparable non-hybrid vehicles, especially in urban driving conditions.

A series hybrid system, on the other hand, has only an electric motor connected to the drivetrain, with the internal combustion engine acting as a generator. This setup results in a smaller engine and reduced emissions, making it ideal for city driving. However, series hybrids often have larger battery packs than parallel hybrids, which can make them more expensive.

The Power Split Hybrid

A third type of hybrid is the power split hybrid, which combines characteristics of both parallel and series systems. This setup allows for improved efficiency and reduced emissions, making it a popular choice in modern hybrid vehicles. The power split system enables the car to optimize its energy usage, making it an efficient choice for both urban and highway driving.

Full Hybrid, Mild Hybrid, and Plug-in Hybrids

As consumer preferences shift towards more eco-friendly options, manufacturers have introduced various types of hybrid cars. Full hybrids can run on either the internal combustion engine or the electric motor alone or in combination, depending on the situation. The Toyota Prius is a well-known example of a full hybrid car, with its large battery pack allowing for efficient energy usage.

Mild hybrids, on the other hand, always rely on both the internal combustion engine and an electric motor. However, unlike full hybrids, mild hybrids cannot run solely on one engine type due to the limitations of their electric motor. Instead, they use a starter motor to assist the engine when needed, making them ideal for smaller vehicles.

Plug-in Hybrids (PEVs) are another popular option, allowing drivers to fully recharge their batteries using an external power source. Plug-in hybrids have a larger all-electric range than conventional gas-electric hybrids and can reduce emissions significantly. However, critics argue that hybrids may be less reliable than traditional combustion engine cars, but this has been disproven by numerous studies in the US and EU.

Advantages of Hybrid Cars

Hybrid cars offer several advantages over traditional combustion engine vehicles. One of the most significant benefits is fuel efficiency, with hybrid cars using 25% less gasoline than average conventional cars. Additionally, hybrids produce significantly lower levels of toxic emissions, with studies showing a reduction of up to 90%. The regenerative braking system in hybrid cars can capture kinetic energy and convert it into electrical energy, making them even more efficient.

Large power reserves are another benefit of hybrid cars, giving them an advantage over fully electric vehicles. However, maintaining and repairing hybrids can be more expensive due to the complexity of their systems. High-tech parts and sophisticated electronic equipment make up a significant portion of the cost, while labor costs for mechanics can also be higher than traditional repairs.

Environmental Concerns

One of the paradoxical aspects of hybrid cars is their environmental impact on manufacturing and disposal. The production process requires large amounts of energy, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, when batteries reach the end of their life cycle, they require specialized disposal methods, which can cause environmental pollution.

