Hybrid cars are products of the world’s latest technology. They were invented as a result of the problems confronting modern society, like oil price hikes and environmental hazards that are undeniably causing harm to both humans and Mother Nature. As a vehicle run by a combination of electricity and gas, a hybrid car can help save fuel and money and reduce air pollution. Here is how it works.
In a hybrid car, it is not only the engine that is connected to the transmission—the part that passes the power on to the wheels and pushes the car forward—but also an electric motor. Both the engine and the electric motor can power the vehicle. The former runs the car and the latter functions when needed to increase power. This type of hybrid is called parallel. The other kind is the series hybrid, where a gas engine powers the generator. The generator then charges the batteries and powers the electric motor. The gasoline engine doesn’t power the car on its own. The electric motor operates when the car moves below a certain speed and the gasoline engine functions only when that speed is exceeded.
In addition, the engine of a hybrid is smaller than that of the common car, so the car is lighter and more efficient to manage and, hence, less fuel-consuming. And not only that, when a hybrid car is in motion, it recharges the battery. When it is running slow, or not moving at all, or when it brakes, it also recharges itself. Logically, the more electricity the car uses, the less fuel it uses. This is why hybrid cars don’t use as much gas as conventional cars.
This can help you reduce the number of trips to the gas station, saving time, money, energy, and guilt about being an earth pollutant.
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Hybrid Cars Tax Rebate: The Benefits You Get When You Own a Hybrid Car
With the hybrid technology, it allows consumers to save as much as 30 miles a gallon on fuel. The main advantage of hybrid cars is when the car stops or when it is running on idle mode, it automatically shuts off the gasoline engine. However, the car will continue running but it will run on the electric motor. Therefore, it saves a lot on fuel. Just imagine being stuck on traffic, with the hybrid technology, you will never waste precious and expensive fuel when the car is running idle. This is also the reason why hybrid cars are so quiet when it is stationary. When you step on the accelerator, the gasoline engine automatically turns on again.
Another reason why hybrid cars are now preferred by most people is that it emits lower levels of toxic emissions. This means that hybrid cars are environmentally friendly. Just imagine, if all people would start using hybrid cars, it will lessen the emission of carbon dioxide. For this reason, it will effectively stop global warming.
Because hybrid cars can both help in saving precious fuel and reduce the emission of toxic fumes, the government is now taking all the necessary steps to promote the hybrid technology. The consumer who owns a hybrid car can enjoy more benefits than you may imagine. Not only will they save a lot of money on fuel, and help produce a cleaner environment, but they can also enjoy tax rebates.
Back in 2005, the President of the United States signed an agreement back in the year 2005 that says that hybrid car buyers will be able to enjoy large amounts of tax relief. However, the amount of money you will save on the tax incentives will also vary on the hybrid car you purchase.
The first one you have to consider when getting a tax break is that it will depend on the fuel efficiency of the hybrid car you purchased when you compare it to a conventional car in the same weight class manufactured back in the year 2002. The more it saves fuel, the bigger the tax break will be.
The tax break imposed on a hybrid car will also vary on the amount of gasoline that the hybrid car can save in its total years of operation when it is compared to a conventional car in the same weight class. The more gasoline it saves, the bigger your tax relief will be.
It is a fact that hybrid cars can be expensive. However, just think about the long term benefits that the hybrid car can give you. If you calculate overall total expenses of a hybrid car and compare it to the total expenses of a conventional car during its lifetime, you will see that you can save more money on fuel. You will also save money on taxes. You will see that purchasing a hybrid car is definitely a good investment that all people should consider.
Not only will you be able contribute in producing a cleaner environment and save a lot of money on precious, expensive and limited supply of fuel, but you will also save a lot of money on tax rebates for hybrid car buyers.
About the Author:
Hilal Abdelwali, Ph.D. in Automotive Engineering. SAE Member Since September 2001. Expert in Automotive Engineering and Hybrid Cars. Internet Marketer. Owner of http://TheHybridCarsSite.com, and http://MyHotProducts.com Site.
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Hydrogen Filling Station Approved for Mazda
Mazda Motor Corporation has received authorization from the Japanese government to operate a hydrogen-gas filling station near its Hiroshima headquarters. The station stores and supplies fuel to Mazda vehicles powered by hydrogen rotary engines; the vehicles are currently under development. The station should be able to fill up to 10 vehicles a day.
