Have you pulled your car up to the gas pump lately and been shocked by the high price of gasoline? As the pump clicked past $20 or $30, maybe you thought about trading in your car for something that gets better mileage. Or maybe you're worried that your car is contributing to the greenhouse effect.

The 2000 Honda Insight hybrid electric car
The auto industry has the technology to address these concerns. It's the hybrid car. You're probably aware of hybrid cars because they've been in the news a lot. Most automobile manufacturers have announced plans to manufacture their own versions.
How does a hybrid automobile work? What goes on under the hood to give you 20 or 30 more miles per gallon than the standard automobile? And does it pollute less just because it gets better gas mileage? In this article, we'll help you understand how this amazing technology works, and we'll even give you some tips on how to drive a hybrid car for maximum efficiency.

What Makes it a "Hybrid"?
Any vehicle is a hybrid when it combines two or more sources of power. In fact, many people have probably owned a hybrid vehicle at some point. For example, a mo-ped (a motorized pedal bike) is a type of hybrid because it combines the power of a gasoline engine with the pedal power of its rider.
Hybrid vehicles are all around us. Most of the locomotives we see pulling trains are diesel-electric hybrids. Cities like Seattle have diesel-electric buses -- these can draw electric power from overhead wires or run on diesel when they are away from the wires. Giant mining trucks are often diesel-electric hybrids. Submarines are also hybrid vehicles -- some are nuclear-electric and some are diesel-electric. Any vehicle that combines two or more sources of power that can directly or indirectly provide propulsion power is a hybrid.
The gasoline-electric hybrid car is just that -- a cross between a gasoline-powered car and an electric car.

Hybrid Performance
The key to a hybrid car is that the gasoline engine can be much smaller than the one in a conventional car and therefore more efficient. But how can this smaller engine provide the power your car needs to keep up with the more powerful cars on the road?
Let's compare a car like the Chevy Camaro, with its big V-8 engine, to our hybrid car with its small gas engine and electric motor. The engine in the Camaro has more than enough power to handle any driving situation. The engine in the hybrid car is powerful enough to move the car along on the freeway, but when it needs to get the car moving in a hurry, or go up a steep hill, it needs help. That "help" comes from the electric motor and battery -- this system steps in to provide the necessary extra power.
The gas engine on a conventional car is sized for the peak power requirement (those few times when you floor the accelerator pedal). In fact, most drivers use the peak power of their engines less than one percent of the time. The hybrid car uses a much smaller engine, one that is sized closer to the average power requirement than to the peak power.

What's Available Now?
Three hybrid cars are now available in the United States -- the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius. We will be discussing the latter two, and although both of these cars are hybrids, they are actually quite different in character.

The Honda Insight price starts around $19,570, and the Toyota Prius starts around $20,510. Both cars have a gasoline engine, an electric motor and batteries, but that is where the similarities end.
The Honda Insight, which was introduced in early 2000 in the United States, is designed to get the best possible mileage. Honda used every trick in the book to make the car as efficient as it can be. The Insight is a small, lightweight two-seater with a tiny, high-efficiency gas engine.
The Toyota Prius, which came out in Japan at the end of 1997, is designed to reduce emissions in urban areas. It meets California's super ultra low emissions vehicle (SULEV) standard. It is a four-door sedan that seats five, and the powertrain is capable of accelerating the vehicle to speeds up to 15 mph (24 kph) on electric power alone. The Prius was honored as the 2004 North American Car of the Year.