Cars and Auto Accessories

The little gadgets that personalise luxury…

Published by Megan Publishing Services

http://meganthemisconception.com

Copyright Owen Jones 2022 ©

Hello and thank you for buying this book about ‘Cars and Auto Accessories”.

There are many types of cars, or automobiles, as some people like to call them. There are the ‘family’ types that facilitate our daily lives, and get us to work and the shops; then there are the work-horses, the vans, lorries and trucks, named after the animals that they replaced; and the dream cars… the Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Rolls-Royces and the like. However, a new class has arrived too – the hybrid

The conception of modern hybrid vehicles with their twin engines received a rather dubious first hearing by the automotive industry and the public. The cost was incredible, and the weight of two engines in one vehicle sounded unfeasible. We all know how that has turned out, but do you know how long mankind has actually been using hybrids?

It will probably surprise you to learn that hybrid vehicles were among the very first cars produced in the Nineteenth Century. However, they were not powerful, and mighty oil was looking for a niche. Oil, in the forms of petrol and diesel eventually shoved hybrids aside, and set the path for the automotive industry for 150 years.

As for auto accessories, it is in mankind’s nature to customise anywhere he spends a lot of time, such as the home, the workplace and, yes, even the car. We hang things from the rear view mirror, put items on the rear windscreen shelf, and add our favourite accessories to the dashboard. It has ever been thus.

I hope that you will find the information in this booklet helpful, useful and even profitable. It is relevant to the topics just mentioned, and organised into eighteen chapters of about five to six hundred words each.

I am certain that it will interest people who love cars and technology, and auto accessories.

As an added bonus, I am granting you permission to use the content on your own website or in your own blogs and newsletter, although you should rewrite them in your own words first.

If you have any feedback, please leave it with the company you bought this book from.

Thanks again for purchasing this book, which exists as a paperback, an ebook, and an audiobook.,

Regards,

Owen Jones.

Hybrid Cars In The Early Twentieth Century

You would probably be\page surprised to know that hybrid cars have been with us since the very earliest days of automotive history, but you will not be surprised to be told that the technology has come on in leaps and bounds for the last ten years. In fact, the technology in hybrid cars has reached the level where fuel consumption in a hybrid can be half that of in a conventional internal combustion engine only car.

Half or even less than half under sure circumstances like driving in town, especially in heavy traffic. In fact, when a hybrid is either cruising on electric or stopping and starting in heavy traffic, there will be no consumption of petrol or diesel whatsoever, which means that you are travelling ‘without cost’.

I put without cost in parentheses because a hybrid vehicle is still substantially more expensive than a car with a traditional engine. However, even given the added cost of a hybrid vehicle, you can save that excess price during the average life time of the vehicle because of the saving on fuel. Naturally, the higher the price of fuel, the sooner you will recover your extra initial outlay on the price of the hybrid.

Perhaps you are thinking that hybrid vehicle manufacturers are profiteering on the backs of car drivers who would like to do their bit for the environment. Well, you would not be alone in thinking that, but the price of developing hybrid technology was and still is expensive and someone has to account it.

That is you and me, the end-users. Well, that is standard, but in some countries, the government has stepped in to subsidize individuals who buy a hybrid vehicle, because governments all over the world are under an oath to reduce their country’s carbon footprint.

That means that now is as good a time as any to buy a hybrid vehicle.

There are other reasons why a hybrid is costly though. The hybrid really has two engines. A hybrid has a traditional engine run on traditional fuels, and it also has an electric engine which runs off expensive batteries. It is not that you have to replace the batteries as with a radio. The batteries are expensive because they are very heavy duty rechargeable devices.

The technology for recharging these batteries is also ground-breaking. The car makes use of traditional alternators to recharge them but it also uses braking power to recharge them as well. Not only that but the car’s on board computer alternates between the two motors automatically, depending on the amount of power that is required by the driver.

Keep an eye on the hybrid car market because prices are declining and coupled with subsidies, the time to purchase a hybrid car might come sooner than you think.

Hybrid Cars - The Vehicles Of The Future

A new kind of hybrid has entered the English language. Not so long ago, if you heard a snippet of conversation containing the word ‘hybrid’ you would have assumed that it either referred to a rose, as in ‘F1 Hybrid’ or possibly a wolf-dog variety. However, nowadays, someone saying the word ‘hybrid’ is more likely to be referring to a vehicle.

A new sort of car that has two engines and burns far less petrol or diesel than its antecedents because it relies on contemporary technology. The idea of a hybrid car is not new at all. One of the first cars, well over a hundred years ago was a hybrid. In fact, that early hybrid car also used petrol and electricity from batteries.

Modern hybrid vehicles also create use of oil derivatives and electricity stored in batteries as sources of power. In essence, a hybrid car will use its petrol engine when the driver requires power, for instance whilst overtaking or going up hill, but it will automatically switch to the electric motor when the car is at a cruising speed or creeping through inner city traffic.

The change from one power source to the other is automatic and seamless. The driver may be aware of the change, but does not have to initiate that change or even approve it.

Most hybrid cars will switch themselves off whilst the car comes to a halt and will fire up again whilst the accelerator is depressed. This one feature alone saves a lot of fuel. In traffic, the car is almost certainly using its battery-powered electric motor anyway, so it is very easy to stop and start it.

