What is a Hybrid Electric Vehicle?

Hybrid vehicles have two sources of power that work in harmony together – a petrol or diesel engine and a battery-driven electric motor. Hybrids have been designed with efficiency in mind and effortlessly switch between engine power and electric power to ensure the vehicle performs in the most economical way possible.

Generally, the idea is that the electric motor takes care of the driving at low speeds or while accelerating, because that’s when a combustion engine is at its most efficient. Then, once up to speed, when the engine can run at low effort to keep things ticking along, it takes over.

The result is better fuel economy and fewer trips to the pump, which is always a good thing!

When you hear a car referred to as simply a ‘hybrid’ alone, it tends to mean that it has the capability to run on pure electric but the batteries can only be recharged through regenerative braking.

This is when motors in the wheels ‘harvest’ energy that would normally be lost when decelerating and braking and uses it to replenish the battery charge. You might have heard the term ‘self-charging hybrid’, and this is where the term comes from – you never charge the vehicle from an external source, it recharges itself through regeneration.

The positive side of a hybrid is that they’re massively more economical than a mild hybrid, because you can drive on electric only, providing there’s enough charge, and they tend to be less expensive than plug-in models.

The downside is that, because they rely on deceleration to charge, if you do a lot of motorway miles at a consistent speed, you could find the battery is dead once you get to a town where you could use EV mode.