The hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) are the special types of vehicles that make use of two things together, i.e. conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) and an electric propulsion system, which together help in achieving fuel efficiency as compared to any other vehicle. The degree of efficiency and improvement provided by the HEVs depend on the degree and the type of propulsion systems they make use of. The engineers have succeeded in adding several additional features such as special breaking etc. for making sure that these vehicles provide high fuel efficiency and effectiveness.
The HEVs are being widely used all over the world and its usage will keep increasing every day. There are various ways in which these vehicles can be classified and these classifications are all discussed below.
One common way of classifying the hybrid electric vehicles is on the basis of the power that is supplied to the drive-train of the vehicle. The first vehicle is known as the parallel hybrid, wherein the wheel gets special power from the ICE, as well as the electric motor that are both connected to the mechanical transmission. These parallel hybrid cars are shown to be much more efficient than the ones that are non-hybrid and are suitable for highway and urban style usage and running.
There is another series of vehicles known as the series hybrids, wherein only the electric motor is used for supplying power to the drive-train. The batteries are shown to be rechargeable. These cars are less efficient than the parallel hybrid cars but still give extremely high performance when used in cities. The combination of the parallel and series cars can also be used for increasing the overall efficiency. These cars are called the power-split hybrids. Though they are slightly more costly than the other cars, they also demonstrate higher efficiency.
While the earlier discussed classification was based on the source of power