Hybrid Vehicles

The Benefits of Hybrid Vehicles

By Andi Bintang

Buying a hybrid car may give you the bragging rights of being the first person in your neighborhood to drive a hybrid vehicle. But that does not end there. Harnessing the hybrid technology can actually give you several benefits you cannot expect from a conventional gasoline-engine car.

1. Fuel economy. Depending on the driving condition and driver's habits, a gasoline powered family sedan can run 15-34 miles on a gallon of fuel. Hybrid cars, on the other hand can run 40-60% longer at 20- 60 miles on a gallon of gas. This is perhaps the biggest reason why hybrid cars are so popular today. And with the uncontrollable increase in pump prices, hybrid cars can solve at least one of the obvious problems.

2. Durability. The hybrid vehicle automatically shuts off its combustion engine when idling. Not only does it help to conserve gas, it also reduces the wear on the engine. Also, the regenerative braking system that recaptures the lost energy when braking reduces the wear on the brakes.

3. Tax credit reward. While the sticker price of one hybrid car can set you back several thousands more than its non-hybrid counterpart, you can actually enjoy a tax reward of as much as $3000 depending on what hybrid car you buy. Also, the government imposes several incentives exclusive to hybrid car owners like free parking among others.

4. Environmental impact. Hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter (diesel), and formaldehyde also known as formalin are 5 noxious gases emitted by gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles. These gases contribute to the greenhouse effect. In short, these gases are harmful to the environment. Since hybrid cars consume less fuel, they also emit less fumes.

5. Sophisticated design. If you only care about the looks of the car, then choose among one of the available hybrid cars on the market today and you'll surely fall in love with one of them. Hybrid cars are among the best looking cars today.

6. Exclusivity. There are only a few hybrids among 200 million cars on the road today. And if you own one, then you'll feel that you own an exotic car. While this won't last long since many car manufacturers have announced more hybrid models in the future plus more and more hybrids are being sold everyday, it is still a good feeling that you are one of the first.

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Smarter Stimulus

As the US Senate debates its version of the $819 billion economic stimulus bill passed by the House on Wednesday, I hope they will give consideration to a smarter alternative to sweeping income tax cuts, the stimulative effect of which seems questionable. An op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post by economist Martin Feldstein offers a better idea: "a temporary refundable tax credit to households that purchase cars or other major consumer durables." In fact, I'd like to modify Professor Feldstein's idea for a car rebate to ensure that it not only boosts sales, but moves us in the direction of higher fuel economy. Let's offer consumers a one-year, $2,000 per car refundable tax credit, but only for vehicles that exceed the Corporate Average Fuel Economy of the 2008 model new car fleet: 31.4 mpg for passenger cars and 23.6 mpg for the light truck segment that includes SUVs.

Although this criterion stops short of pushing large numbers of Americans into hybrid vehicles, there are good reasons to keep the bar broad, low and technology-neutral, here. In a recession and with gas as cheap as it is, fuel economy is unlikely to be the paramount concern of potential car-buyers, even if memories of $4 gasoline are seared in their brains. Despite high gas prices for much of the year, hybrids only accounted for 2.4% of sales in 2008. Carmakers can't possibly ramp up hybrid production by enough this year for them to affect overall car sales by a meaningful percentage, relative to the crippling industry sales decline of 18% last year. Moreover, there are already tax credits in place for both hybrids and plug-in hybrids, though subsidies for the former are now phasing out. By contrast, roughly half the cars sold last year already beat last year's CAFE performance, and I'll bet Detroit and the imports would be very happy to sell more of those models, even if they didn't generate as much profit per car.

Shifting the average fuel economy of a whole year's sales up by an mpg or two doesn't nearly sound as "green" as doubling the sales of 50 mpg hybrids, but in fact it would save a lot more oil and reduce emissions by a larger proportion, as well. Recall that the biggest, juiciest target for fuel savings is not the shift from 35 mpg subcompacts to 100 mpg plug-in hybrids, but getting drivers out of 15 mpg SUVs and into 25 mpg crossovers and minivans. And if Detroit is going to get back on its feet sufficiently to repay those government loans any time soon, it must quickly resume selling large numbers of the cars it already makes, even as it infuses more energy-saving technology into future models.

We want our stimulus dollars to boost the flagging economy as effectively as possible, without making other problems worse in the future--beyond the unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of larger deficits. Targeted tax credits for efficient cars and appliances make more sense in this context than stuffing $500 into the pockets of every American, who might prudently save it or use it to pay down debt. Those are worthy outcomes in the long run, but not what an urgent fiscal stimulus is intended to accomplish.

