Essay On Hybrid Cars

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Recommended: Disadvantages of hybrid cars on the environment

In February 2014 hybrid vehicle sales accounted for 2.5% of all vehicles sold in the US according to HybridCars.com. 2.5% sound like a small amount, but that equals 35,611 cars or one hybrid being sold every 1.5 seconds. The hybrid vehicle was created, lead by the original Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, for the purpose of providing an environmentally friendly alternative to the normal combustion engine, but has morphed into a marketing and branding exercise that has been slowly loosing the original “green” values of hybrid ownership.! ! Hybrid vehicles first came on the seen to create super efficient cars to combat rising fuel costs and offer more environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional combustion vehicles. The hybrid vehicle concept is that there are two motors at work, one is traditionally a gasoline engine paired with a small battery powered electric motor. Each manufacturer’s hybrid power-train varies, but the main benefits gained from the addition of an electric motor and battery pack, is that the electric motor adds free power from the battery pack in the car to aid in acceleration and the batteries are recharged through normal driving by the gasoline engine and during deceleration and when braking through “regenerative braking”. Hybrids were originally designed to eek out the most MPGs as possible from small economy cars to get the most bang for your buck.! I remember seeing the Honda Insight for the first time on the road back in 2000 thinking it was something special with one purpose in mind, to be the most fuel efficient vehicle. It proudly obtained an EPA rating of 70 MPG, looked like nothing else, was made in the same factory as the Honda/Acura NSX super car, built from lightweight aluminum and advanced p... ... middle of paper ... ...is the effort to extract t!he natural resources from the earth to manufacture the batteries.! The introduction of more commercially available diesel and fully electric vehicles has started to impact the sales figures of hybrids which is surprising to me because of the natural deficiencies that the hybrid vehicle has to overcome to be more effective both in environmental savings and cost savings to the end user. I believe that some combustion automobiles offer equal if not greater environmental and cost savings over hybrid vehicles. I believe this because the manufacturing and disposal process for batteries is very damaging to the earth, and the longevity of the parts is less than that of a normal vehicle. Also, if measuring environmental impact by comparing fuel consumption, many diesel cars are able to achieve greater miles per gallon than similar hybrid vehicles.

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