The market trend to heavier, more powerful hybrids is eroding the fuel consumption advantage of hybrid technology, according to a study done by researchers at the University of British Columbia.
The study, which compares hybrids for sale in the United States in 2007 to equivalent conventional vehicles, appears online in Environmental Research Letters.
Researchers Milind Kandlikar and Conor Reynolds used linear regression models to analyze how vehicle weight and power affect the fuel consumption of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) independently, and then compared the set of currently available HEVs (2007 model year) against a functionally equivalent set of conventional ICEVs. The equivalent set are ICEVs of the same make and model, and with similar power.
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