Most of the news about hybrid cars came from Japan. Toyota came with their Prius while Honda came with their Insight and Civic. There are some cars from Europe as well such as BMW 320D diesel hybrid but Japan was the one to dominate the hybrid market according to the sales statistics.

The American vehicle legend was always about performance and safety. They were not much concerned about fuel efficiency. Therefore, most of the American vehicles were having a hardy metal body and huge engines which does less than 20 MPG. They survived for decades, yet could not give good competition to highly economical Japanese cars which do more than 30 MPG. The sales of American cars continued to drop for the past few years putting most of the American Automobile manufacturers in great financial danger.

However as it appears to be, Americans never gave up. For the year 2012 they introduced a new line of Yukon SUV from legendary GMC (General Motor Cars). They are having the same huge engine and maximum safety as any American vehicle has, plus considerably good fuel efficiency. And they introduced Hybrid version of GMC Yukon as well which does more than 20 MPG which is too much to hope from this metal monster and he is under today’s spotlight in Notes Of Genius.

Special Features

Exterior

Most of the previous versions of GMC SUVs were having a hardy metal look. But new Yukon is has a very smooth curved edge design. In order to improve aerodynamics they have undertaken many measures including lowered front, smooth leading edge of hood and rear spoiler. Other than that they have included light weight 18” alloy wheels with less rolling friction.

Yukon has good ground clearance and at the same time it’s having lower center of gravity which gives maximum stability and safety to the vehicle. All the air intakes are carefully placed not to disturb the smooth air flow around the vehicle to ensure the stability.

The catchiest feature in exterior is placement of lights. The main lamps are powered with Dual halogen bulbs. Other lights are also nicely designed and adds extra value to the vehicle.

Interior

Yukon Hybrid has 8 leather passenger seats with more leg space like no other SUV. This will give the ultimate conformability to the passengers and maximum safety with the 3 point seat belts. Dashboard is having a very simple design yet giving all the required information to the driver.

There is an information display in the middle of the dashboard to display the status of the hybrid controls including power flow, power ratio used, battery power remaining etc.

Engine and Transmission

GMC never seemed to like to go for a smaller engine displacement. Most of the Asian SUVs are having approximately 2.5 Engine displacements while GMC Yukon Hybrid is having 6.0 L V8 engine which gives 332 hp @ 5100 rpm. Of course this huge engine will deliver quick performance which will provide a  great driving experience with great responsive controlling.

Unlike in older versions of GMC vehicles, they are focused on fuel efficiency as well. In new Yukon Hybrid there is a technology named Active Fuel Management. This is having an algorithm to engage and disengage pistons to save fuel according to the driving conditions.

Ex: When you are accelerating, all 8 pistons will be engaged. When you are in constant cruising speed, 4 pistons will disengage since it only needs power to maintain the speed.

If you take a closer look in to the hybrid technology, the GMC Yukon hybrid is powered by 2 Mode Hybrid engine. This technology allows the engine to run on electricity, fuel or combination of both. The controlling unit will decide what the best fuel source for the condition of drive. Same as in any other hybrid vehicle Yukon Hybrid is also having Regenerative Breaks. The 300V battery which powers up the hybrid engine is placed under the 2^nd row seat.

The entire information related to hybrid engine will be displayed on the above mentioned information display in dashboard.

Yukon Hybrid comes with 6 speed hybrid automatic transmission. 4 Wheel Drive is not a standard option yet it’s available for special orders.

Hi-Tech

Yukon Hybrid is equipped with many high tech features. If you take a look in to the car’s audio and video, it’s having 9 speaker sound system with 8”display and a DVD player. There is a separate display in between rear seats as well. Adding an extra value this multimedia system supports wireless head phones for the rear seats.

In case you need to use your mobile phone while you are driving, you can connect it to car audio system using blue tooth connectivity and then it works as a hands free system.

Yukon Hybrid comes with lots of other sophisticated features such as rear view camera, GPS navigation system and touch sensitive display.

Why You Should Go For GMC Yukon Hybrid?

Safety

The main reason to buy GMC Yukon is its great safety features like no other Asian vehicle offers. Mainly it’s having a solid metal body and sub frame to ensure safety in a collision. It’s having 360 degrees safety which comes from air bag system covering not only front, but sides and other areas. There is a children safety seat as well. As additional safety system there is an intelligent breaking assistant, tyre pressure monitor and parking assist.