The Future of Hybrid Cars

As technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative hybrid vehicles on the market. The shift towards alternative engine technologies is already underway, and manufacturers are racing to develop more efficient and eco-friendly options. While the future is uncertain, one thing is clear: hybrid cars are here to stay, offering a cleaner, more efficient, and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional combustion engines.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhow does a hybrid car work who invented the first hybrid and what are the different types of hybrid technologies stay tuned because i'll show you today the word hybrid generally refers to a cross combo or blend of two things so it makes sense that a hybrid car would have two different engines sounds simple right the hybrid car generally has two different engines an electric motor and an internal combustion engine in a hybrid car the driver can't manually choose which engine to use instead the car's internal computer decides which engine to prioritize depending on the car's rpm and road conditions and here's why that's smart the electric motor is efficient in creating torque the internal combustion engine is better at maintaining high speeds since each engine is more efficient at different speeds you can see how working together helps a hybrid car use fuel more efficiently for example if you're in the city stuck in a traffic jam your hybrid car will use electricity because it's more economical but let's say you eventually get out of gridlock and your car needs to pick up full speed well then the car switches to the combustion engine and if you need to accelerate quickly and often the car can use both engines simultaneously smart right so how does a hybrid engine work first you have electric energy that's stored in the battery this energy goes to the inverter in the form of direct current or dc the inverter is an energy converter it converts direct current from the battery into alternating current for the electric motor the inverter also distributes electrical load to different parts of the car so now that your electric motor is running the car can pretty much get up and go the electric motor runs smoothly and makes very little noise when the motor reaches its maximum speed the internal combustion engine gets activated this is the symbiosis of the two engines in fact the term hybrid car came from the term hybrid engine or this interaction between these two engines so why are many car manufacturers switching to hybrid technology well it's mainly because of rising fuel costs and stricter regulations around toxic emissions but also to increase driving ease these factors may be more recent but the history of the hybrid engine is actually quite old in fact it dates back to the late 1800s in 1899 a 23 year old austrian engineer named ferdinand porsche yes the porsche carmen created one of the first hybrids it used an internal combustion engine which spun a generator that provided power to electric motors located in the wheel hubs on battery alone the car could travel almost 40 miles in 1901 the lurner porsche mixed hybrid became available to consumers they sold 300 total units the model turned out to be very practical but the downside was that it was quite expensive to manufacture so the average consumer couldn't afford it and competitors were offering cheaper more practical cars like ones made by henry ford that's why from 1901 onward for several decades classic combustion engine cars dominated the world in the 1960s the united states created an incentive bill to promote electric transportation the bill passed but interest in environmentally friendly cars remained only on paper not much was put into action for them in 1970 saw the oil crisis this caused soaring oil prices and gasoline shortages which finally pushed car makers to become more serious about alternative technologies three engineers at trw incorporated power systems dr baruch berman dr george delb and dr neal richardson devised the first working example of hybrid electric drives that we see today most of the engineering concepts incorporated into their systems are used in today's hybrids an example of a complete hybrid car from that era was the gm 512 hybrid the car was powered by an electric motor that could accelerate the car to 10 miles an hour at 10 miles an hour the combustion engine kicked in giving it a good boost that increased the speed to 13 miles an hour if you needed to go faster the electric motor would switch off and the car would use the petrol engine's power car stop speed was 35 miles an hour doesn't sound like a lot to me but it was back then just three gallons of gas could take you 150 miles volkswagen also experimented with the volkswagen taxi hybrid it was a bus van that used a parallel hybrid configuration meanwhile car makers like mercedes-benz gm and toyota continued exploring hybrid technology without reaching mass production it's 1979 an electrical engineer from arkansas david arthurs developed the regenerative braking system it slowed down a moving car by converting its kinetic energy into a form that could be used immediately or stored until needed using his invention he converted his opel gt into a hybrid car and his hybrid traveled as much as 75 miles per gallon in 1997 toyota debuted its hybrid prius in the japanese market soon after in 1999 honda introduced its model insight hybrid into the us so let's talk technology hybrid cars can be categorized by the type of powertrain or how power is supplied to the drivetrain there are three main types parallel series and power split let's look at them closer parallel hybrids have an internal combustion engine and electric motor that are connected to the mechanical transmission they can transmit power simultaneously to drive the wheels usually through a conventional transmission with this type of architecture the internal combustion engine can also serve as a generator to recharge the battery parallel hybrids are more efficient than comparable non-hybrid especially in stop and go conditions where the electric motor can contribute and also with highway conditions parallel hybrids are usually more efficient at high speeds example of parallel systems include the honda insight civic record and the chevrolet malibu in a series hybrid only the electric motor drives the drivetrain the internal combustion engine tends to be smaller pretty much it works as a generator and it powers the electric motor and recharges the batteries on the flip side a series hybrid car usually has a larger battery pack than a parallel hybrid this is why series hybrids are usually more expensive when the batteries get low the combustion engine could generate power at optimum setting that's why series hybrids are more efficient at lower speeds which means it's great for people who do a lot of city driving a third type of hybrid is called