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The Ripple Effect

The fallout from the collapse of oil prices in the last quarter of 2008 is still rippling through the economy. Yesterday's announcement of a $34 billion write-off by ConocoPhillips, the third-largest US oil company, is the latest signpost of this phenomenon. It's not confined to the oil exploration and production segment, either. We've seen the earnings of non-integrated refining companies drop, along with the announcement by Valero, the largest US refiner, that it would idle its 225,000 barrel per day Texas City refinery for several weeks. At the same time, ethanol producers continue to struggle with low margins and financing problems. In short, only a quarter after fuel companies were reporting record earnings, the tables have turned and consumers are in the catbird seat, still paying less than half of last summer's pump prices.

Conoco's losses didn't surprise Wall Street, and they shouldn't have surprised my readers, either. In late December I examined the impact of low year-end prices on the oil and gas reserves carried on the books of the oil companies. The reasonable change in SEC regulations for calculating their value, which goes into effect next January, came a year too late to prevent massive accounting losses in the oil patch. However, I missed the impact on the value of acquisitions, to which ConocoPhillips may have been particularly vulnerable, having been assembled not just from one big merger, but from a long string of deals. The bones of Burlington Resources, Tosco, and Unocal's refining and marketing business are all buried in there, somewhere. Tomorrow we'll see whether ExxonMobil and Chevron report similar losses, though it's notable that Shell, which reports earnings under UK accounting standards, saw only a 28% drop in fourth quarter earnings, compared to 4Q07.

Meanwhile, the refining business has returned to a more normal situation, compared to the boom years of a few years ago and the dire straits of last month, when spot gasoline was selling for less than light sweet crude oil. The recent bounce in gasoline prices has put refiners back in the black. Since December, the calculated futures market "crack" spread, a simple estimate of the margin on making gasoline, has improved from a average loss for the month of $1.40/bbl to a profit of around $5.75/bbl, while the "3-2-1 crack", which includes the benefit of higher diesel fuel prices, has improved from about $5/bbl to roughly $10/bbl. Although this is a healthy margin, it won't result in banner profits, when US refineries are running at an average utilization of 82%. That's a lot of idle capacity, whether in the form of entire plant shutdowns, as at Texas City, or of reduced run rates at most plants. It's a reflection of just how far US gasoline demand has fallen that until this week, gasoline inventories continued to build, in spite of such low output.

Ethanol producers aren't faring much better. The operating margin, or "crush spread", that I calculate from today's Chicago Board of Trade corn and ethanol quotes is only $0.25/gal. That's a far cry from crush spreads over $1.00/gal that were routine in 2006 and 2007, and that helped fuel an ethanol plant construction boom that has now gone bust, at least temporarily. A growing number of ethanol producers have filed for Chapter 11 protection, and the largest of these, VeraSun Energy, has been forced by market conditions to idle 12 of its 16 "biorefineries." If it emerges from bankruptcy at all, VeraSun, which had been one of the most aggressive consolidators of the industry, will be much smaller. These are hardly the signs of a thriving biofuels industry, upon which a core strategy of US energy policy rests.

Any temptation to find morbid satisfaction in the diminished fortunes of the transportation fuels industry should be tempered by a clear understanding that its dips carry consequences that reverberate for years, because of the planning and construction lags inherent in its big projects. The oil platforms deferred or canceled this year will squeeze output in the mid-2010's, while the gas wells not drilled in 2009 and 2010 will tighten supplies much sooner. And even on the presumably greener side of the industry, an ethanol sector rocked by corporate bankruptcies and distilleries abandoned before they ever started up will be poorly positioned to deliver on the highly-ambitious renewable fuels targets set by the Congress in late 2007, and mooted for further expansion during last year's presidential campaign. The days of profits some regarded as unearned windfalls have clearly ended; however, if the fuels industry doesn't make "normal" profits this year and next, we will all pay for it down the road.

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Fuel Efficiency

How Did Hybrid Cars Achieve Maximum Fuel Economy?

By Andi Bintang

Hybrid cars can run from 20mpg to 60mpg. How do they do it? Aside from using both the electric motor and combustion engine to draw propulsion, hybrid cars have several tricks to squeeze every mile out of each gallon of gasoline. Hybrid electric vehicles have:

Lightweight materials. One of the surest ways to increase the mileage of the car is to reduce its overall weight. The lighter the car is, the higher the fuel mileage will be. So instead of steel, lightweight materials such as magnesium and aluminum or composite materials like carbon fibers are used for hybrid vehicles.

Smaller engine. The weight of the car is directly related to its fuel consumption. And because larger engines are relatively heavier, they require more energy just to propel their own weight, thus consuming more fuel. Also big engines have large cylinder displacement that requires more fuel just to stop.

