We are always hearing people going on about Hybrid Cars this Hybrid SUV’s that and myself I thought that most of us knew what a hybrid vehicle was, but I was amazed when I was speaking to my brother about how great hybrids was and he said how far can you go until you have to plug it in, well I did laugh for a bit, but it was not his fault just like many others like him who get confused with the difference between an electric car and an hybrid car, so I am here to talk a little about how the hybrid car, SUV, Minivan or other vehicle as simple as I can possibly make it

A Hybrid Car has both an internal combustion engine and also an Electric Motor
Ok so when you get into a Hybrid car you start it up just like you would a normal car with an internal combustion engine, but that is where the similarities end.
With the Hybrid Toyota and Ford vehicles when you start the gas or petrol engine it will not shut down until the engine has warmed up enough once it has then it will shut down and then switch over to the electric motor, the electric motor will stay on until you reach 15mph but if you take it gentle and accelerate slow then the normal engine will not switch on until 30mph, so if you are a careful driver then you will be making huge savings on your fuel bill

The Honda Hybrid works a little different in the way that the normal engine will still on until the first time you slow down and come to a stop then the electric motor will kick in

All hybrids when they have come to a stop are effectively running on the electric motor so no gasses are being burned so you are then saving money and also helping the environment, and as we said before the gas or petrol engine will only come on once you are up to a certain speed
The Hybrid Car or SUV also have other tricks up its sleeve like if you want to overtake or get up a hill then you will get a bit of a boast from the electric motor and it is this system that allows you to have a much smaller internal combustion engine but get the same power as you would normally get from a much larger engine from a non hybrid car

So many of you will now be wondering how the electric motor gets its power from.
Well that is also easy to explain, while the gas/petrol is on it is helping to keep the nickel metal hydride batteries charged and also when you start braking energy from the brakes is also converted to power and stored in the batteries which is all then passed on to the electric motor

We know all that kind of thing does get a bit technical but it is all controlled by an on board computer that helps to get the best from your car

Read more about how the Hybrid Vehicle Works at www.en.wikipedia.org