Mazda CX-30, Toyota Corolla Cross and Suzuki Swift, three of the best-selling hybrids in Colombia.
Photo: The Spectator
Pluggable. Mild Hybrid. Totals. Hybrids bring together different types, but they share the same objective: promoting fuel efficiency. Cars with this technology add an electronic element to your engine train, a battery, in all cases, and one or more motors, in others and depending on their type of hybridization; to assist the gasoline or diesel block.
Thus, the electronic component, first, promotes fuel efficiency by storing the energy that is generated when braking or decelerating through the regenerative braking and, second, it can add horsepower and torque to the car’s total performance.
For Sebastián Rocha, product director of BMW/Mini, a hybrid is any vehicle that combines two sources of energy to move. He also explains the types of hybrids on the market: there are “mild-hybrids (MHEV), or light hybrids, which have a combustion engine and a 24 or 48 volt battery “which releases its energy for acceleration or overtaking maneuvers.”
More from Cars: This is the Renault Arkana E-Tech, the brand’s first hybrid in Colombia.
Also, the totals or full-hybrids (HEV)“which have two engines, one combustion and one electric, that work in tandem, in addition to batteries in which electrical energy is accumulated to move the vehicle over short distances, less than 15 or 20 kilometers,” explains the expert. .
Rocha ends with plug-ins or PHEVwhich also use two motors to move and add larger batteries that can be charged externally, with a traditional electric car charger, and that provide a greater range of autonomy in electric mode.
“With hybrids, we have vehicles with which we can use an energy source that was previously wasted in braking. Today we are recapturing it and using it to reduce polluting emissions from vehicles,” explains the technical service manager of Automotores Toyota Colombia, Edwin Ramírez.
Learn more about hybrids in the following video:
