Archive for the ‘Hybrid Cars’ Category
When a young Ferdinand Porsche took a job as a coach-builder near the turn of the 20th Century, he began a process that was to lead to the development of hybrid cars and provide a serious alternative to oil-fuelled combustion engines. While fuel-guzzling Porsches have fascinated the minds of petrol-headed fans the world over for many decades, now the Lohner Porsche Mixte Hybrid developed in 1900, which was the first gasoline-electric hybrid car in the world, is now being re-evaluated due to the inherent simplicity of his original design. It is what is part and parcel of what is at the heart of what is being manufactured today. His invention was essentially an electric vehicle which combined a conventional internal combustion engine system with an electric propulsion system.
There’s something tragic however in the painfully long time Porsche’s invention was mothballed for. It wasn’t until the release of the Toyota Prius in 1997 that people in the automotive industry seriously began to take notice of this hybrid technology. Nearly a century passed before Porsche’s concept car was given the critical attention it deserved. What other inventions there have been like this that have foolishly been put on ice, well, one can only wonder and grimace! This was a major oversight and there have surely been many others.
One of the main reasons for the mothballing of this hybrid car was due to the invention of the internal combustion engine and its reliance on refined oil to generate its mobility. Suddenly the car provided people with a freedom they had not experienced before and, as oil appeared to be quite plentiful, car manufacturers were happy to keep designing new models fuelled by plentiful supplies of oil. Oil was cheap and seemingly available in inexhaustible amounts, and at that time, the green movement was non-existent up until the early 1980s. This alone, to a large degree, is why there had been no real demand for hybrid cars.
A further reason for this lack of demand was due to the low priority given to the design quality of these vehicles. Recently, a British made prototype hybrid car appeared on E-bay, dating from the early 1980s. It was described as “a unique, one-off hybrid electric car…this vehicle represents the pinnacle of hybrid electric design” Indeed, the facts and figures seemed quite impressive. It had a top speed of 85mph, with 75mph when running solely on electricity. It had 4 modes of operation: battery only, series hybrid mode, engine only, and parallel mode. Its battery range of 40-50 miles would have made it ideal for urban driving. You get the feeling, though, that is was nothing more than a motorized bathtub made for collectors and connoisseurs and was not designed with the mass car market in mind.
Poor design or poor aesthetics have been one of the major factors manufacturers have had to overcome by dressing-up the appeal of hybrids for the general driving public. That’s not to say all conventional cars have been gems in the good-looks department. It has definitely been the case though, that hybrid cars have always had to fight that much harder to get noticed amongst the established automotive manufacturers and their flashy combustion powered cars, while designers of hybrid vehicles have tended to overlook what the car actually looked like, in favor of what goes on under the bonnet. However, after 100 years of stagnation, the hybrid revolution is now well and truly underway and setting new standards in the marketplace.
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The Evolution of the Hybrid Car
Since 1997, the technology and the sources of energy that are used to power hybrid cars have undergone rapid development. There are now two distinct types of hybrid vehicles that are classified according to the way power generated by the motors, is transferred to the wheels to propel the vehicle forward and backwards…
How can the revolution in the hybrid car market from one of relative obscurity up until the 1980s, to one of genuine global competiveness today be explained? Is it simply the case that our rapidly emerging environmental awareness as car consumers is driving this, or is there other factors at work? …
It’s easy to assume that the on-going development of hybrid cars is going to be relatively trouble free, and the early assertions that they would only form a small proportion of the overall share of the car market is already proving to be a very flimsy premise. However, there are still some potentially significant challenges ahead that need to be addressed…
Despite the looming supply issues caused by the dwindling reserves of vital raw materials, the philosophy of the major car manufacturers seems to be one of cashing in on the rising demand for the product now and worrying about the consequences later. The manufacturing of hybrids is no longer exclusively for the few, but has become commonplace throughout the industry. This is reflected in the wave of new models that have been introduced into the marketplace since 2009…
Believe it or not, interest in greener options for motoring in China is gathering pace as the country works towards reducing pollution levels. The standard view of China amongst many people is that it is a country pursuing economic growth at whatever the social and economic cost to the environment. The country is undoubtedly dogged by some of the worst air and water pollution from unregulated economic activity, however with a burgeoning middle class, maintaining the environmental quality might be the key to ensuring environmentally sustainable solutions are applied in China…
Manufacturers can’t afford to sit back and admire all the impressive work that has been done in making hybrids commercially viable and having people now wanting to buy them. They are now grappling with alternatives to the conventional gasoline engine that works in tandem with the electric component of a hybrid engine…