This is one major factor that GMC vehicles are still here in the automobile market though they have very low mileage compared to Japanese vehicles. No Japanese vehicle can ensure the safety that GMC vehicle can offer its passengers. Therefore, people who are willing to pay extra to get that level of safety still go for GMC regardless of the very low mileage.

Performance

Another reason to buy a GMC Yukon Hybrid is its power. It’s giving 332 hp from its 6.0 L V8 engine. There are very few SUVs which will give that kind of power to your drive. And this power will give you a nice driving experience since driving controllers are snappy responsive. To control this iron monster there is a 4 wheel anti-lock disk brakes system.

With all these power, Yukon Hybrid can accelerate 0-60 mph within 8.1 seconds.

Fuel Efficiency

If safety and performance are your concerns of course you cannot expect that vehicle to be highly economical. Most of the previous versions of Yukon were doing less than 15 MPG. Still most of the people who bought Yukon were happy with it when it comes to other great features it offered.

The new GMC Yukon Hybrid is doing 20 MPG in city driving conditions according to its specification which gives you fairly economical drive in this huge vehicle. In a Highway, a Yukon hybrid will do 23 MPG.

No matter what, these huge metal monsters are having very a limited market due to global economical conditions. Most of the countries who used to buy GMC vehicles such as Saudi Arabia are  also now going for economical Japanese vehicles. Even in USA Japanese vehicles, especially hybrid vehicles sales are sky rocketing because they are doing more that 40 MPG.

If GMC want to compete in this market, they have to scale down their vehicles to meet the general requirement of the automobile users. But as it appears they are not willing to go on that track. They still believe in huge vehicles with huge engines. Hope this hybrid version of Yukon will give them a hope to survive in automobile market and continue their ledged started from 1908.

Energy Transformation and Usage

The way that it uses energy is the main success factor in Hybrid Electric Vehicles. It goes in as few steps which mentioned below.

• Start: it take the first move with electric motor. Only when vehicle started moving it ignites the fossil fuel engine. This saves lots of fossil fuel in many ways. Primarily, it saves fuel required to initial acceleration. Then it start ignition while engines components are moving and that will save lots of startup energy required, again saves fuel.

• Accelerate: When the vehicle is moving at a normal speed, it starts giving more fuel power. This will result it smooth initial acceleration which will add extra color to vehicle other than fuel consumption.  When the vehicle required more power and need more acceleration transmission will gradually give more weight to fuel engine automatically.

• High Speeds: When the vehicle is moving in a good speed, may be in a motorway, the transmission lean more toward fuel engine. In such a situation, very less amount of fuel needs to be burned to keep the speed. Further, most of the hybrid vehicles are designed very carefully to gain maximum advantage from aerodynamics.

• Braking: Generally braking will transform kinetic energy to thermal energy and potential energy in front suspension. In other words it takes the entire power off the vehicles to stop it. But, hybrid vehicles are having a generator. Whenever vehicle breaks, it comes to picture and transforms kinetic energy back to electrical energy, then store in batteries. That’s how most of the hybrid vehicles do great millage in city stop-n-go type driving conditions.

• Stopping: When you ready to stop the vehicles and once you reach a certain lower speed, it completely shut down fuel engine. Again it stops while it’s moving and it saves significant amount of fuel which might come out from exhaust, might be half burnt.  Other than fuel saving, it will give a smooth stop and parking again adds color to vehicle and delivers excellent comfortable driving experience.

Advantages

Drive Green

The main attraction in hybrid vehicles is their lesser environmental impact. They emit carbon approximately 40% lower than a traditional internal combustion engine which is really great. And we are dealing with millions of motor cars, so even a smaller change will be reflected big in the long run. However, the contribution from the Hybrid Electric vehicles is huge and significant. When there is increased number of them on the roads, we will feel the difference very clearly. Additionally, they generate much lesser noise than traditional internal combustion engine and that also could be considered as major contribution to ‘Live green’ concept. In near future our roads will be much lesser nosier than they are now, thanks to Hybrid electric vehicles.

