Hybrid Electric Vehicle
They hybrid is one of the most common electric vehicles on the road today. The Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight are examples of gasoline-electric hybrid cars. These types of vehicles require gasoline like most other cars, but they also use electric motors. These cars may switch over to electric power automatically when cruising at highway speeds or when stopped at a traffic light. Internal combustion (gasoline power) is only used when the car needs more power such as during acceleration, or when the car's stored electricity is running low. These hybrid cars generally don't need to be plugged in to recharge. Instead they have built in electric generators that charge the car's batteries as it drives. They may use a braking energy recapture system, for example, which converts the car's forward momentum into electricity when the car decelerates or brakes. These cars usually get better gas mileage than a non-hybrid equivalent.
Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)
The next class of electric vehicles is the Battery Electric Vehicle. These cars can run without gasoline at all, although some (the sub-class of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles) have a gasoline backup system for use if the batteries run out of juice and there is no electric charging station available. These cars need to be plugged in to recharge their batteries. Recharging time varies by car and by the type of charging station used. Using house current from a typical wall outlet may take quite a few hours for a car to fully recharge while higher-power dedicated charging stations can reduce this time to just a couple of hours. Although PHEVs are included in the category of BEVs, the term BEV is most often used to denote cars that do not have gasoline engines at all, but relay solely on electric power. The downside is that these cars may have a limited driving range before recharging is required:200 miles per charge compared to 400 or more miles between refueling of an average gasoline powered vehicle. On the positive side, the fueling cost for electric cars can a small fraction of that for either conventional or plug-in type hybrid vehicles.
Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle (PHEV)
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles also contain a dual system using both gasoline power and electricity. In this case, however, the gasoline engine is often a back-up system. This lets the car switch over to gasoline when the stored electric energy in the batteries runs low. The back-up gasoline system extends the driving range of the vehicle making it comparable to that of conventional gasoline powered cars. The Chevy Volt is an example of a PHEV. For those who use the car for driving short distances, though, the PHEV may run entirely on electricity, reducing gasoline usage to negligible amounts. This may be especially useful for those commuting short distances to work each day, or driving around town.