Hybrid Cars.....My technical Side

As if to answer what 2008 will bring in the world of green motoring, the global price of oil passed the symbolic mark of $100 per barrel in early January. Oil is not going to last for more than 50 years seeing the current usage statistics and the natural gas is bound to be extinguished in about 100 years. The fossil fuels can produce up to 6.3 billion liters and it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount so there is a net increase of 3.2 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year. This contributes excessively to Global Warming. There is the need for application of better and smarter technology keeping the global prospective in mind. We are experimenting with Bio-diesel engines, CNG, LPG, hybrids, electric cars, fuel cell cars.
There are only philosophies floating around these days and no concrete ideology is accepted to be the savior of the future. From CRDi engines we are moving to SIDi engines (Spark Ignition Direct Injection).The small sector market is the largest in India with the Alto being the largest selling car in 2007.Recently the Suzuki company developed a 660cc Turbo-engine for the mini sized car. The present technologies, seem to provide a temporary solution and hybrids excel in this front in most places around the world.
The hybrid car market in the US redefined all auto economics and sold l00,000 plus cars in 2007.The Toyota Prius itself sold about 35,000 units in November 2007. There are exceptions which make the scenario more interesting. In places like Germany 40% (courtesy : Bosch statistics) of the C02 generated is from electricity generation sector. Hence using Hybrid/Electric cars does not entirely solve the purpose of reducing Global Warming everywhere. All car batteries are conventional lead acid batteries. They worry that a hybrid utopia might turn into a toxic nightmare where the nickel metal hydride batteries in today's hybrids end up in landfills. However a running horse produces the same amount of CO2 as that produced by an automobile (courtesy: SAE confrence in Delhi 2008) so some analysts say that exhaust fumes do not contribute a lot to Global Warming. Hybrid cars is a not a revolutionary idea but is does have a very good sense of application and is most apt in the current affairs. What goes on under the hood to give you 20 or 30 more miles per gallon than the standard automobile?