Car Insurance
New money for hybrid technology development
Thu, 04 May 2006
Researchers at the University of Bath are to receive more than £700,000 in grants to help them develop new hybrid petrol-electric engines.
The grants are part of a £1.2 million project being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which aims to develop more energy efficient engines.
Academics at Bath are aiming to utilise new materials in order to develop more efficient batteries for hybrid engines, hopefully resulting in decreased fuel consumption.
Energy storage is the key to what makes a hybrid engine works: energy that would be lost in a conventional engine as heat is stored in hybrid engines, powering the electric motor, which powers the car instead of using petrol.
Professor Saiful Islam, who is heading the research at Bath University, hopes to increase both the capacity of the batteries to store energy and the speed at which power can be supplied to the engine.
It is hoped that these developments will help improve car performance, making hybrid cars more attractive to drivers.
There are currently a number of ways in which drivers are being encouraged to adopt hybrid technology, including government tax breaks for hybrid car owners and the promise of cheap car insurance from a number of insurance companies.
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