How Hybrid Cars Work without being Plugged In

It can surprise people how a car technology can go from completely new and unfamiliar to hot stuff in a mere 10 years; but that's exactly what's happened with hybrid cars. This is a technology that's just taken over the car industry really quickly. In fact, it's been so quick that many people are still unfamiliar with how hybrid cars work really. They do get that there is a battery in there that drives the wheels at times. What they don't get is, how a hybrid can have batteries that are charged up enough to actually move the car when the car doesn't get plugged in at all. Add to this the advertising that's surrounded the new plug-in Prius that's planned for next year, and some people feel really lost in the whole hybrid jungle. Let's set the record straight now, over how hybrid cars work.

Right now, in 2011, there are almost no hybrid cars around that you would need to plug into an outlet. The reality may be a bit more complicated than that, but this should be the nice working assumption. A hybrid car, as you probably know, is basically a vehicle that primarily runs on your regular gasoline engine. What makes it more fuel-efficient than the other regular cars is the fact that it also has a large electric motor powered by a large battery pack.

Take a look at your regular car; you notice that that engine RPM meter is always running at about 1,000 RPM even if your car is at a complete standstill. Start moving ever so slowly - at about 10 miles an hour, and your engine is still plodding along at 1,000 RPM. Go at 25 mph, and your engine barely registers any difference - spinning at about 1,200 RPM. One thing’s pretty clear with a regular gasoline engine - when you're moving at low speeds, the speed at which the engine runs pretty much has nothing to do with the speed at which the wheels spin.

The thing is, all gasoline engines need to tick over at a minimum speed to keep from stalling and shutting down altogether. It would be nice if you could use an engine ticking over at 1,000 RPM for moving the vehicle along at the right speed. But when you're stuck in traffic or something, there's pretty much nothing you can do to use all that engine power.

Hybrid car engine designers know that with a regular gasoline engine, it's either "spin at 1,000 RPM or shut down altogether". There's no in-between. They chose to shut it down altogether when you wish to go at slow speeds. They felt that an electric motor would be far better suited to slow speeds. Electric motors don't have to spin at a minimum speed - they can spin as slowly as you want. So they decided to put an electric motor in their cars and install computers in there to judge how fast you want to go and then to let the motor or the gasoline engine take over smoothly from each other. This way, they have two kinds of propulsion systems in one car, each one uniquely suited to a different purpose and speed.

But you're reading this article to find out how hybrid cars work on batteries when you don't need to plug them in. Actually, this is a question that even some hybrid car dealers find a bit confusing. The answer is simple - those batteries get charged the same way the battery in a regular car gets charged - the car’s charging system does the job. When the engine runs, it spins the charger, generates current and charges the batteries.