Lesser Fuel Consumption

Then comes, the next major factor which is fuel consumption level. No matter how environmentalist try to make people see, what we are doing to environment and how it will back fire on us, There are very few people who understand that and try to contribute to make a change. But, we have limited fossil fuel supply. At this rate it won’t even last for, no more than 100 years. That will hit every one, affect every one unlike the environmental impact, it’s clearly accountable, in numbers. Hybrid vehicles will be our savior in there as well. As long as they consume fuel almost half of general internal combustion engine, we will have fossil fuel for significant number of more years which is cool. After all it will be good for your pocket as well!

Smooth Driving Experience

Hybrid vehicles give more, but take less. It’s not just about carbon emission, live green etc. It will give you better comfortable driving experience as well. Unlike in traditional internal combustion engines, these are not totally based on pistons. Most of the situations, they will be powered by motor as well as Fuel. So obviously, engine vibration will be lesser. If you drive only with motor, when you just start the car and going to park, there will be almost no noise or vibrations. Other than that most of the latest hybrid cars are good with aerodynamics, so it will add extra comfort to high speed drives.

Market Statistics

Toyota Prius with a Power Split hybrid engine is the top selling hybrid Electric car in US and Japan. It reached global 2 million sales by 2010. The second most selling hybrid car is Honda Civic powered with parallel hybrid engine. They hit 300,000 units’ sales in 2010. Ford also in the picture and they have done around 150, 000 units by 2010. As you can see, Toyota is leading the game and way ahead from all the others.

When it comes to countries Japan is the country that uses most number of Hybrid vehicles by 2010. Almost half of the worlds’ hybrid cars are in Japan. Then comes USA and they have approximately 40% of world Hybrid cars.

Recently most of the countries reduce or totally remove import taxes for Hybrid vehicles having the objective of motivate people to buy them to protect environment as well as save fossil fuel. This huge demand made a direct impact to car auction in Japan mainly. The car prices went up rapidly by nearly 50% in last 6 months. This trend is more likely to continue for some time. At the same time manufactures are continuously introducing new models with latest technological advancements.

Future Development

Future of hybrid cars is very important, to entire human civilization. It saves the main source of power which was using for centuries to empower most of our technological advancements. Most probably, human technology will be focused on sustainable energy in future. As a sign, latest Hybrid cars are having solar panel to recharge the batteries.

In Hybrid Electric vehicle development, scientists are trying different types of fuels. BMW has already proved that diesel is better than gasolier in hybrid engines. So Diesel hybrid could be a next big trend. Other than that people are looking in to cleaner energy like Hydrogen. In that case it could be used to generate electricity using Hydrogen fuel cell as well as in an internal combustion engine.  Once technology develops to generate Hydrogen with lesser cost, we will be able to say good bye to ‘Fossil fuel’ with these advancement of Hybrid vehicles.

Major environmental impact which led world weather condition to this state is ‘Carbon Emission’ Most of the developed countries emit scary amount of carbon per year, with their industrial machinery. Not just that, entire countries emit massive amount of carbon every day as a result of transportation based of fossil fuel. There were lots of global concepts came to picture to minimize these environmental impact, like ‘carbon trading’ but none succeeded since there were lesser support from world’s biggest carbon emitting countries.

Even though we don’t mind emitting carbon, fossil fuel are very limited and the regeneration process will take centuries. At the current state we are burning them in a rate which might be many 1000s times greater than their regeneration. So we are in a mission to save fossil fuel as well as the environment.

Hybrid car technology is an angel came to save the world environment and entire human civilization by minimizing carbon emission in transpiration mechanisms. The name hybrid came since those engines are using two types of energy sources. They were using in industry machinery, Ari crafts, naval vehicles, heavy transportation vehicles as well as domestic vehicles. The Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) became popular with domestic vehicles and became an exponential trend in past few years.

Bit of History

The concept of hybrid vehicle was there in the academic world for so long. But, proposed mechanisms were too complex to implement and no good enough for domestic usage. When it comes to Hybrid Electric Vehicles, the major concern was its battery. It was too costly to replace and most of the cases not capable of holding enough power for decent long distance drive.