Since hybrid vehicles utilize other sources of power, they do not require large engines. Instead, the smaller and lighter engine equates to better fuel mileage. The Honda Civic Hybrid, for example uses a 1.3 L iVTEC 4-cylinder engine as opposed to the typical 1.8 L or 2.0 L engine for the non-hybrid counterpart.

Improved aerodynamics. When you are driving at a high speed, most work of the engine goes into pushing the car through the air. Hybrid cars are designed in such away that its frontal area chops through the air, reducing drag and increasing fuel economy. The Honda Insight is the best example of how a car can increase its fuel mileage by using a smoother aerodynamic design.

Energy conservation. Since hybrid cars do not rely solely on internal combustion engines that run continuously even at stops, they can shut off the engine temporarily whenever do not need it. It will automatically turn on when you step on the gas pedal.

Energy recovery. Much of the energy is lost when braking, more so at high speeds. Hybrid vehicles are designed to recapture this lost energy and store it back in the battery to be used later.

Special tires. Tires are specifically used to minimize noise, provide a smooth ride, and give good traction in different weather conditions. But tires are rarely used to optimize efficiency. They cause a great deal of drag while driving. Hybrid cars on the other hand use low-rolling resistance tires. They are inflated to a higher air pressure and are stiffer which result in reduced drag and better fuel efficiency.

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Best Gas Mileage

Factors that Influence the Gas Mileage

By Andi Bintang

Rated to run from 20 mpg to 60 mpg, hybrid cars are designed for maximum fuel economy. But aside from its second source of power, what other factors can influence gas mileage? Here are those factors,

Size of the engine. It is quite ironic that the more powerful your engine is, the larger and heavier it becomes. So much of the additional power will be used just to carry the extra weight of the engine. Hybrid solves it by putting a small engine with an electric motor. Moreover, small engine has small cylinders that consume less fuel both at stop and while cruising. This makes hybrid cars more fuel efficient. Hybrid car engines are smaller and are significantly lighter, thus reducing the total weight of the car.

Driving condition (with respect to the hybrid car's internal structure). A hybrid car can either be parallel or series. With a parallel drive train, the car runs more fuel efficient on the highway. Series hybrids on the other hand work well in stop-and-go traffic.

Car Design/Aerodynamics. When driving at high speeds, the car's engine works more because it has to push the car through the air. This is called aerodynamic drag. And the faster the car is, the greater the aerodynamic drag it has to overcome. Hybrid cars work well both at slow and high speed because it's design to cut through air that reduces the drag, thus increasing fuel economy. Low-rolling resistance tires, which are stiffer and inflated to higher pressure can further cut the drag and increase the fuel mileage of the car.

Vehicle Weight. When the car is heavy, the engine has to inject more fuel to the cylinder in order to push it forward. So in order to increase fuel economy, hybrid cars are made with lighter materials such as magnesium and aluminum or composite materials like carbon fiber.

Driving habits. Whether you are driving a hybrid or not, driving habits can definitely influence the gas mileage of your car. Hard braking and abrupt acceleration wastes a lot of energy. Even if your hybrid has the regenerative braking system, the maximum amount of energy cannot be recaptured back to your battery. Abrupt acceleration on the other hand requires more power from both the electric motor and the combustion engine which equates to more fuel consumption. To increase gas mileage, anticipate braking distance, step on the brake softly, and accelerate gently.

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New Hybrid Vehicles

Different Types of Vehicles

By Andi Bintang


Do you know how many types of vehicles there are in all? Since the creation of the first crude automobile, several models and types have been created to suit the needs of people. These were developed in order to provide a safe, efficient and economical means of transportation. Some are built for luxury, others for practicality and some for environmental purposes.

Cruder Forms

Vehicles were first made thousands of years ago. The earliest forms of vehicles were actually living things like horses, elephants and camels. With the invention of the wheel around 3000 B.C., chariots, carts and horse-drawn carriages came into existence. The wheel has certainly paved the way for modern transportation as it is still very much present today.

Cycles were created around the 19th century which comes in many forms. Bicycles are one of the most common types of vehicles available today. There are also tricycles, quadricycles and unicycles. These vehicles mainly use a chain that goes around the wheels for propulsion. Cycling is a very important action in order to keep the transportation balanced. Later on, motorcycles were invented which incorporated a motor engine instead of manual pedals.

Origin of Alternate Fuel Sources

Electric vehicles or EVs were invented in the 1830's which uses one or more electric motors. The rotary or linear motors propel the vehicle through the wheels. Linear motors are used by tracked vehicles such as trains and MRTs. There are several sources of energy used to move the vehicle like an on-board RESS or rechargeable energy storage system, batteries, on-board super capacitors and direct connection to energy-generating plants. Fuel cells and nuclear energy have also shown to be very viable in propelling vehicles.