A hybrid car can be plugged into the national electricity grid to recharge its batteries, which may be necessary sometimes if the car is locked in traffic for a substantial part of the week. However, if you drive on long runs and in the city, that is give your hybrid car a balanced usage, the car will keep the batteries recharged by itself - mostly by the use of alternators and the braking system.

The aspirations of governments, environmentalists and drivers are being pinned on the more extensive use of hybrid cars and here are a few reasons why:

1) if the fuel efficiency of US cars was raised by one mile per gallon, it would save the total oil produced in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for two years.

2) the US would not have to import any oil at all from Kuwait or Iraq, if engine effectiveness was raised by 2.7 mpg

3) if US car fuel effectiveness was raised by 7.6%, then they would not have to import any oil from the Gulf at all.

Hybrid cars generally save over 7.6% on oil consumption, so the proliferation of hybrid cars and hybrid trucks could resolve the fuel and environmental crises being experienced by Western countries and eliminate our dependence on Arab oil.

How Do Hybrid Cars Work

In essence, hybrid electric cars have two engines: a conventional petrol or diesel engine (the same as you would see in any modern car and an electric, battery powered engine, as you may find in a milk float or a forklift truck. The magical difference is that the car’s on board computer judges which engine is necessary to supply the power needed by the driver and turns it on.

Therefore, if you are accelerating to cruising speed for motorway driving; going up hill or overtaking, the car will probably use its liquid fuel engine but then as you ease off the accelerator to, say,

cruise down the motorway; go down the other side of the hill or to drive in heavy traffic, the computer will turn off the liquid fuel engine and turn on the electric engine.

The electric engine can be regarded as free to run, because it runs off batteries which are recharged by the car whilst it is using petrol or diesel and at some other times, such as while it is braking (and the alternators are recharging in both modes). You should never need to recharge your car’s batteries overnight as they do with forklift trucks.

There are in essence two types of hybrid cars: the semi hybrids and the full hybrids.

The semi hybrids have the same type of set up: two engines, one running on liquid fuel and the other running on electricity, but the electric motor is not capable of running the car on its own. It is there to ‘assist’ the petrol or diesel engine.

In this type of hybrid, the electric motor is known as an ‘assist’. These semi hybrids will save money on fuel, but while the car is moving, you are burning fuel all the time.

The main difference when it comes to the full hybrid is that both engines are capable of powering the car independently. While you are running on electricity, you are running at zero cost to your wallet and at zero cost to the environment, unless you are actually pushing the car and then both engines may be working in union.

This changing of power sources is done robotically without any interference from the driver. In the case of the Prius, for example, this remarkable achievement is accomplished by what Ford calls its Hybrid Synergy Drive. Other firms have their equivalent to the HSD.

In order to gain the most out of these full hybrids, you actually have to be doing an ‘average amount’ of driving under ‘average’ or ‘mixed’ conditions. For example, if you are driving in traffic, the car will want to use the electric engine, but if all you do is drive in inner city traffic jams the batteries will soon become depleted and you will be driving on liquid fuel all the time, which sort of negates the main reason for spending a lot extra on a hybrid in the first place.

The car needs to travel on open motorways in order to recharge its batteries so that it can use them when it gets back into town. If you only drive in town traffic, you might be better off buying a modest run around instead.

Air Conditioning In Cars

Sky high petroleum prices, the recession and the menace of unemployment means that most drivers are looking for ways to decrease the amount of fuel they use in their cars. There are various things you can do to reduce your fuel bills that will not include any expensive modifications to your vehicle. In fact, it will not involve any modifications at all.

One of the first things to realize is that fuel additives do not work. None of them have been proven to work. On the other hand a well tuned engine will run at its maximum fuel efficiency. This can most easily be integrated into your car’s annual tune-up.

Another way to save fuel is not to accelerate quickly or brake suddenly. Try to drive smoothly and stay under 60 miles per hour. Fifty-six miles per hour is the most economical driving speed for many modern cars.

However, the easiest way of saving money on driving your car, is to turn off the air conditioning system completely. You have probably already noticed that your car is less quick to respond when you have the air conditioning on. This is because your car’s engine is powering the wheels of your car and the air conditioning system. In other words, your car’s engine is driving two motors at the same time, dividing its resources.

Therefore, you should avoid using your car’s air conditioning system unless you really need it. Opening the roof light is a good substitute, which will not cause too much draft. The extra sun light is exhilarating as well. I personally like to have my window down while I am driving, although I am conscious that it can be very draughty in the back of the car if you have passengers there.

If you do not have rear passengers and you do not want too much draft anyway, you can open a rear window in order to reduce the temperature in your car.

A vehicle’s air conditioning system is a godsend if you can afford to run it, but it is also an unnecessary luxury if you need to save some money on fuel. Some statistics show that a car’s air conditioning can cost anything between 5% and 10% of your fuel costs, if your are driving slowly in the inner city. Less if you are driving fast on the highway.

Turning off the air conditioning is the simplest and easiest technique to save on your fuel bills. Many auto cooling systems still have fans and very forceful ones as well. There is no need to roast just because you have turned the car’s air conditioning off.

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Hybrid Cars And Hybrid Trucks

The fuels that power the majority of cars