last updated 23rd June 05
by 4ecotips.com

Get up to 60miles to the US gallon

World oil prices are never likely to fall below $60 dollars to the barrel ever again, so it’s high time to rethink your motoring strategy. Not only to save yourself a small fortune but to make your contribution to reducing emissions.

If, like me writes Tim Stapleton, one of your biggest uses of environmental resources is petrol then the website www.hybrid-car.org from the Hybrid Car Organisation, provides extensive material on hybrid vehicles. If you view current prices at the pump with a jaundiced eye you might care to explore these interesting alternatives with this resource centre on hybrid and electric vehicles, their development and use and related technologies.

Did you know that hybrid cars can now get up to 60miles to the US gallon (25.5km/litre)? Besides fuel economy they boast lower emissions and depreciation than conventional cars.

The website has sections on how hybrid vehicles work, emissions and pollution, and some surprising facts. You can learn about the currently manufactured hybrid vehicles from Toyota’s Primus to Ford’s SUV Escape, and see photos of these dramatic looking cars.

The website is US based and mentions the tax rebates available in the States.

Here are some facts from the website. A hybrid car is a passenger vehicle that is driven by a hybrid engine, which is any engine that combines two or more sources of power, generally gasoline and electricity. There are two types of gasoline-electric hybrid cars; the parallel hybrid, and the series hybrid. Both use gasoline-electric hybrid technology, but in radically different ways.

In a parallel hybrid car, a gasoline engine and an electric motor work together to move the car forward, while in a series hybrid, the gasoline engine either directly powers an electric motor that powers the vehicle, or charges batteries that will power the motor. Both types of hybrids also use a process called regenerative braking to store the kinetic energy generated by brake use in the batteries, which will in turn power the electric motor.

Both parallel and series hybrids have small gasoline engines, and produce much less pollution than standard gasoline cars, but also produce much less power - hybrids generally produce between 60-90 horsepower, while the average gasoline engine probably produces about double that.

To overcome this power gap, hybrid cars are constructed with ultra lightweight materials like carbon fiber or aluminum. Hybrid cars are also designed to be more aerodynamic than most cars, allowing them to "slice" through air instead of pushing it out of the way. All these factors combined equate to a super efficient form of car that gets excellent fuel economy and helps the environment by cutting down on pollution.

To compare hybrid car emissions levels with those of popular automobiles, click on “emissions” on the website. If you are interested with the hybrid solution to pollution, click “pollution”. If you are interested in buying a hybrid car, there’s an article, “Why buy a hybrid”.

There’s also a full list of all the car makers with hybrid machines. So it’s well worth a visit to the website.