Simplified Guide to Hybrid Cars

In my last post I discussed petroleum and established that a large percent of our petroleum goes into gasoline for our vehicles. Now hopefully your common sense if kicking in here and you’re realizing that all these vehicles are making quite an impact on this issue of global warming (and even if we decide there is still no such thing as global warming this is still making a negative impact on the environment). So the question now is- What do we do about this? And the answerer seems to be A) stop driving and use alternative means of transportation (this is not likely to happen in today’s society) or B) the all new idea of this magical thing called a hybrid car.
Now if you’re anything like me (which I’m sure there is a large percent of the population that is) you know little to nothing about cars. I am a teenage girl in today’s world. My main area of interest is am I having a good hair day, how do these jeans make my butt look, and yes of course a lot of my focus goes into this wonderful blog because yes I do have an original intelligent thought in my head on occasion. So with this said, I know nothing about cars. I have people around me to take care of that ( my father tells me I better marry a real man because ill need someone to change my oil and light bulbs for me when I get older, guess he’s kinda right in that sense). Now if I know nothing of cars how do I go about (or even really care about) getting an environmentally friendly car?
This is the point of my post today- the basic functions of a hybrid car and why I want one.

1) What does hybrid even mean? Any vehicle that combines two or more sources of power that can directly or indirectly provide propulsion power is a hybrid. From the little research I’ve done so far I’m finding that most hybrid cars seem to go on a combination of electricity and gasoline.

2) What’s the point of all these new technology just for some car? It’s simple really, to reduce tailpipe emissions and to improve mileage.

3) Are there different types of Hybrids? Yes there are. The two basics are Parallel Hybrid and Series Hybrid
“The first, known as a parallel hybrid, has a fuel tank that supplies gasoline to the engine and a set of batteries that supplies power to the electric motor.”
“In the Series Hybrid the gasoline engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the batteries or power an electric motor that drives the transmission. Thus, the gasoline engine never directly powers the vehicle.”

4) Is there a major price difference between Hybrids and Conventional cars? Now because Hybrids are a newer technology they do run a bit more expensive than there gas guzzling relatives, generally for a brand new car anywhere from $2000 to $10,000 more. However the idea behind this that in a few years you’ll earn that money back in the gas that you won’t have to continue to buy. Now I’ll admit I have not done enough research to guarantee that this will hold true but I honestly believe that sometimes it worth it to go the extra mile (no pun intended there) to do a little good for the earth.
Ok so in my book this is all that really matters. If you go anymore in depth with cars you tend to lose mean my goal here is to dumb things down, meaning if I don’t understand it, I’m probably not gonna try to explain it to you. There is really only one other question I can think of that would every really cross my mind, which is…

5) Are Hybrid cars decent looking (because I mean come on, nobody wants to drive around in some clunky granny looking car)? In my research I have found quite a few very decent looking Hybrid cars. I now know that I would quite like to drive a Toyota Highlander. I think it looks quite nice and hey it’s better for the environment.
I hope I’ve encouraged you to consider looking into investing in a hybrid car next time you find yourself strolling through the car dealership parking lot. In you want to do a little of your own research I would suggest the website http://www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car.htm