Technology continues to evolve for decades and as a result Japan produced world’s very first Hybrid Electric vehicle which was Toyota Prius back in 1997. Then Honda also came to the competition with their Civic in 1999. Those vehicles were having great fuel consumption as good as 50 MPG even in that time. However, there were performance issues as well as major issues with batteries.

Lots of vehicle manufactures came in to the competition, yet Toyota and Honda was the leading top sellers all the time. There was very advanced technologies introduced by Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, but they didn’t go much in to pubic manly due to their high cost. Most of the above mentioned issues were resolved and in 2004 there was 200, 000 Hybrid car sales in USA and in 2010 it went up to 1, 800, 000 displaying its great success.

Types of Hybrid Engines

Parallel Hybrid Engines

In these engines both the internal combustion engine and Electric motor is connected to transmission. Vehicle may be using internal combustion engine or power of electric power to depending on driving condition. Sometimes it might use the both. It uses regenerative braking to transform kinetic energy back to electric energy. Further they are capable of generate power from internal combustion engine and store them in batteries. Most of the case those vehicles are having smaller motor and batteries since they are not suppose to drive only with motor. They perform good in highways as well as city drives in traffic.

Series Hybrid Engine

They uses internal combustion engine only to generate power and store them in a battery. The drive will be only powered by batteries and deliver maximum comfortable smooth drive. They have smaller internal combustion engine and bigger battery and motor, you can guess why. They also support regenerative braking, so do well in city driving in traffic. However, they come with greater market price due to their bigger motor and battery.

Power Split Hybrid Engine

This is the most popular and most balanced type of hybrid engine. The magic is they can drive with motor and internal combustion engine, either, both or proportionality like in parallel hybrid. Yet, they can generate power from internal combustion engine and drive with only motor as well, like Series hybrid. Hence, they can select the most efficient mechanism depending on driving conditions. As an example, they can switch to parallel mode in high speeds since they are good with high speeds. And they can go to series mode, in low speed as well. Plus, they have regenerative breaks like in other models.

Obviously, this must be having average, size internal combustion engine as well as a battery and motor. They come with average price, higher than pure parallel engines, yet much lower than pure series engines. The top selling Hybrid car in the world, which is Toyota Prius is powered with a power split Hybrid engine, and now you can see why it became the top selling car.

Engine Components

Internal Combustion Engine

This is traditional type of internal combustion engine which transforms fossil fuel in to kinetic energy using pistons. They empowered our autos for century and still there in hybrid engines as well. However, in this application they will be using in very optimum way, burning minimum amount of fossil fuel. They are used to generate electric power and drive in high speed.

Electric Motor

Electric motor power mainly in low speed drives and yet supports the internal combustion engine in acceleration in high speed drives. It converts electric energy in batteries to kinetic energy, then transfer them to vehicle through its transmission. Some of the Hybrid cars provide a ‘Zero Emission Mode’ which driver can select only the electric motor to power up the drive. This might be useful to drive your car in to ‘No Carbon Emission Zones’.

Generator

This is one of the magical concepts in hybrid engines. Generally, when braking, the kinetic energy in vehicle will be taken out as thermal energy and potential energy in suspension. But, hybrid engines can’t just waste energy like that. It uses this generator to convert the kinetic energy back to electric energy when braking and store them back on batteries. This called as ‘Regenerative Braking’.

Fuel Tank and Batteries

As usual, same as in traditional cars fuel tank will provide required fuel type to internal combustion engine. The battery pack will be there to power up electric motor whenever it required. Additionally, internal combustion engine may be recharging batteries. Plus, regenerative braking also will be re charging batteries when the vehicle brakes.

Transmission

The transmission has to be very special and somewhat complex since it has to handle two source of power. Basically it uses general transmission mechanism with clutch and all. Yet, it will be using variable transmission ratio to make it more efficient and cope up with different driving conditions, by selecting optimum source of energy for the situation. However, in the Parallel and series hybrid vehicles, transmission will be much similar to traditional transmission, yet in Power split hybrid must have much more complex mechanism, in order to select the optimum power source as well as power ratio.

