I think one company that has taken it to the heart to make green cars is Honda. Honda has been introducing quite a few fuel-efficient cars. Honda has come up with a hybridized Honda Stream with a relatively new concept called heat harnessing hybrid. This technology will increase energy efficiency by 3.8%.
This heat harnessing hybrid technology uses the lost or waste heat to charge the vehicle’s battery. This technology uses at its base a Rankine engine, a cycle co-generation unit, that is capable of converting the lost heat to run the electrical generator by steam produced from hot water. This in turn recharges the battery. It ensures to save much more than the energy than in the regenerative braking systems. The internal combustion engines currently loose as much as 30% energy as heat.
The best part about this technique is that it works on any vehicle running with a speed of 65 miles per hour. Keeping in mind the average vehicle in US, this seems like a better way out unlike the other hybrid engines. Learn more about this technology here.
Honda seems to be still trying its best to increase the efficiency further to go in to utilizing this technology in full production. Whatever, we appreciate Honda’s endeavor, we sure do need such systems in the not so far future.
Source: Engadget
