Hybrid cars

SEL 149 PROFFSOR: PIERRE GAUTHIER
By: David Gonzalez 9563466
HYBRID ELECTRIC CARS
Since the 19th century, many crazy inventors try to find out how to run car without the use of a normal combustion engine. Part of the objective was to find out how mobilize people as fast as a normal car but without contaminating the planet.Then the Idea of an electric car came out and change the vision of many of the manufacturers. And not only that, the whole world of automobile discovered a new son, Hybrid cars.
And hybrid electric vehicle is a car which combines two different types of engines. A Normal combustion engine, and a electric propulsion battery system. The electric power train is mean to be a fuel saver or a betterperformance. Usually we see this type of system in small engine cars. For example we have a Toyota Prius. Which is one the most common hybrid cars which has been in the market for years. But they are many different types of HEV. And the paper role by the electric power train changes too. We mention the hybrid electric cars as the Prius, but we could also find hybrid electric trucks, for example busesand pickups and even tractors are the hybrid world now.
The history of HEV development is very interesting. It all started in the 1665, a Jesuit priest, name Ferdinand Verbies, began to work on a small car that can be pulled by a horse. There are no evidence that he ever built his car. But it counts as a first try for changing the normal way of mobilization on a car. After that many designscame in. In 1769 there was a model of steam working engine brought by Nicholas Cugnot. And it actually moved at a velocity of 6 miles per hour. But there was a problem in the long distance movement so it actually didn’t work as planned. It was at the beginning of the 19th century that we actually came with the idea of a battery propulsion system. In Scotland in 1839, Robert Anderson, came with ideaof a battery that goes with the engine. But the car had battery life problems and it was very difficult to recharge. So in 1898, Porsche came out with the first electric and internal combustion engine. The mixed includes a pair of generators and a 2.5 hp Daimler IC engines. It could travel around 40 miles on battery life. That was a huge improvement for the previous engines. The Mixte used agasoline engine powering a generator, with a small battery pack for reliability. It had a top speed of 50 km/h and a power of 5.22 kW during 20 minutes. We were reaching a new era.

Since then improvement was amazing. Most of the companies were launching prototypes of hybrid cars. The intent was to produce a vehicle which could operate on the engine in the country, and electric mode in the city.Mode of operation could be selected by the driver. By the time, the German manufacture Audi, took out the “Audi Duo” experimental vehicle. This car had a 9.4 kilowatts Siemens electric motor which drove the rear road wheels. A nickel-cadmium battery was the one that gave the power to move the wheels. The Front wheels were impulse by a 2.3 liter five-cylinder gas engine. In that way we could haveboth engines working together.

After that in 1997 was where the hybrid cars actually took place of the market around the world. The first car to be produce in huge quantities was the Toyota Prius. This was presented in Japan in 1997 and launched in 2000 in the United States, Europe and the rest of the world. The Prius present a pretty convincing sheet of fuel economy, by a 52 miles economyper US gallon. That was a boom for the middle class, which couldn’t afford a car because of the high prices of the gasoline.

The Toyota Prius sold 300 units in 1997, 19,500 in 2000, and cumulative worldwide Prius sales reached the 1 million mark in April 2008. By early 2010, the Prius global cumulative sales were estimated at 1.6 million units. Toyota launched a second generation Prius in 2004...