The soaring oil prices and the rising level of awareness among the masses regarding the rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions are compelling many car makers to switch over to innovative technologies like Bio-fuel or Electric Vehicle(EV) or the hybrid vehicles.
Hybrid vehicles are literally the combined technology of internal combustion engine(powered by gasoline, diesel, compressed natural gas, hydrogen, or other fuels) and electric setups.
Both the features are used to drive the same engine.
This is done by adding an electric motor and rechargeable batteries to the conventional gas engine which may increase the efficiency by as much as 50 percent.
But the switching between these two will be controlled by the Electronic Controller Units(ECUs).
There are three types of hybrid cars; the parallel hybrid, series hybrid and both.
In a parallel hybrid car, the both the internal combustion engine and an electric motor generates the energy to drive the car.
whereas in a series hybrid, the internal petrol engine either directly powers an electric motor that powers the vehicle or charges batteries that will power the motor.
In Series-parallel hybrids it has the flexibility to operate in either series or parallel mode.
As a result, they are more efficient overall, because they can operate as a series hybrid at lower speeds and as parallel at high speeds, but their cost is higher than a pure parallel.
This technology has to compromise with the "power" generated compared to the conventional vehicles.
So thus these cars have small internal combustion engines, and produce much less pollution than standard internal combustion engines.
Generally they produce between 60-90 horsepower, while the conventional internal combustion engine probably produces about the double.
These cars are constructed with ultra lightweight materials like carbon fiber or aluminum and are extremely aerodynamic.