Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Hybrid vehicles
When the first edition of this topic was written in 2003, the following statement
was made: 'More visionary companies see hybrid vehicles as viable long term
environmental solutions during the period when ICEs
1
evolve to cleaner and more
efficient power plants.' At the time of writing, some six years later, this statement
has proven correct as the following citations will illustrate. In Reference 1, Rishi
et al
. state, 'A new era is rapidly approaching in which the very definition of personal
mobility will change. Multi-modal transportation will become increasingly
common, and intelligent vehicles will cater to diverse consumer needs for informa-
tion, environmental responsibility and safety.' This was followed by an even more
provocative statement that the next 10 years will see more change than the previous
50 years. The pace of change is accelerating. This in fact is the motivation for
releasing this second edition to
Propulsion Systems for Hybrid Vehicles
.
On the topic of change and hybridized vehicles, Raskin and Shah [2] state,
'The world is on the cusp of a major transition to hybrid power vehicles, which use
highly efficient electric motors to boost the fuel efficiency of vehicles powered by
internal combustion engines.' They also qualified this statement somewhat by
stating, 'Over the last 30 years, many industries have either dramatically improved
their energy efficiency or shifted to alternative fuel sources; transportation has been
an exception.' This last comment is sobering because it illustrates just how reluc-
tant the automotive industry had been to adopt hybridization. Until recently that is.
Climate change has become a very forceful motivator for energy efficiency
and emission reductions. Informed persons across the globe are now well aware of
the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), especially
its finding that severe climate change is primarily the result of anthropogenic
emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), principally carbon dioxide (CO
2
). Severe
climate change exemplars include melting glaciers across the globe, loss of polar
ice much faster than previously thought and a host of other factors. The IPCC
estimates that it is necessary to reduce global CO
2
emissions by up to 85%, relative
to year 2000, by 2050 in order to limit global temperature rise to less than 2.4
C.
1
Internal combustion engine.
