| Text By Jason
Ang
Photos courtesy of Honda Japan and Toyota Japan |
Saving the world through motoring |
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| Or should we say, hybrid dreams? Imagine a car that's as quick as your
average 1.6-liter, can go 35 km/ liter, and can travel more than 1200 km
between fill-ups. Dreams? Try reality-the world's first production
hybrid cars are already being sold in Japan: the Toyota Prius and the Honda
Insight. Each represents the current state-of-the-art in hybrid power
technology. What exactly is a hybrid? It represents a step
towards the ultimate goal of driving a zero-emissions vehicle.
For many of us, driving is fun, but the environment suffers because of the emissions-carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides-that cars and trucks eject from their tailpipes. Catalytic converters and unleaded gasoline certainly help, but the emissions level is far from zero. One answer was to go electric. Of course electric cars cause pollution too, as they get their energy from a gas or coal-fueled power plant. However, power plants are much more efficient and are strictly monitored for pollution, and the vehicle itself emits no gases. As early as 1992, GM came out with a concept electric car named Impact. This was later sold as the Saturn EV1-the General was probably nervous that the Impact name was too suggestive. The problem with owning an electric was that it was just too inconvenient. If you thought having a cellphone that goes low-batt was bad enough, imagine having to plug your car in every night for at least 3 hours. A full charge will take you only 80 km., 150 km under economical driving conditions-rather pathetic range even in city driving. The reason? Battery technology has still not progressed to the point where electric cars are practical. Consider that gasoline on board a conventional car takes up about 3% of its weight and an almost-negligible amount of space. The batteries that run the EV1 account for 40% of its weight and the equivalent volume of 6400 km worth of gas! Honda began selling its own electric, the EV Plus, but for these reasons decided to pull the plug. Since the pure-electric vehicle is not yet practical, automakers turned
to the next-best thing, the gasoline-electric hybrid. A hybrid propels
its wheels using both a heat engine (i.e., internal-combustion) and electric
power. Series hybrids use the heat engine to charge the batteries
for the electric motor, which alone turns the drive wheels, while parallel
hybrids use both propulsion systems to turn the wheels directly.
Both the Prius and Insight are parallel hybrids. By using hybrid
systems, these cars come close to the emissions and energy-efficiency level
of an electric, while maintaining the range of a gasoline vehicle.
So how do they work in the real world?
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