News on hybrid vehicles, fuel cell cars, and the future of automobiles

I’m a first time car buyer. I like the idea of a hybrid because I use my car to travel for work and gas is expensive in the area I live and work in. Can some hybrid owners share their experiences? Anyone got any information on hybrid’s they’d like to share. No links please, I can look things up myself. I’m looking for personal experiences, opinions or some little known facts.

there are different types of hybrid.some use gas and battery at the same time.some are full hybrid aND USE ONLY BATTERY IN LOW POWER SITUATIONS.you will get better gas milage in the city than highway as in highway use,they switch to gas for more performance.i have experence with the ford escape hybrid as it is the best mileage SUV hybrid out there.over all they have ben very satisfying in room and performannce and milage.an overall good choice for the pocket book and the environment..

What other site would have information on tax rebate for the hybrid cars.

2008 Ford Escape Federal Tax credit
$3000 for a FWD
$2200 for a 4WD

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax_hybrid.shtml

This is the largest federal tax incentive available for a Hybrid vehicle. The amount of the rebate is determined by how much better the MPG’s are vs the same model NON-hybrid..

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax_hybrid.shtml

(In my opinion, the US Federal tax incentives should only be given to people buying a vehicle produced by an American owned auto manufacturer.
The Escape is produced in America by UAW workers at the Kansas City plant. Why should the US give incentives to you to buy a product of Japan ? Or a Japanese owned company?
But that is just my opinion,)

i need this information for a project

they are not fast.

I will be providing links for the pictures, but basically, I need help to identify the parts in the pictures provided. I’ve never replaced a battery on a hybrid car before, and the dealership refuses to release factory service repair manuals for my 2007 saturn vue hybrid. I already bought the battery, and I would like to some tips to help me perform this surgery without too much trouble, like for instance without electrocuting myself.

The folder address of the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ninjanomad/2007SaturnVueHybrid#

My hypothesis is that battery has some kind of headpeice over it, and it has some wires over it that I shouldn’t touch. I’m thinking that I’m going to carefully unscrew the bolts and screws, lift the headpeice without touching any of the wires, disconnect the terminals, then proceed to unscrew the battery. They are shady, because they wired this thing like a jack in the box, so that only saturn certified mechanics could do this. As I have mentioned before, They have refused to realease repair information, obviously because they want you to come to the dealership to fix it. Why pay them to do something that I’m already qualified to do myself? I’ve replaced atleast 100 batteries, but this is my first hybrid. Any help or tips on how to do this safely would be very much apreciated.
It is a 12 volt battery that I am replacing, but the 3 different areas you see in some of the larger pictures are the only areas that the 12 volt battery might be. I was thinking it has to be under the pcm bracket, because the object shown under it, is the only object in the pictures that is even remotely similar to the size of the replacement battery. I’ve seen screws and bolts on batteries like the ones under the pcm bracket, I’m just not sure exactly how the operation is going to proceed. But if someone has done this before or could tell me what not to touch, or some other useful information like that, I would be very appreciative.
Also, as I’ve previously mentioned, my reasons for not dealing with the company, would be, I am a trained mechanic, and they’re acting shady, in which case I do not trust them. I did find the service manual, but I need to replace the battery asap and cannot wait for the arrival of it. It can’t be that hard. They don’t want you to know how to do stuff like this, which is why I seek help from other mechanics. If they just publish or let people publish normal service manuals, I would have already known all this, but I had to search high & dry on the internet to find it, it wasn’t easy to find at all.
I would also like to mention that this version of a hybrid vehicle, typically has two batteries, one in the front, which is a 12 volt, and one in the back, 36 volt. The 12 volt is the one I’m replacing and is supposed to be depicted somewhere in the picture, hidden under something.

You are correct in assuming there is something else there. The pictures you have shown are not of the battery but of the PCM (power train control module) You have yet to find the battery (could be under all that)
hybrid cars have the same battery as any flashlight. Positive and negative. First find the battery and then replace it without disrupting all the other multi-connectors too much.
Why, after only 1 and a bit years do you have to replace the battery? shouldn’t it be under warranty?

I need to find some easy information on this question. I search through the internet and find something that’s like an answer but it is always described in large words or is drowning with other irrelevant information. Can someone help me?

regular braking just generates heat in the brake pads. in a hybrid, the motor becomes a generator
and the energy flows back into the battery

Wanted to buy a used car and saw this 2003 Honda Civid hybrid. 79k miles. I heard hybrid batteries sometimes run into problems and they are very expensive to replace. The owner of the car told me the battery is excellent condition. I was wondering how i can tell how much longer the battery can run. Can a mechanic check provide detailed information? thanks.

If your 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid is the version that came out after SULEV certification, its HV battery has a warranty of 8 years / 100,000 miles, and in CA, CT, MA, ME, NY, NJ, RI or VT, the warranty is automatically extended to 10 years / 150,000 miles.

It’s pro-rated, so if you bought the car at 79K miles, you still have 1 year / 21K miles left on the standard warranty, or 3 years / 71K miles in one of those eight states I listed.

Within that warranty period, if you run into problems with the battery, the replacement cost is free.

Otherwise the replacement cost is about $2400 for the pack itself (labor charges vary from place to place).

A hybrid-qualified service place should be able to read the voltage and amps from the battery for you, which is a rough indicator of the battery’s health.

I have to do a rough draft for a chemistry project and I have had no luck finding information so far. My topic is to explain the chemical reactions that occur in both a hybrid car and a regular car in order to compare them. If you know anything, please help. Websites and online sources would be appreciated.

Gasoline combines rapidly with Oxygen in a heat (spark) induced explosion in a basic car engine. Toxic gases are the chemical output, including carbon monoxide. When combined with a electric motors that recharge from braking action, no chemical processes are involved, just electro mechanical. This is the Toyota Prius method. Using hydrogen fuel cells is another matter. When hydrogen and oxygen are combined to produce energy, the "exhaust" is non-toxic water.

What’s the difference in the prices of both drives?
If you have any links of information about Peugeot 308 particularly, or in general…

Roughly 3500 bucks, it takes about 7 years to recover the cost in gasoline savings.