How Does a Hybrid Car Work?

More and more manufacturers offer their hybrid car. It must be said that the mode of operation of these vehicles to reduce emissions of CO2.

One hybrid car appealed to two sources of energy different. The idea of combining, on board the same vehicle, an electric motor and a combustion engine seems to be an interesting solution.

Advantages of the hybrid car

This allows indeed to maintain an excellent level of dynamic performance while significantly reducing pollution in urban areas (through improved energy management). Finally, the hybrid car take advantage of the strengths of the two propulsion systems:

• silence and cleanliness for electric propulsion;
• power and autonomy for the combustion engine.

Hybrid operation of a car

A hybrid vehicle is equipped with an engine that has a system of energy storage usually electrochemical. This allows him to store in the kinetic energy During decelerations, but also the surplus of energy products in certain driving situations.

This engine still maintains in an optimal operating area, to avoid the peaks of fuel consumption, and when the power required at time t is too low, energy produced in excess is stored to be re-mobilised later.

Several levels of hybridization

The vehicles available on the market have variable levels of hybridization:

• The microhybridation simply to take over from the engine to ensure the power to the electric devices. It ensures a reduction of consumption by about 5%. She is adopted by a large majority of manufacturers. The German BMW was the first to generalize this technology.
• Hybridization (light) semi hybrid, for its part, is actually based on a battery of hundreds of watt hours and allows savings of 10 to 30 percent on urban routes.
• Complete hybridization (full hybrid) - is the example of the classic Toyota Prius or the Ford MOndeo hybrid - allows the car to operate from its only reserve of stored energy. The decline in consumption is up 50%.
• Plug-in hybrids - for example the Volkswagen Passat GTE, the A3 Audi e-tron or the Mercedes C-class 350th-, finally, can drive for several tens of kilometers as of real electric vehicles.

Hybrid series, parallel or derivation of power

Two large hybridization solutions may be proposed:

• The hybrids say 'series' are rather rare. Here the combustion engine operates as a generator, to produce electricity necessary for the motor to move the car.
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• Say "parallel" hybrids are the most common. In this case, both engines are able to propel the car separately.

Derivation of power hybrids combine the previous two solutions. Here, a 100% electric propulsion is possible, but a part of the power of the engine is always transformed into electricity, either to recharge the battery, to power the electric motor directly.

Hydrogen car: a hybrid gas station tested in Switzerland As other Nations, the Switzerland prepares the influx of electric vehicles and hydrogen to develop a network of energy distribution. It is in this perspective that the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne has undertaken to test a concept of gas station capable of charging the cars electricity or hydrogen produced on-site, without carbon dioxide emissions.