When you are an automotive engineer and you are designing a vehicle for maximum fuel efficiency, you use all the energy sources you can find. That’s why design engineers of hybrid vehicles tap the energy that gets wasted when a hybrids brakes are applied. Instead of converting the motion of the vehicle into wasted heat via the brake pads as ordinary cars do, hybrid vehicles have a small generator on each axle that converts the car’s kinetic energy into electricity. This electric power is then fed to the vehicle batteries.
In any internal combustion-powered vehicle, another source of wasted energy is the movement of the exhaust gases that exit the tailpipe. Using these strong gases to power automotive sub-systems isn’t a new concept as superchargers have been doing it for years. The way it works is the exhaust gases are used to spin a turbine that, in turn, drives fresh air into the vehicle’s engine. This allows more air-fuel mixture to be exploded in the cylinders which produces more engine power.