Steam engines are another alternate fuel source which uses an external combustion engine or ECE. ECEs are less efficient compared to ICEs but proper configurations can be made for the fuel burner in order to emit very low amounts of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and other harmful gases making it environmentally friendly in the process. Steam cars do have a problem when starting from cold leading to the development of flash boilers.

The Automobile

Automobiles are the most common type of vehicle. The majority of automobiles today are powered by gasoline or diesel engines. Automobiles use an internal combustion engine or ICE which can be highly polluting due to the constant burning of harmful gases. This type of vehicle has shown to be very powerful, convenient and aesthetic as well making it the most popular of all time.

Gasoline engine vehicles are lighter and able to work at optimum rotational speeds. The invention of the electric starter has boosted its popularity beating steam and electric cars in the process. Carburetor and fuel injection are some of the most useful discoveries in enhancing automobile performance.

There are various innovations in the engine allowing exhaust gases to be less harmful. Others combine efforts to minimize the greenhouse effect by reducing emissions to zero. Gasoline engines are capable of running with different ethanol concentrations. Some may run on 15%, 85% or even 100% ethanol. Fuel burn efficiency of gasoline engine vehicles are around 27%.

Diesel engine vehicles are more cost-effective compared to gasoline engine ones because of their 50% fuel burn efficiency. However, power and performance is also compromised due to less concentration of fuel. Diesel also releases exhaust gases into the atmosphere from soot particles. 100% biodiesel has been developed to improve the downside of these vehicles.

Other Transports

A train is a series of vehicles moving along a guided track or rail. A separate locomotive provides power to propel the entire train. Diesel or electricity is the usual energy source of trains while older versions were dominantly powered by steam engines. There are special kinds of trains with special tracks like rubber-tired underground, high-speed and monorails. Some trains can have more than one locomotive or coach.

A road train has a prime mover pulling one or more trailers. Trucks are the simpler version of this. Since the weight and maneuverability are a challenge, these vehicles often require several wheels for more control. Speed should also be watched meticulously to make travel as safe as possible. Diesel engines usually power big heavy trucks and road trains for fuel efficiency and power.

Other unique types of vehicles are amphibious vehicles and snowmobiles. Amphibians can run on both land and water making them very versatile. There are amphibious bicycles, cars, trucks and ATVs developed for passenger and official use.

The advantages provided by amphibians made them very useful for military operations. Snowmobiles are propelled by a built-in track made of Kevlar composite or rubber in order to effectively move through snow. These are also powered by a motor engine that consumes gas for fuel. Tanks use the same mechanism as snowmobiles by running on steel tracks.

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A Brief Guide to Hybrid Vehicles

A Brief Guide to Hybrid Vehicles

By Andi Bintang

Hybrid vehicles were the stuff of dreams centuries ago. Nobody ever thought that creating a vehicle independent from fuel was possible. Fortunately with the continuing development of hybrid technology, more efficient and practical vehicles have been created. In the recent years the campaign for global warming has brought the attention of the public. Hybrid cars are now becoming steadily popular available in different types from compact sedans to SUVs.

Environmental issues are not the only reason that has made the public favor hybrid cars. Rising gas prices is also one of the major reasons why people prefer hybrid cars than conventional ones. Its also practical in suburban environments where you don't really need horsepower but gas mileage.

Hybrid vehicles

There are different types of hybrid vehicles. They can vary from the simplest wheelbarrows to ships. No matter what form they are, these vehicles help in reducing greenhouse and noise emissions. Although these vehicles are expensive due to their unique structures, developments will continue to provide more alternatives to the public. These cars may not compare to conventional ones with a 200 horsepower but why would you need that if you only need 20 in the streets?

The simplest hybrid would be the single wheeled vehicles. These are wheelbarrows famously depicted with sails. This can be seen in Chinese sailing carriages.

The next is two wheeled vehicles. These are usually cycle type vehicles. The best example would be the Moped and electric bicycles. They are powered by an electric motor or an internal combustion engine in combination with the rider's muscles. This concept was also used in the 1800's by motorcycles. The electric bicycle can either be a parallel or a series hybrid.

Hybrid vehicles are not just limited to private cars. There are also hybrid power trains used by heavy vehicles. There are diesel or turbo electric buses, railway locomotives, heavy duty vehicles, hydraulic machinery and ships.

In ships a diesel engine drives the electric generator or hydraulic pump which in turn powers one or more hydraulic or electric motors. Sails and engines were early forms of hybrids which may be used again due to rising fuel costs.

More developments are continually being made in hybrid structures and systems for efficiency. Today buying a hybrid car is expensive but it will be beneficial in the long run. It does not just save fuel costs but also removes pollution that can harm the health of the people and take whatever it is left of the environment.

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