What's Up With Hybrid Vehicles?
By Diane Nassy, Tue Dec 6th

b>What’s up with Hybrid Vehicles?

By Diane Nassy

If the price of gasoline has got you scared, and you’re thinkingabout maybe trading in your car for a moped, you’ve got half thesolution right. It might be time to trade in your car, butforget the moped – get a hybrid car instead.

The dictionary defines the word hybrid as: Offspringresulting from breeding between parents of two differentspecies, and that’s a good definition for our purposes.That’s because a hybrid car has a power plant that’s a crossbetween a gasoline powered engine and an electric motor.

What’s the big deal about hybrid cars?

The automobile industry claims that a hybrid car can give you asmuch as 20 to 30 miles per gallon more performance than astandard gasoline engine. That means that you buy less gasoline,and buying less gasoline leaves more money in your pocket.You’ll need that extra money, however, because arestill relatively expensive compared to traditionalgasoline-powered cars. As more are sold,manufacturing prices will drop, and that drop will be seen inthe selling price.

How does a hybrid car save gasoline?

In a typical automobile, the engine is connected to thetransmission via a mechanical link called the drivetrain. When the engine’s sparkplugs fire, they ignitegasoline vapor which pushes a piston up and down. This pistonmovement gets transferred to the transmission via the drivetrain. The transmission turns the wheels and the car goes downthe road.

Well, the hybrid car is almost exactly

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