As fuel prices are skyrocketing and the atmosphere is being polluted, researchers are scrambling to produce new energy efficient, clean, cheap, and safe cars for the next century. This new generation of transportation will likely take a significant role in modern society within the next couple of decades. The most widely used energy efficient car on today's market is called the hybrid car. .
The hybrid car is a miraculous new development for the automotive industry. It is used as a method of transportation opposed to it's more expensive, dirty, and unsafe counterpart, the gasoline car. This new type of automobile combines the power of gasoline with the efficiency of electricity. Hybrid cars were first developed in 1890, but their roots stem from electric vehicles which were first developed back in 1835 by Professor Stratingh in Groningen, Netherlands. The first real hybrid car was produced in 1902 by Woods Phaeton. However, in 1915, the hybrid cars began losing popularity due to the development of traditional gasoline powered cars so they were put on hiatus. Several times after this, automotive manufacturers have built new hybrid cars to combat crises such as the oil crisis of 1973 and the surge of air pollution in the 1990's. It wasn't until the year 2000 that the world understood the tremendous possibilities of this new line of cars and created the first mass produced hybrid car called the Honda Insight.
The technologies, designs, and structures that are incorporated into the hybrid car help it run flawlessly with an improved performance over traditional gasoline powered cars. There are two types of hybrid cars which both have their assets and drawbacks. The first type of hybrid car, known as a parallel hybrid, has a fuel tank, which supplies gasoline to the engine. It also contains a set of batteries that supplies power to an electric motor. Both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time, thus turning the wheels and propelling the car forward.