Hybrid Cars Essay -- Gasoline Electric Hybrid Automobiles

1 Introduction A healthy and prosperous society is based on a healthy and prosperous economy. And during the last century, following the economic growth, the social networks expansion and the geographic dispersion of economic activities, transport became the spinal column of commercial and industrial interaction. The capacity of individuals as well as firms to exchange goods and services became crucial not only for economic purposes but also for better life quality. Unfortunately, the drawback effects of transport have an important impact on the natural and human environments on one hand, and on the growing fuel consumption accompanying the current oil crisis on another hand. Fossil fuel combustion associated to urban transport conditions lead to serious damage to fragile ecosystems and human health as well as contributing to climatic changes and global warming. This leads to the call of the environmental protection agencies and market competition all over the world for significant improvement of fuel economy of all the different classes of vehicles. Meanwhile, studies have confirmed that in recent years, fuel consumption from heavy duty vehicles has grown at a much faster rate then that of passenger cars due to an increase in the demand for transportation of goods [2]. In addition, heavy trucks and buses are normally equipped with highly efficient diesel engines, which limit the opportunities for improvements in fuel economy through studies on the engines efficiency. Consequently, hybrid propulsion systems can be critical solutions to achieve future fuel economy goals for heavy duty vehicles [3]. 2 What is a Hybrid Car. A hybrid car is a vehicle that uses a combination of at least two different fuel sources for its prop... ...ice for Hybrid Powertrain Applications†, SAE paper 2005-01-0810, 2005 . [2] – Wu, Lin, Filipi, Peng, Assanis, â€Å"Optimization of power management strategies for a Hydraulic Hybrid Medium Truck†, the university of Michigan, Advanced vehicle control conference, Hiroshima, Japan, September 2002. [3] – Buchwald, Christensen, Larsen and Pedersen, â€Å"Improvement of City bus Fuel Economy Using a Hydraulic Hybrid Propulsion System – a Theoretical and Experimental Study†, SAE Paper 790305, Warrendale, 1979. [4] – Filipi, Louca, Daran, Lin, Yildir, Wu, Kokkolaras, Assanis, Szkubiel and Chapp, â€Å"Combined optimization of design and power management of the hydraulic hybrid propulsion system for the 6x6 medium truck† , Automotive research center, University of Michigan, National Automotive Center, US Army RDECOM, 2004. [5] – www.hybridcars.com [6] – www.consumerreports.org