Hybrid Cars

The upcoming hybrid cars available in India 2024 are Volt, C X75 and i3.

The Popular hybrid cars in India are are Toyota Taisor, Maruti Grand Vitara and Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder

A hybrid car is essentially a middle ground between cars powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) and pure electric vehicles (EVs) that use only a battery and an electric motor. A hybrid car houses a regular engine like all ICE cars while also featuring a small battery pack and an electric motor, which comes into action during low speeds or less stress conditions. They can be driven by either the engine or the motor; or combined. Meanwhile, EVs have a large battery pack and no combustion engine at all. EVs are powered only by the battery pack, which is charged using electricity. Most hybrids sold in India use self-charging technology and don’t require to be plugged in, unlike electric cars and plug-in hybrids. The Honda City e:HEV and Maruti Grand Vitara are examples of hybrid vehicles while there isn’t a single plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) in India as of now. Some examples of EVs are the Tata Tiago EV, Kia EV6 and Audi e-tron SUV.

The 3 major drawbacks of hybrid cars are:
(i). Expensive to own due to the maintenance cost of the battery pack and powertrain compared to EVs, as the latter don/'t feature any mechanical components.
(ii). They are not as environmentally friendly as electric cars because they consist of a combustible engine, which adds to the pollution.
(iii). No incentives/subsidies on hybrid cars yet unlike EVs in India.

Hybrid cars are less polluting than pure internal combustion engines (ICE) cars, and don/'t have the infrastructural challenges as faced by EV owners with regards to charging stations. They can run in pure EV mode at low loads and offer significantly more overall fuel economy, reducing fuel consumption all around. The battery pack is recharged by regenerative braking and also by any excess energy produced by the engine.

There are three types of hybrid options: mild-, strong- and plug-in hybrids. While all three come with a battery pack and an electric motor on board, their battery packs vary in capacity depending on the type of hybrid chosen. It’s the mild-hybrid setup here which consists of the lowest voltage battery unit. The mild-hybrid’s battery-motor setup is used to only power the electrical components of a vehicle and to assist the engine in start/stop scenarios. It can also provide a small torque boost during acceleration at low engine speeds but cannot operate the vehicle in a ‘battery-only’ power and ‘zero-emissions’ mode. A strong-hybrid, on the other hand, powers the car using an electric motor during short distances while juicing up its battery by using either the engine or through regenerative braking. Plug-in hybrids, as the name says, can be recharged by plugging them into a home charging plug or by a public charger. They fit in between strong-hybrid vehicles (which get self-charging tech) and fully electric vehicles (which need to be plugged in).