Why are electric hybrids better than gas cars?

Question

I mean, you need elecricity to use your car right? Where does most of that electricity come from? mostly likely coal/oil unclean power plants if you live in the US. So instead of you polluting, you just have power plants pollute more for you?

Answer 1

There are no plug-in hybrid cars available yet.  Currently hybrid cars recharge their batteries by several methods:

1) Regenerative braking system

2) Running the electric engine backwards when going downhill

3) Directly from the internal combustion engine

Plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles will be better than current hybrids (which are better than gas cars) for 2 reasons.

1) Our power grid is only about 52% coal burning

2) The combination of the US grid power production and electric engines are more efficient and produce far less greenhouse gas emissions.

See this discussion for further details:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 2

The electricity comes from the brakes. Cars waste around 30 to 80% of the fuel in town when they use brakes. The better of the hybrid cars have systems in place to generate electricity when the car brakes are activated.

Answer 3

actually now a days we are making electricity by the waves of the ocean.

so it is natural. but by using electric cars you are not polluting the city. regular cars will pollute everywhere you go,

but if the power is making the electricity they are only polluting one section, not everywhere.

Answer 4

most of the electricity in hybrid cars comes from hydrogen.  Also sometimes it comes from solar power.

Answer 5

you obviously dont know how Hybrids work. the electricity in hybrids comes from the car itself. it is generated when the car runs and is stored in a battery like regular cars. But when the car is idleing, it switches to the battery power so it does not use gas. because that is where combustion engines waste the most gas, while idleing. There are also cars that can combine the 2 power sources. gas and electric at the same time to give the vehicle extra power.

There are also plug in hybrids, which as you mentioned, use electricity produced in power plants. But power plants are more efficient than combustion engines at producing electricity. they are also equipped with better filters so a smaller amount of pollution is released.

Answer 6

They aren't.In fact,they can be significantly worse.Their lifespan isn't as long.The materials used are worse for the environment.Take the batteries for instance.The mining process for the nickle is bad on the environment.Do some research on the nickel mine in Canada.Then it takes so many different companies in lots of different countries to finish producing the batteries.That's lots of energy being used to ship this stuff all over the world.Then there's the recycleing woes involved with the toxic elements of the battery.This technology is just one part of the lying liberals agenda behind the global warming farce.

Answer 7

Electric hybrid cars are gas cars.  They have a built in generator which charges up the batteries and you never need to plug them in.  For city driving, they use less gasoline than a similar non-hybrid car because the gasoline engine isn't running all of the time.

Answer 8

A hybrid electric car uses energy more efficiently. All the energy comes from the gas in the tank normally.

There are bolt on kits that allow charging from mains and solar. These only save fuel over quite short distances.

The reasons they use less, is that the gas engine does not run all the time. When it does run it runs at a load where it is far more efficient. It is used to propel the car and /or drive the electric motor as a generator (to charge batteries)

Also the electric motor works as a generator when the vehicle slows (regenerative braking).  There is significant energy returned to the battery during braking. Normal gas cars loose this as heat in the brakes.

Most hybrids have a better aerodynamic shape so will use a little less energy at highway also.

Battery electric get similar advantages but draw energy from the power grid. The amount of pollution that power stations produce to supply this energy is usually less than that, the gas engine would for the same amount.

Co2 emissions are measured in Grams of co2/km in many places.

To give you an example

A corolla produces about 180 g/km

A prius (hybrid electric) produces about 106 g/km

A battery electric depends on what sort of power stations are in your grid.

If your grid were all coal fired then a similar sized battery electric would be around 110 g/km

The U.S. grid would be around 60- –70 g/ km

So while electric do transfer pollution from the exhaust to the power station, they cause much less pollution overall.

Answer 9

how a hybrid works is it uses primarily the electric motor under 35mph such as city. it also uses regenerative braking. above 35 highway the gas engine takes over when the electric motor looses efficiency.

Answer 10

Hybrids generate their own electricity.  They're more efficient than regular cars because a small gas engine runs continuously to charge their battery.  That small engine running continuously is more efficient than a large one that's always changing speed.  They also get some energy back when braking, by using their electric motors as generators.

Pure electric or hydrogen powered cars are coming.  In order for them to be most effective we need to build more electric power plants using alternative energy; nuclear, solar, wind.  But we shouldn't wit for everything to be ready before we start developing and building parts of that system.