subject: Ecological Cars - What Are They? [print this page] The care for the environment has certainly gone up on the agenda of car manufactures, with the increased consumer pressure for the development of friendlier and greener technology. By looking harder into this issue, car companies have started answering the public concern for how transportation affects the world we leave in, but are also trying to identify alternatives to the carbon based traditional fuels, which are actually responsible for the initial worry of the consumers.
Ecologic cars have been identified as partly answering both consumer demand for more eco-friendly transportation means and the issue of fossil fuel. Each main car producer has its own individual approach to the development of eco-vehicles, but the main break-through in the field came with the introduction of the hybrid engine which combines traditional internal combustion technology with a modern electric propulsion system.
Hybrid engines were introduced as early as 1997 by Japanese manufacturer Toyota - the first producer to introduce a hybrid-engine car designed for mass market and aimed at being ecologically friendly. The model was called Toyota Prius. However, the model did not enjoy the popularity the manufacturer hoped for, as traditional fuel was still cheap at the time and hybrid engine cars were quite expensive. The recent years, however, saw the hybrid engine technology being refined, and prices being brought down to a level which make it accessible for the mass usage.
Today there are three main types of hybrid-engine based ecological cars - full hybrid, mild hybrid and power assist hybrid. As the name shows, full hybrid designs are able to run entirely by using electricity and provide significant performance in terms of eco-friendliness and fuel saving. This comes at the cost of limited autonomy and frequent need for recharge. Mild hybrids are models whose electric components are focused on optimizing fuel consumption and the functioning of the traditional engine, but cannot run based solely on electricity. Finally, power assist hybrids use an electric engine only for powering the accessories and for starting up the traditional engine. These models provide the least environment protection, as actually, they only run on fossil fuel and do not use fuel optimization technologies.
As mentioned earlier, car manufacturers today are interested in the production of ecological alternatives to the traditional engine and seek further ways in which they can make hybrid technology more accessible. This resulted in an increased number of eco vehicles present on the road. Eco models are available even as we speak from rent-a-car or vehicle leasing companies.