series parallel hybrid or power split hybrid it has characteristics of both the series and the parallel settings and therefore has benefits that are inherent in both systems overall this type is more efficient it's also more expensive than a pure parallel you probably heard of full hybrid mild hybrid and plug-in hybrids that's another way to categorize hybrid cars in fact as a consumer you probably heard these terms more here's how you can think of them a full hybrid car can run on just the internal combustion engine or just on the electric motor or a combination of both the toyota prius is the most commonly known example in a full hybrid the battery gets recharged when you run the internal combustion in full hybrids have a large high capacity battery pack so they can run on battery only when needed a mild hybrid car always relies on both the combustion engine and an electric motor it can't run just one engine or the other because the electric motor doesn't have enough power to move the car on its own basically a mild hybrid is a conventional car with an oversized starter mode this means the engine can be turned off whenever the car is coasting breaking or stop but then it can restart quickly when needed mild hybrids have smaller batteries and smaller motors in full life so they're cheaper than full hype then there's the plug-in hybrid car or phev plug-in hybrids can run on electric mode only you can fully recharge the batteries by connecting it to an external electric power source plug-in hybrids have a larger all-electric range than conventional gas electric hybrids sometimes critics say that hybrids are less reliable than conventional cars but this was proved wrong by ratings in the u.s and the eu countries where hybrid vehicles are the car industry leaders in terms of reliability what are some advantages of a hybrid car versus a standard combustion engine car in a hybrid car all systems work automatically on their own hybrids also use 25 percent less gasoline than the average conventional car most hybrids can be recharged with the kinetic energy recovery system called regenerative braking another benefit of hybrids is that they produce much lower levels of toxic emissions studies show that a hybrid car emits 90 percent less harmful gases compared to a conventional car since the internal combustion engine recharges the batteries hybrids have a large power reserve which give hybrids a huge advantage over fully electric cars unfortunately maintaining and repairing a hybrid is more expensive which can be a huge turn off for many people it's more expensive because the system is much more complex than a traditional car so it requires very specific mechanics labor high-tech parts and very sophisticated electronic equipment which are costly it's virtually impossible for the average consumer to fix a hybrid car on their own in their own home garage it's just not as easy as fixing a conventional car the overall price tag for hybrid usually cost several thousand dollars more than diesel or gasoline models because the more economical the hybrid car the higher capacity battery it needs which bumps up the price some problems that can happen with hybrids include battery salt discharging especially due to drastic temperature changes in winter and while running the electric motors economically friendly making and disposing the batteries actually causes environmental pollution it's a paradox of its own hybrids are definitely becoming a tough competition for combustion engine cars car manufacturers have been shifting to alternative engine technologies in modern times and we can only expect it to evolve even more so what's next only time will tell if you like this episode please like this video thank youhow does a hybrid car work who invented the first hybrid and what are the different types of hybrid technologies stay tuned because i'll show you today the word hybrid generally refers to a cross combo or blend of two things so it makes sense that a hybrid car would have two different engines sounds simple right the hybrid car generally has two different engines an electric motor and an internal combustion engine in a hybrid car the driver can't manually choose which engine to use instead the car's internal computer decides which engine to prioritize depending on the car's rpm and road conditions and here's why that's smart the electric motor is efficient in creating torque the internal combustion engine is better at maintaining high speeds since each engine is more efficient at different speeds you can see how working together helps a hybrid car use fuel more efficiently for example if you're in the city stuck in a traffic jam your hybrid car will use electricity because it's more economical but let's say you eventually get out of gridlock and your car needs to pick up full speed well then the car switches to the combustion engine and if you need to accelerate quickly and often the car can use both engines simultaneously smart right so how does a hybrid engine work first you have electric energy that's stored in the battery this energy goes to the inverter in the form of direct current or dc the inverter is an energy converter it converts direct current from the battery into alternating current for the electric motor the inverter also distributes electrical load to different parts of the car so now that your electric motor is running the car can pretty much get up and go the electric motor runs smoothly and makes very little noise when the motor reaches its maximum speed the internal combustion engine gets activated this is the symbiosis of the two engines in fact the term hybrid car came from the term hybrid engine or this interaction between these two engines so why are many car manufacturers switching to hybrid technology well it's mainly because of rising fuel costs and stricter regulations around toxic emissions but also to increase driving ease these factors may be more recent but the history of the hybrid engine is actually quite old in fact it dates back to the late 1800s in 1899 a 23 year old austrian engineer named ferdinand porsche yes the porsche carmen created one of the first hybrids it used an internal combustion engine which spun a generator that provided power to electric motors located in the wheel hubs on battery alone the car could travel almost 40 miles in 1901 the lurner porsche mixed hybrid became available to consumers they sold 300 total units the model turned out to be very practical but the downside was that it was quite expensive to manufacture so the average consumer couldn't afford it and competitors were offering cheaper more practical cars like ones made by henry ford that's why from 1901 onward for several decades classic combustion engine cars dominated the world in the 1960s the united states created an incentive bill to promote electric transportation the bill passed but interest in environmentally friendly cars remained only on paper