By hybrid automobile we refer to any vehicle of which relies on 2 separate power sources for propulsion. Among the power sources for a hybrid car there are gasoline or diesel fuel, on-board or out-board rechargeable energy storage systems (RESS), hydrogen, wind, compressed or liquid natural gas, solar, coal, wood or other solid combustibles, etc.

The very concept of hybrid car designates electric cars that adapt the usage of an internal combustion engine to that of the electrical batteries.

As stated before, there are other hybrid vehicles beside the hybrid car we’ll mainly deal with here. Mopeds and electric bicycles make the most relevant of examples here. These are the rather basic kinds of hybrid vehicles. The combination between a gas engine or a battery and the physical power of the muscles is certainly superior.

The heavy hybrids cover the industrial or supply vehicles like ships, hydraulic machines, buses, locomotives etc. Normally, the term hybrid car-vehicle is used to refer to hybrid electric vehicles. This range consists of the following types of automotives: AHS2 (Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Chevrolet Silverado, Cadillac Escalade, Saturn Vue), Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Insight and many others. A gas-electric hybrid car usually takes its power from an internal combustion engine (gasoline or diesel engine) and an electric battery.

The beginnings of the hybrid car go as far back to the late 1900s when David Arthurs, an electrical engineer from Arkansas, invented the braking regenerative hybrid. Besides the hybrid car as mentioned above, which uses two or more different propulsion devices, there are also vehicles which use distinct sources of energy or input types but only one engine.

Although there is a certain similarity to a hybrid car, distinctions do exist. In fact the latter should be more appropriately called dual mode vehicles (electric trolleybuses, dual mode buses, flexible-fuel vehicles, and so forth).

A hybrid car presents a variety of advantages from the environmental point of view and there are two sides to consider here. For starters, you can do some thing for the environment as well as mankind, and you additionally save money on fuel.

These two advantages and benefits brought about by the hybrid car are tributary to at least three elements in the design: the combination of gasoline and the electric motors, a battery with plenty of storage capacity and the chance to re-capture important amounts of energy, that are usually wasted while braking.

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