Gasoline-electric hybrid automobiles

See also Automobile Performance Electric Vehicle Fuel Cell Vehicles Gasoline Engine Hybrid Vehicles. 

New vehicles, propulsion systems, and fuels are on the horizon hybrid automobiles (combining an electric motor, batteries, and a gasoline or diesel engine), better electric cars, greater use of compressed natural gas (CNG) and propane for urban fleet vehi-... 

Hybrid gasoline-electric automobiles made by Toyota and Honda are selling well in the U.S. 

Transportation accounts for about one-fourth of the primary energy consumption in the United States. And unlike other sectors of the economy that can easily switch to cleaner natural gas or electricity, automobiles, trucks, nonroad vehicles, and buses are powered by internal-combustion engines burning petroleum products that produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons. Efforts are under way to accelerate the introduction of electric, fuel-cell, and hybrid (electric and fuel) vehicles to replace sonic of these vehicles in both the retail marketplace and in commercial, government, public transit, and private fleets. These vehicles dramatically reduce harmful pollutants and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 50 percent or more compared to gasoline-powered vehicles. 

There is a major potential for energy conservation in transportation, by increasing the energy efficiency of automobiles. The recent commercialization of hybrid vehicles, which combine electric and gasoline motors, demonstrates how much more efficient automobile transport can be. Hybrid power systems deliver double the fuel efficiency of conventional engines. Moreover, as fuel cells are perfected, even greater energy efficiencies may be achieved. 

The American automobile industry hopes to bring to the market in 2010 a "plug-in" hybrid vehicle that is able to drive many more miles to the gallon (400) than an economy-car (25). Assume the ICE to have an exergetic well (oil) to wheel efficiency of 14% and the electric motor 20% (from oil to electricity). See Chapter 18. How much is the reduction in C02 emission for the hybrid vehicle with respect to the gasoline driven vehicle ... 

Lead-acid batteries are used in gasoline-driven automobiles and in electric and hybrid vehicles. They have the best discharge rate of secondary battery technology, they are the cheapest to produce, and they are rechargeable. The chemical reactions are ... 

Before technological development of what is now called a hybrid vehicle, the automobile industry, by necessity, had to have two existing forms of motor energy to hybridize-namely internal combustion in combination with some form of electric power. Early versions of cars driven with electric motors emerged in the 1890 s and seemed destined to compete very seriously with both gasoline (internal combustion engines) and steam engines at the turn of the twentieth century. 

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