not much was put into action for them in 1970 saw the oil crisis this caused soaring oil prices and gasoline shortages which finally pushed car makers to become more serious about alternative technologies three engineers at trw incorporated power systems dr baruch berman dr george delb and dr neal richardson devised the first working example of hybrid electric drives that we see today most of the engineering concepts incorporated into their systems are used in today's hybrids an example of a complete hybrid car from that era was the gm 512 hybrid the car was powered by an electric motor that could accelerate the car to 10 miles an hour at 10 miles an hour the combustion engine kicked in giving it a good boost that increased the speed to 13 miles an hour if you needed to go faster the electric motor would switch off and the car would use the petrol engine's power car stop speed was 35 miles an hour doesn't sound like a lot to me but it was back then just three gallons of gas could take you 150 miles volkswagen also experimented with the volkswagen taxi hybrid it was a bus van that used a parallel hybrid configuration meanwhile car makers like mercedes-benz gm and toyota continued exploring hybrid technology without reaching mass production it's 1979 an electrical engineer from arkansas david arthurs developed the regenerative braking system it slowed down a moving car by converting its kinetic energy into a form that could be used immediately or stored until needed using his invention he converted his opel gt into a hybrid car and his hybrid traveled as much as 75 miles per gallon in 1997 toyota debuted its hybrid prius in the japanese market soon after in 1999 honda introduced its model insight hybrid into the us so let's talk technology hybrid cars can be categorized by the type of powertrain or how power is supplied to the drivetrain there are three main types parallel series and power split let's look at them closer parallel hybrids have an internal combustion engine and electric motor that are connected to the mechanical transmission they can transmit power simultaneously to drive the wheels usually through a conventional transmission with this type of architecture the internal combustion engine can also serve as a generator to recharge the battery parallel hybrids are more efficient than comparable non-hybrid especially in stop and go conditions where the electric motor can contribute and also with highway conditions parallel hybrids are usually more efficient at high speeds example of parallel systems include the honda insight civic record and the chevrolet malibu in a series hybrid only the electric motor drives the drivetrain the internal combustion engine tends to be smaller pretty much it works as a generator and it powers the electric motor and recharges the batteries on the flip side a series hybrid car usually has a larger battery pack than a parallel hybrid this is why series hybrids are usually more expensive when the batteries get low the combustion engine could generate power at optimum setting that's why series hybrids are more efficient at lower speeds which means it's great for people who do a lot of city driving a third type of hybrid is called series parallel hybrid or power split hybrid it has characteristics of both the series and the parallel settings and therefore has benefits that are inherent in both systems overall this type is more efficient it's also more expensive than a pure parallel you probably heard of full hybrid mild hybrid and plug-in hybrids that's another way to categorize hybrid cars in fact as a consumer you probably heard these terms more here's how you can think of them a full hybrid car can run on just the internal combustion engine or just on the electric motor or a combination of both the toyota prius is the most commonly known example in a full hybrid the battery gets recharged when you run the internal combustion in full hybrids have a large high capacity battery pack so they can run on battery only when needed a mild hybrid car always relies on both the combustion engine and an electric motor it can't run just one engine or the other because the electric motor doesn't have enough power to move the car on its own basically a mild hybrid is a conventional car with an oversized starter mode this means the engine can be turned off whenever the car is coasting breaking or stop but then it can restart quickly when needed mild hybrids have smaller batteries and smaller motors in full life so they're cheaper than full hype then there's the plug-in hybrid car or phev plug-in hybrids can run on electric mode only you can fully recharge the batteries by connecting it to an external electric power source plug-in hybrids have a larger all-electric range than conventional gas electric hybrids sometimes critics say that hybrids are less reliable than conventional cars but this was proved wrong by ratings in the u.s and the eu countries where hybrid vehicles are the car industry leaders in terms of reliability what are some advantages of a hybrid car versus a standard combustion engine car in a hybrid car all systems work automatically on their own hybrids also use 25 percent less gasoline than the average conventional car most hybrids can be recharged with the kinetic energy recovery system called regenerative braking another benefit of hybrids is that they produce much lower levels of toxic emissions studies show that a hybrid car emits 90 percent less harmful gases compared to a conventional car since the internal combustion engine recharges the batteries hybrids have a large power reserve which give hybrids a huge advantage over fully electric cars unfortunately maintaining and repairing a hybrid is more expensive which can be a huge turn off for many people it's more expensive because the system is much more complex than a traditional car so it requires very specific mechanics labor high-tech parts and very sophisticated electronic equipment which are costly it's virtually impossible for the average consumer to fix a hybrid car on their own in their own home garage it's just not as easy as fixing a conventional car the overall price tag for hybrid usually cost several thousand dollars more than diesel or gasoline models because the more economical the hybrid car the higher capacity battery it needs which bumps up the price some problems that can happen with hybrids include battery salt discharging especially due to drastic temperature changes in winter and while running the electric motors economically friendly making and disposing the batteries actually causes environmental pollution it's a paradox of its own hybrids are definitely becoming a tough competition for combustion engine cars car manufacturers have been shifting to alternative engine technologies in modern times and we can only expect it to evolve even more so what's next only time will tell if you like this episode please like this video thank you\n"