How Do Hybrid Cars Work? What Kind of Automobile Technology Used on Hybrid Cars?

How Do Hybrid Cars Work? What Kind of Automobile Technology Used on Hybrid Cars?

Hybrid Cars are used two different power source that are combined to power the vehicle. The two different power sources, typically a gas-powered engine and an electric motor. Hybrid car use one or both power source, one ways, as parallel hybrid has a fuel tank, which supplies gasoline to the engine. And also other ways, has a set of batteries that supplies power to an electric motor. Both the engine and electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time and the transmission then turn the wheels.

All hybrid cars have to 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.

Electric motor - The electric motor on a hybrid car is very sophisticated. Advanced electronics allow it to act as a motor as well as a generator.

Generator - The generator is similar to an electric motor, but it acts only to produce electrical power. It is used mostly on series hybrids.

Batteries - The batteries in a hybrid car are the energy storage device for the electric motor. Unlike the gasoline in the fuel tank, which can only power the gasoline engine, the electric motor on a hybrid car can put energy into the batteries as well as draw energy from them.

Transmission - The transmission on a hybrid car performs the same basic function as the transmission on a conventional car. Some hybrids, like the Honda Insight, have conventional transmissions. Others, like the Toyota Prius, have radically different ones.

There are 2 basic types of hybrid cars right now. The parallel and the series design. Let’s take a quick look at each of them.

In a parallel design, the energy conversion unit (the gasoline engine) and electric propulsion system (the batteries and electric motors) are connected directly to the vehicle's wheels. The primary gasoline engine is used for highway driving; the electric motor provides added power during hill climbs, acceleration, and other periods of high demand.

In a series design, the primary gasoline engine is connected to a generator that produces electricity. The electricity charges the batteries, which drive an electric motor that powers the wheels.

Blurred Lines Like anything else, hybrid systems do not follow such definitions to the letter. Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive is primarily a parallel system, but its dual-motor design also allows brief moments of series power generation when the engine's most efficient operating speed generates more power than the driver needs. Likewise, Honda's latest primarily series hybrid system can clutch the engine in to drive the wheels directly in specific conditions when the computer decides that's more efficient. Both exceptions are good things, because they show that engineers are pursuing the most efficient solution, not one that's simplest to explain.

What Is a Hybrid?

In the United States, hybrid cars use both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor for propulsion, but you only fill them with gasoline. Diesel hybrids exist, but they are mainly used in locomotives and heavy-duty applications. Hybrids have small high-voltage batteries to power their electric motors, but you don't plug them in.

Without an external power source, the motor gets electricity by capturing energy during braking through a process called regenerative braking, or regen for short. If you are an F1 racing fan, you may have heard this referred to as a Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS. The regen system does not replace traditional brakes; it serves as an important alternative. The electrical energy collected is stored in the battery for immediate use the next time you accelerate. When you leave a stoplight, the stored energy helps get the car moving again and delays the restart of the gasoline engine, in some cases until you reach 25 mph. When you stop again, the cycle starts over. This process makes a hybrid's city fuel economy much better than that of a non-hybrid, as well as improving its highway economy.

As I said earlier in this book, hybrid vehicles have been around for quite a few years now. Corporations have been using hybrid technologies for many years to decrease their manufacturing overhead. So, the ideas behind the technology have been tried and tested and refined.

When it comes to consumer vehicles, the cars and trucks and SUVs that you and I drive, that “older” technology has to be refined even further. It’s one thing to drive a hybrid trolley on a rail at 10 or 15 miles per hour and quite another to drive a car, with your family inside, at 70 miles per hour on a congested Interstate!

So, you can look for further refinements to the two basic systems we’ve discussed. The challenge will be to add the feel of more power to a hybrid while increasing the fuel efficiency.

Battery technology will also be a major thrust for improvement. As batteries can grab hold of and store more power, they can contribute more to the operation of the hybrid. Right now, most battery systems don’t require much maintenance. However, it isn’t unusual for them to need to be replaced occasionally…at a cost of over $1000.00! So, battery life and battery power will be improvements that are being searched for.

As alluded to earlier, different types of hybrids are being worked on right now. Imagine a solar panel on the roof of your car that supplies the energy! Researchers at the University of Southern California are working on that right now.

Their goal is to completely power a workable vehicle that will run without a gas engine at all…just solar power. Now THERE’S a truly renewable source of energy that we can rely upon.

So, the future looks bright for hybrids. Chances are, within a few years, a hybrid car may well be the norm rather than an oddity. The limited supply of oil, the concern for the air we breathe and the vagaries of both man and nature will continue to pressure us into adopting more and more hybrid technology.

CAR AND DRIVER
2022 Ford Maverick Hybrid.

Other Types of Hybrids

So-called "mild hybrids" have modest 48-volt batteries that can't produce any meaningful propulsion. Such systems are, however, topped up by regeneration, and they combine the starter and alternator into one unit that can seamlessly start the engine “in gear”, so to speak, to smooth the operation of their start-stop systems.

Fuel-cell hybrids are series hybrids, complete with an electric motor, regenerative braking, and a small high-voltage battery. But they don't have a gasoline engine. Instead, they have a fuel cell, a device that transforms hydrogen gas into electricity, with water the only byproduct. Fuel-cell hybrids therefore run on electricity all the time and are as quiet as EVs. Their hydrogen tanks can be filled in five minutes like normal cars, but station availability is extremely limited and mostly confined to major California population centers.

TOYOTA

2023 Toyota Mirai.

Plug-in hybrids are simply regular hybrids with greatly enlarged batteries designed to give them full speed operation on electricity alone for 20 to 50 miles. All the issues with charging an EV battery come to roost here, but they're not as acute because a plug-in hybrid's battery is about a quarter the size of an EV's. That makes them easier to plug in at home, and those that can manage this will have a part-time EV with no leash: a weekday EV commuter, but with full gasoline capability for long trips. And they're still efficient when running on gasoline because they retain the advantages of regular hybrids. Negatives include higher purchase cost because of the bigger battery, a greater likelihood that the larger battery will intrude on cargo space, and a possibly smaller gas tank.