Hybrid Car

All-Electric Cars’ the new Hybrid

Plenty of manufacturers now offer Hybrids - some based on licensed Toyota technology - but the real action, they say, is in the next generation of all-electric vehicles, which will do away with petrol altogether. A string of announcements has cemented all-electric cars’ status as the next big thing. In the latest, Mitsubishi Motors and Peugeot said yesterday they might co-operate on development of electric-vehicle power trains.

Yozo Hasegawa, author of Clean Car Wars, says all-electrics might indeed push Hybrids into obsolescence - though probably not for a decade at least. More to the point, the carmakers trumpeting all-electrics the loudest won’t necessarily rule the market for them. “They came late to Hybrids and are hoping electrics will be a leapfrog technology,” he says. Would-be leapers include Mitsubishi, Nissan-Renault and General Motors, all of which have electrics in development. But they will eventually have to go head-to-head with Toyota and Honda, the second-most successful hybrid maker.

The pair have been quiet about their all-electric plans - neither has an interest in speeding Hybrids‘ exit, after all - but will bring serious technology to the segment. Koji Endo, analyst at Credit Suisse, agrees: “If Toyota and Honda want to move into all-electric cars it will be relatively easy. An electric car is just a hybrid with the gas tank removed.”

Honda Introduces India’s first hybrid car

Honda Siel Cars launches India’s first hybrid car. The car, according to the company, is 47 per cent more fuel efficient than the Honda Civic petrol car. The retail price of the car in Delhi is Rs 21.5 lakh.

Honda Siel cars plans to sell about a few hundred for 2008. The car is a
combination of a petrol engine and an electic motor. At high speeds, the
petrol engine work while at idling or at traffic signal, the electric motor works. The Honda Civic hybrid car features a three stage iVTEC IMA.

Economic Impact and Foreign hybrid car Use

Hybrid cars make sense: they use less petrol and produce less emissions, saving precious fossil fuels and reducing their impact on the environment.

But if Australians plan to buy them to save money, they could be disappointed.

The models currently on sale on the local market, and those set to be sold here in the next few years, all sell at a premium price.

And, even with petrol prices skyrocketing, when compared with small, conventionally powered vehicles, they still lag behind in total running costs.

The cheapest hybrid available in Australia sells for more than $35,000.

Compare that with a smaller, four-cylinder car, which retails for well under $20,000, the savings in petrol costs need to be significant for the sums to add up.

At present they’re not, with a hybrid likely to return a fuel economy figure of between four and five litres per 100 kilometres compared with about six or seven litres for its smaller rival.

At current petrol prices that would mean a saving in petrol costs of about $6,500 over the 200,000km life of an average car.

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