There are many hybrid models in the market, more popular ones are Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Toyota Prius, Honda Accord Hybrid and Honda Civic Hybrid. These cars are supposedly produced with environmentally-minded designs. Not only standard cars, hybrid SUV and trucks are also more popular. We should be able to obtain viable alternatives to standard diesel and gasoline engines. In recent years, hybrid models are becoming more popular and they are designed to operate on multiple fuel systems. The common type of hybrid is the combination between electric energy and fossil fuel.
They usually run on gasoline and assisted by electrical power, specifically a rechargeable NiMH (nickel metal hydride) pack. There are some positive outcomes of such an arrangement. Hybrid cars are known for their lower emission and improved fuel efficiency. Although many of us spend much of our driving time on highway at higher speed, there are times when we drive slowly at housing complex. Electrical power is also more efficient during traffic jam, because the car doesn’t consume much energy when it stays idle. However, it should be noted that battery packs of hybrid cars don’t last forever.
Battery packs should be replaced after we drive for about 150,000 miles or eight years, whichever comes first. Depending on the car model and its age, the cost of replacing the battery can be nearly similar to the car’s current value. That’s the reason why many people replace their hybrid just before the battery needs to be replaced. When considering purchasing a hybrid, we should compare it with the standard gasoline model. As an example, we could compare the Civic Hybrid with the standard Civic. We should be able to calculate the actual price difference and we know the extra amount of money we should pay.
One of the biggest questions is whether hybrids are significantly more efficient than standard model. Although they are clearly more efficient, we should make sure that the amount of money we save on fuel cost is still higher than the higher price of the hybrid. There are a few things that can reduce efficiency, such as accelerating uphill. There are some rules that can affect how hybrids work. The standard gasoline engine stops working at a full stop to reduce emission and eliminate idling. For this reason, hybrids are able to save some amount of fuel during heavy traffic with a lot of starts and stops.
It should be noted that the gasoline engine needs to be working continuously to keep the battery charged if we are in a long start-and-stop traffic jam. When accelerating, we use power from the battery pack only when we drive like our grandmother. Unfortunately, this isn’t the way many of us drive. It is often for us to perform rapid and hard acceleration. This will require power from both the gasoline engine and the electric motor. We may not save much we this is the way we drive. During highway driving at higher speed, the gasoline engine is running most of the time and we don’t achieve any kind of fuel efficiency.