Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Crash avoidance is related to both technology and design.
Antilock brakes allow a panic stop without an uncon-
trolled skid, while a high center-of-mass, like some SUVs
have,
rst
improves avoidance ability while the second increases risk.
increases the tendency to roll over. The
Aggressivity is more than just looks. If you look at the
SUVs and pickup trucks on the road used as passenger
vehicles, you will see that some have low bumpers that
match those on cars while some have high ones. The
high one will override the bumpers of a car in a colli-
sion and thereby do much more damage. There is no
standard that prevents the sale of these killer vehicles.
They have a high aggressivity.
The ICCT report concludes that there is no direct rela-
tion between safety and size as long as you are talking about
vehicles that do not differ in weight by too much. There is
no doubt about who will come off worst in a collision
between a passenger vehicle and a large highway truck.
Plug-in Hybrid and All-Electric Vehicles
The success of hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius has
led to an effort to go much further with the technology by
starting with a battery that has enough charge to get the
driver through a short trip without using any gasoline.
These are called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles or
PHEVs. Battery driving range runs from about
miles
for the PHEV version of the Prius to
miles for the
Chevy Volt. For longer trips the vehicle reverts to the
normal hybrid mode running on gasoline with the effi-
-
ciency gains typical of a hybrid. If you have the PHEV
