4. Electric vehicles with lithium batteries and gasoline-powered hybrids

Electric motors are available at all power levels required for vehicles. By increasing rotation speeds, electric machines can be made very compact. The efficiency of these machines is very high, 90 to 95% over a very wide range of power variations.

Electric vehicles are particularly efficient below 90 km/h and in urban traffic, thanks mainly to the efficiency of the batteries and the motorization, and to regenerative braking. On the other hand, this is the area of use where combustion engines have low efficiency.

Hybrid vehicles seek to combine some of the advantages of electric traction with a combustion engine. Among them, we can particularly mention the series hybrid with power bypass (of the Toyota Prius type). The combination of an epicyclic gearbox and a generator that draws power from one of its two shafts, power that is directly...