hybrid vehicles
Uploaded by swiss_2415 on May 02, 2005
Hybrid Vehicles 1
Hybrid Vehicles:
(Effects on the environment)
Arthur Gil
Environmental Investigations
Professor
April 4,2005
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As gasoline prices increase and the environment becomes unstable, people will begin to look for other modes to power their automobiles. One of those modes is know as hybrid power. A vehicle is considered a hybrid when it combines two or more sources of power. For example, a mo-ped (a motorized pedal bike) is a type of hybrid because it combines the power of a gasoline engines with the pedal power of the rider. Hybrid vehicles are an alternative being used to decrease the emissions of vehicles and to decrease the amount of fossil fuels being used. Hybrid vehicles also cost less to operate because of the decreased fuel usage.
The gasoline-electric hybrid car is a cross between a gasoline-powered car and an electric car. Hybrid vehicles are all around us. Most of the locomotives we see pulling trains are diesel-electric hybrids. According too How Cars Work, 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.
There are two kinds of hybrids. The parallel hybrid has a fuel tank which supplies gasoline to the engine. But it also has a set of batteries that supplies power to an electric motor. Both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time, and the transmission then turns the wheels. In a parallel hybrid, both the electric motor and the gas engine can provide propulsion power. The other type is a series hybrid. In the series hybrid the gasoline engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the batteries or power an
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electric motor that drives the transmission, so the gasoline engine never directly powers the vehicle.
Hybrid vehicles have all of the parts that a normal gasoline powered car would have, with a few extra parts such as the electric motor, generator, and batteries. The electric motor on a hybrid car is very sophisticated. Advanced electronics allow it to act as a motor as well as a generator. For example, when it needs to, it can draw energy from the batteries to accelerate the car. But acting as a generator, it can slow the car down and return energy to the batteries. The generator is similar to an electric motor, but it acts only...