Can offroaders and SUV enthusiasts live without fossil fuel and the internal combustion engine (ICE)? It looks as if our answer is closer than anyone would have imagined. Update your acronym dictionary and add this one to your vocabulary: HEVor Hybrid Electric Vehicle. It's time to trade in the roar of the internal combustion engine for the hum of the electric motor.
Hybrid Technology In SUVs
HEV technology is already in automobiles like the Honda Insight, a $20,000 two-seat hybrid coupe. Honda will also have hybrid power as an option on its Civic and the CR-V SUV. In '03, Ford's Escape will feature a hybrid electric engine that will double the fuel mileage and greatly reduce emissions. The Ford Explorer is slated to become an HEV in '05.
Now I used to think that I was cool
Running around on fossil fuel
Until I saw what I was doing
Was driving down the road to ruin
Traffic Jam- James Taylor 1977
Since the gas shortages of the 70's, Americans wondered if they could ever break their reliance on fossil fuels. Now the budget busting high prices of the new millennium and energy shortages along the west coast have brought our reliance back to the forefront. Will consumers accept HEVs? What price will gasoline need to rise to before HEVs gain national acceptance? According to a Department of Energy report "Policy Implications of Hybrid-Electric Vehicles" (http://www.ott.doe.gov/pdfs/nevcor.pdf), petroleum imports for transportation account for 50% of the U.S. trade deficit and create significant economic costs and political risks for the U.S. But even higher fuel costs in the European and Japanese markets have only resulted in 1% of all vehicles purchased using alternative power.
Hybrid's Answer
For years, an extension cord has tethered our acceptance of electric powered vehicles. Short travel distances and recharging stations have relegated the electric car to a short commuter option, an option that consumers have not accepted. The hybrid engine may be the catalyst for broad acceptance of alternative power. The hybrid power plant offers a combination of both the ICE and electric technology.
A hybrid engine can use the ICE as either a power source for the car and/or an onboard generator to charge and recharge the vehicle's batteries. There are several types of hybrid engines that are being developed by the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (http://www.ta.doc.gov/pngv/cover/pngvcover.htm), parallel and series are the most common. In the series type, a gasoline engine drives a generator that charges the batteries that power the electric motor, which turns the wheels. Only this motor (electric) can turn the wheels. In the parallel scheme, the gasoline engine or the electric motor--or both--can turn the wheels.
