WHAT IS HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLE?
A hybrid electric vehicle is the vehicle that has two propelling energy
sources. The most common of them are hybrid vehicles which include both
an internal combustion engine and an electric engine. There are a lot
of hybrid vehicle systems that use various combinations of fuel cells,
gas turbines, systems for mechanical energy storage in diesel and gasoline
engines (flywheel), batteries and ulltracapacitors. There are two ways
of building electric and fuel system in hybrid electric vehicles:
- Parallel configuration
- Serial configuration
On body design of hybrid electric vehicles, two basic approaches are striking:
- Using the bodies of present conventional vehicles (transformation)
- New designs intended for EV(Electric
vehicle) needs.( new design)
In the transformation approach,
engine and related equipment of the conventional vehicle, are changed
with electric engine, controllers and batteries.
This procedure brings about a reduction in the production cost due
to abrogation of new design and design application costs. On the contrary,
in hybrid electric vehicles, some problems stemming from high body
weight, center of gravity problems, or problems caused by weight distribution
happen.
New design approach has many advantages compared with the transformation
approach. Consideration of parameters in new hybrid electric vehicle
body design such as weight saving, optimum security concept, low air
resistance and low rolling resistance affect the performance of the
vehicle positively. Hybrid electric vehicles have a lot of advantages
compared to the conventional vehicles with internal combustion engines.
These advantages are:
- Regenerative braking ability helps to regain the energy lost during braking.
- Internal combustion engine in the hybrid electric vehicle is designed for average burdens. Since it is not designed for top burdens, decrease in engine weight and fuel consumption take place.
- Hybrid electric vehicles run by using alternative fuels, they do not depend on fossil fuels.
- Hybrid electric vehicles running with two fuels (gasoline or alternative fuel) has almost double capacity compared to internal combustion engine vehicles. The reason of that is in the hybrid electric vehicles there is less energy loss compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles.
- In the traffic jam in cities, electric engine
does not need to work. This property provides energy saving and increases
the capacity of the vehicle.
Last Updated: 07.08.2009