Solar Panels

This is anotehr magical concepts in Hybrid Electric vehicles. Most of the time vehicle will be driving and parking in broad day light and why not convert it in to electric energy and store in batteries. In order to do that some special version of HEVs are having Solar panels, mostly in sun roof and rear windscreen. They are suppose to pump more electric power to batteries which will definitely lead to less carbon fuel burning,

Continue to Part 2…

Engine and Power Supply

It has an Engine Power of 111 kW (149 hp) electric motor and 1.4 L 4-cylinder for powering 53 kW (71 hp) generator. For up to the first 64 km (40miles) the Volt will be powered by electricity, which is charged in lithium-ion batteries that charged from an electrical power outlet. After 64 km, a small 4-cylinder gasoline internal combustion engine creates electricity on-board using a 53 kW (71 hp) generator to extend the Volt’s range to more than 300 miles (483 km). The electrical power from the generator is sent to either the electric motor or the batteries, depending on the state of charge (SOC) of the battery pack and the power demanded at the wheels.

The Model

The Chevrolet Volt has four doors with a rear lift gate and can be seated for four passengers. In addition, the top speed has also been increased from the electronically 134 km/h to 160 km/h. The battery pack size has also been reduced from 300L to 100L. The design model first revealed to the public on September 16, 2008. The lithium-ion battery technology in which the cathode contains the lithium has a large impact in determining the success of the car.

Efficient Fuel Consuming

If the batteries are fully charged, without any other fuel supplies, the Volt can travel less than 64 km trips using only the stored electricity in lithium-ion batteries. Once the Volt’s battery has discharged to the estimated 30% lower State of Charge (SoC) limit, the engine starts and supplies power to the electric motor to continue driving the car and maintain the battery charge at 30%.

The Smart Phone Application For The Chevy Volt

General Motors has unveiled an application, which has successfully developed by the OnStar for Chevrolet Volt drivers that will let them remotely control the whole car in their Blackberry, iPhone or Motorola Droid in the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on 05^th of January 2010.

Drivers can communicate with their Volt using the OnStar’s Mobile Application with the real-time data connection to perform number of tasks. The OnStar application has offered a wide range of interaction and control, which has never offered on any electric vehicle before. The features including:

• Display charge status
• Schedule time for charge or notify to charge
• Display battery charge level in percentage
• Notify via text messages to drivers to plug in their vehicle when the battery level is low
• Status reports
• Warming up or cooling the vehicle before getting in
• Showing miles per gallon, EV miles and miles driven for last trip and lifetime

The president of the OnStar Walt Dorfstatter has stated  that “The Chevrolet Volt ushers in a new era of automotive technology and calls for a new level of connectivity and control, Nearly 6 million vehicles on the road today use OnStar to stay connected, and our new Smartphone app will make that even easier for Volt drivers.”

OnStar servers are the intermediary between the OnStar application and the Volt. The application has the communication facility with the OnStar servers. Because of the OnStar’s real-time data connection, it helps drivers maximize the environmental benefits owning a Volt. Using the power from the grid, the driver can remotely start the Volt to pre-condition the interior temperature. It saves the battery charge for long driving.

Volt drivers can also view and manage vehicle systems and commands from the vehicle, the Internet or through a monthly OnStar Vehicle Diagnostic e-mail. Traditional OnStar features such as door lock, unlock and remote horn and lights-typically accessible only through a call to an OnStar center-will be available via the application.

Currently the application works on the Apple iPhone, Motorola Droid and Blackberry Storm, and General Motors says it also will be available on a mobile browser for other Smartphones. The demo application can be downloaded from iTunes store for Apple iPhone and for Motorola Droid and Blackberry Storm the application available at OnStarMobileDemo.com. Initial sales of the Chevy Volt, scheduled for production in late 2010 and the price have estimated to $40,000.

References

• (n.d). Retrieved January 2010 from hybridcars.com: http://www.hybridcars.com/news/gm-unveils-chevy-volt-smartphone-application-26402.html
• (n.d). Retrieved January 2010 from egmcartech.com: http://www.egmcartech.com/2010/01/06/chevrolet-volt-smartphone-app-lets-you-control-things-from-your-iphone-storm-dorid/
• (n.d). Retrieved January 2010 from wired.com: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/2010/01/volt_smartphone_app.jpg
• (n.d). Retrieved January 2010 from wired.com: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/chevrolet-volt-gets-an-iphone-app/