Concept of Electric Vehicles
An Electric Vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle powered by an on-board energy storage battery and driven by electric motors, which completely or partially replaces internal combustion engines fueled by gasoline or diesel.
It is mainly divided into three categories:
Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV): Powered solely by power batteries without internal combustion engines, recharged via AC or DC charging equipment.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV): Equipped with both battery-motor system and fuel engine, support external charging. It runs on pure electricity for short trips and switches to hybrid mode for long-distance travel.
Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (EREV): The wheels are driven only by electric motors; the internal combustion engine merely acts as a generator to charge the battery instead of driving the vehicle directly.
Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) refers to a vehicle that can obtain power from at least two types of on-board energy storage sources: consumable fuel and rechargeable energy storage devices. A hybrid electric vehicle is equipped with at least one powertrain driven by an internal combustion engine and one powertrain driven by an electric motor. Simply put, it combines the powertrain of a conventional fuel vehicle and that of a battery electric vehicle at a certain stage of power transmission.
A hybrid electric vehicle is fitted with at least two relatively independent drive powertrains. This allows the use of smaller-displacement engines. With power compensation from the electric drive system and peak-shaving power regulation, the engine mostly operates in its high-efficiency and low-emission range. Compared with conventional fuel vehicles, it delivers higher energy conversion efficiency while cutting fuel consumption and exhaust emissions.
In contrast to battery electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles can utilize existing refueling infrastructure, offering the same driving range as traditional fuel cars. This effectively addresses the current drawback of short single-charge driving range seen in pure electric vehicles.