8 Responses

1. I don’t think so because hybrid technically states the use of water. Electric vehicles on the other hand don’t use water they have a solar Panel on and they use the UV rays that the sun has and converts it to energy.

2. some hybrids are still using small petrol engines or small diesels. toyota prius and honda civic are the examples of hybrids that using petrol engines instead their electric motor.maybe,an electric car is a purely powered by electric and has no installed conventional petrol or diesel engines.

3. Trenton…you’re confused with Hydro-

   A hybrid is the combination of two or more different things, aimed at achieving a particular objective or goal.

   The general use these days of “Hybrid Vehicle”…implies a car with a smaller more fuel efficient gas engine augmented by a moderate sized Electric Motor.

   So you are right, EV’s are not considered “Hybrids” because they have only one power source.

4. A pure electric vehicle is not considered a hybrid, however a pure electric vehicle that is coupled with a trailer that produces electricity in any of a number of ways would then become a sometimes series hybrid. When the trailer is uncoupled it once again is not a hybrid vehicle.

   A Toyota Prius is a parallel hybrid and uses both the electric drive and the gasoline engine at the same time.

   Hybrid is therefore a strange term. I can have a generator in my garage and every night I can use it to charge my electric vehicle, almost like a docking station, and it is not considered a hybrid. But as soon as I put the generator on a trailer and tow it around, charging the vehicle, we consider the combination a series hybrid.

   This shows the dependent nature of an electric vehicle. A “pure” gasoline vehicle has on the other hand been a hybrid for many years… since the first electric motor was first installed to crank the engine when starting. But we never called a gasoline engine with an electric start a hybrid because there was no need to. It needed the electric start but didn’t run off of it, (except in very limited and unusual circumstances.)

5. you got it right, they use just one energy source, therefore EV’s are not hybrids.

6. The Tesla model S is an all electric but back about a year ago (I think) they promised a range extender for it making it a hybrid but I don’t see anything on the Tesla web site for that. The range extender would be a small gas motor to charge the batteries on the go. Maybe they changed the plan after finding out the batteries only take 45 minutes to charge up. Link – http://www.teslamotors.com/models/index.php

7. An EV, by definition, is not a hybrid, it is purely electric. But..

   Take an EV, and ad an on board generator and it becomes a hybrid, a “series” style hybrid, which means that one engine makes power for the next one. That’s what locomotives are. They are diesel/electric series hybrids. The chevy volt is a gas/electric series hybrid (with a big battery). If you have a set up like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0KJwa5iWTY with a pulse jet powering a ram jet, that would NOT be a series hybrid, because they are both using the same fuel source.

   That guy who strapped a rocket engine to the roof of his cadilac, and killed himself at over 400 mph, he created a hybrid, a gas/rocket “parallel” hybrid, parallel means that the power from both engines is used directly by the vehicle. the toyota prius is another example of a parallel hybrid. other examples include a moped, a motor boat with a second electric trolling motor, a space shuttle.

   A fuel cell vehicle can be considered a hybrid but it can also be considered it’s own class of vehicles. well who knows if we’ll ever see those in production cars. The upside with them is that they utilize hydrogen extremely efficiently, the down side is that they require hydrogen. a lot of people trash talk them for that reason, but the energy density of liquid hydrogen is not bad, once you get passes the production transport and refueling issues. But they do have a tremendous up side. Anyway, that’s another discussion.

   EVs are not hybrids

8. Hybrids are electric vehicles but electric vehicles are not necessarily hybrids. The word hybrid means it’s a hybrid between an electric vehicle and a conventional vehicle so it’s both and has two drive train systems.