The RX-8 Hydrogen Rotary vehicle, which runs on either hydrogen or gasoline will be marketed
as a commercial model to public offices and enterprise users in Japan Mazda now continues its development of the world’s first dual-fuel rotary engine, the H2RE (Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE). The new facility will store and supply fuel for the hydrogen-rotary powered vehicles and Mazda looks likely to have street-legal versions in use within the next two years.
The novel concept appeared as part of the Mazda display at the International Detroit Motor Show in January, and builds on the colossal worldwide success of the Mazda RX-8 four-door coupe. The H2RE is powered by a modified version of Mazda's award-winning RENESIS rotary engine and features an electronically controlled hydrogen direct injection system on the rotor housing.
The hydrogen/rotary combination also offers superior environmental performance - zero CO2 emissions and near zero NOx emissions. The innovative engine can be built reliably at a relatively low cost because existing parts and production facilities are utilized. More importantly, the hydrogen/gasoline dual fuel system will enable the H2RE to travel beyond the range of the few hydrogen filling stations now available.
Mazda will continue to develop this technology for practical use and for a hydrogen-fuelled society of the future.
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About The Author
Jenny McLane is a 36 year old native of Iowa and has a knack for research on cars and anything and everything about it. She works full time as a Market Analyst for one of the leading car parts suppliers in the country today.
How sweet: Revolutionary process points to sugar-fueled cars
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American Chemical Society
NEW ORLEANS, April 9, 2008 — Chemists are describing development of a “revolutionary” process for converting plant sugars into hydrogen, which could be used to cheaply and efficiently power vehicles equipped with hydrogen fuel cells without producing any pollutants.
The process involves combining plant sugars, water, and a cocktail of powerful enzymes to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide under mild reaction conditions. They reported on the system, described as the world’s most efficient method for producing hydrogen, at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The new system helps solve the three major technical barriers to the so-called “hydrogen economy,” researchers said. Those roadblocks involve how to produce low-cost sustainable hydrogen, how to store hydrogen, and how to distribute it efficiently, the researchers say.
“This is revolutionary work,” says lead researcher Y.-H. Percival Zhang, Ph.D., a biochemical engineer at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. “This has opened up a whole new direction in hydrogen research. With technology improvement, sugar-powered vehicles could come true eventually.”
While recognized a clean, sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, hydrogen production is expensive and inefficient. Most traditional commercial production methods rely on fossil fuels, such as natural gas, while innovations like microbial fuel cells still yield low levels of hydrogen. Researchers worldwide thus are urgently looking for better way to produce the gas from renewable resources.
Zhang and colleagues believe they have found the most promising hydrogen-producing system to date from plant biomass. The researchers also believe they can produce hydrogen from cellulose, which has a similar chemical formula to starch but is far more difficult to break down.
In laboratory studies, the scientists collected 13 different, well-known enzymes and combined them with water and starches. Inside a specially designed reactor and under mild conditions (approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit), the resulting broth reacted to produce only carbon dioxide and hydrogen with no leftover pollutants.
The method, called “in vitro synthetic biology,” produced three times more hydrogen than the theoretical yield of anaerobic fermentation methods. However, the amount of hydrogen produced was still too low for commercial use and the speed of the reactions isn’t optimal, Zhang notes.
The researchers are now working on making the system faster and more efficient. One approach includes looking for enzymes that work at higher temperatures, which would speed hydrogen production rates. The researchers also hope to produce hydrogen from cellulose, which has similar chemical formula to starch, by replacing several enzymes in the enzyme cocktail.
Zhang envisions that one day people will be able to go to their local grocery store and buy packets of solid starch or cellulose and pack it into the gas tank of their fuel-cell car. Then it’s a pollution-free drive to their destination — cheaper, cleaner, and more efficiently than even the most fuel-stingy gasoline-based car. And unlike cars that burn fossil fuel, the new system would not produce any odors, he says. Also, such a system will be safe because the hydrogen produced is consumed immediately, the researcher notes.
Alternatively, the new plant-based technology could even be used to develop an infrastructure of hydrogen-filling stations or even home-based filling stations, Zhang says. But consumers probably won’t be able to take advantage of this automotive technology any time soon: He estimates that it may take as many as 8 to 10 years to optimize the efficiency of the system so that it is suitable for use in vehicles.
A scaled-down version of the same technology could conceivably be used to create more powerful, longer lasting sugar batteries for portable music players, laptops, and cell phones, Zhang says. That advance could take place in as few as 3 to 5 years, the researcher estimates.
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The study, which is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science of Virginia Tech, is a collaborative project between Va. Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.
The American Chemical Society — the world’s largest scientific society — is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
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