Do Hybrid Cars Perform well in Cold Weather?

First, if an area gets a lot of snow, drivers are likely to use snow tires, bangkok house for sale – bangkok.thaibounty.com – which are heavier and have more rolling resistance than the typical low-rolling-resistance tires on a hybrid. That brings fuel economy down. Lastly, if drivers don’t clear all the snow and ice off their cars, it adds extra weight. Second, snow and snow-clearing chemicals can build up on the vehicle’s exterior surfaces, blocking the grille and making it tougher for air to get to the engine. If the engine can’t breathe well, fuel economy suffers. One thing you likely don’t have to worry about is your hybrid’s battery pack freezing. Extra weight means fewer miles per gallon — not to mention some pretty severe safety issues, too.

Even though gas prices aren’t as high as they were during the summer of 2008, there continues to be a lot of interest in green driving. But that’s not the only way hybrids help you drive green. As you probably know, fuel-efficient vehicles still sell, and car companies are continuously working on new technologies so that drivers can do a little eco-friendly driving. Hybrids use aerodynamic shapes to minimize wind resistance, they use special tires to minimize rolling resistance and they even make use of specialized cabin electronics to minimize the extra load the engine has to bear. Most hybrids are engineered from tip to tailpipe for the best fuel efficiency possible. Right now, the most common type of extra fuel-efficient vehicles on the road are gas-electric hybrids. Hybrid cars use electric motors to supplement gasoline engines in order to achieve maximum fuel efficiency.

But, with all of these specialized systems carefully calibrated to wring every possible mile out of a gallon of gas, what happens when one part of the system changes? Can a hybrid still perform? We’re not talking about part of the car malfunctioning. A hybrid car is specifically engineered to work at maximum efficiency in a certain environment — but what if the environment changes? That’s what we’re here to explore.

If you’re into green driving and track your fuel economy closely, you probably know that cold weather can cause your car to require a little more gas. Not only is it harder to generate the correct mix, but it’s also a little less powerful when the gas is cold. That makes it difficult for the gas to combine with the intake air and provide the proper air-fuel mixture that an internal combustion engine needs. The biggest is that cold temperatures cause gasoline to thicken. There are a lot of reasons for this.