Hybrid Cars
A few years ago, at the ripe old age of eight, I had a deep curiosity to explore anything that moves. Actually I've been like that ever since I could walk, but at the age of eight I began to research how engines work, and where fuel comes from. Once I got an explanation that satisfied me, I began to wonder if our supply of fuel will last forever, and I started to learn about other power sources. I was most interested in electric cars, but most of them have a very limited range, because the batteries do not last very long.
A few years later, when hybrid prototypes first started appearing in Popular Science, I became very interested in hybrids, and I started researching them on the internet. A hybrid engine is an engine that runs on two or more power sources. Most hybrids have a gasoline engine and an electric motor. The first gasoline-electric hybrid for sale in the United States was the Honda Insight. The Insight was introduced in 1999, and is still the hybrid that gets the best gas mileage (both city, and highway). However, the Insight was only a two-seater, and had a sci-fi sort of look to it. Toyota had also been working on a hybrid, called the Prius. The Prius is a sedan, with 5 seats, and is more traditional looking. (http://4wheeldrive.about.com/cs/buyacaronline/a/hybridcarstrucks_4.htm)
Then in 2002 Honda released a hybrid version of the Civic. This was good competition for the Prius, since it looks like a normal Civic sedan, only with a few feet less cargo room in the trunk for the battery pack. It has enough room for five people but it gets more miles on a tank of gas than the regular Civic. It is competitive with the Prius, because the Civic was already a very popular car even without the added gas mileage. (http://www.beststuff.com/articles/3877/, http://4wheeldrive.about.com/cs/buyacaronline/a/hybridcarstrucks_4.htm)
There are two types of hybrid structures. One of them is called a parallel hybrid. A...
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