Hybrid/Electric Vehicles
Overview
Hybrid Vehicles - Hybrids have an electric motor and a small bank of batteries that assist the engine, providing boosts of power or extending the range the vehicle can go, along with an internal combustion engine. Hybrids use the gasoline engine plus regenerative braking to recharge the battery. In a hybrid, the gasoline engine shuts down when the vehicle is idle, saving energy and reducing emissions, and restarts seamlessly when the driver steps on the accelerator.
Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles - A hybrid with more batteries, a charger and an electrical plug, allowing longer driving in electric mode, using less gasoline and producing fewer emissions. By plugging into an existing wall electrical socket overnight the distance traveled on battery power is significantly extended. If not plugged in, it operates like a normal hybrid.
Electric Vehicles - Vehicles powered by one or more controllers and a large bank of batteries with no gasoline engine. Electric vehicles plug into a wall socket or other source of electricity to recharge the batteries. Regenerative braking systems use the electric motor to convert some of the vehicle's kinetic energy (the energy associated with a car in motion) into electricity that gets fed back into the batteries when the driver slows down or stops. In conventional cars, that kinetic energy simply becomes heat on the mechanical brakes used to stop the car and is wasted.
Electric vehicles can be equipped with special chargers that plug into 220-volt sockets (the kind used for clothes dryers) to provide a faster charge.
Until recently, electric cars could go about half the distance of a typical gasoline tank. With modern Lithium-ion batteries, that gap has narrowed, but state-of-the-art batteries manufactured in small quantities remain relatively expensive. Recent research into lithium-based batteries is expected to improve performance and mass adoption and manufacturing are expected to lower battery costs making electric cars a viable choice for the vast majority of drivers.
