Honda Improves Hybrid With ‘Heat-Harnessing’ Technology
Hybrid cars are great for saving money on gas – but they are more ideal for those who go everywhere in town and don’t make many trips onto the highway. Because they are built with regenerative braking it makes it hard for them to reach the speeds that they need to use while on the highway.
Honda is hoping to fix this problem with the new ‘heat-harnessing hybrid’. It works by recapturing the energy that is lost through high speeds on the conventional hybrid. It is actually a basic design of converting water into steam through the use of exhaust heat. The steam will turn the electric generator – which will in turn charge the battery pack of the car.
Honda has already put this new technology into their Honda Stream prototype – which was able to gather three times more energy than the regenerative braking system. This new technology isn’t perfect and still needs to be adjusted before it can be put into a production model.