People looking to live a greener lifestyle often start by making changes at home. They improve the insulation in their walls and lofts, they change their boiler to one that’s more efficient, and recycle rather than just putting all their rubbish into one bin. But it’s not just at home that you can adopt a greener way of living – you can also improve your environmental driving record.
A fairly radical way to do this would be to get rid of your car altogether, but this is not always a practical option. Most of us don’t live close enough to town or to a well-served public transport route to manage without a car at all. What you might consider though, is switching to a more eco-friendly kind of car.
The range of environmentally friendly cars available now includes electric and hybrid vehicles, and those that run on alternative fuels like biodiesel and biogas. Hybrids are one of the most practical eco-friendly vehicles around today. Although they still use petrol – or diesel – to fuel their internal combustion engine, they have an electric motor which acts as a second power source. The electric motor is powered by batteries that are charged through a process called regenerative braking. Kinetic energy is captured during braking, which otherwise would be wasted. The stored energy is then held in the electric motor’s batteries, ready to power the motor when the car accelerates. This reduces the strain on the combustion engine, reducing the amount of fuel burned and carbon dioxide emissions produced.
Honda and Toyota have led the world’s leading car manufacturers in hybrid technology. Now others have now joined them, and pretty much every main car manufacturer has at least one hybrid in its range.
There are a big variety of hybrid cars – designed to suit the needs of different drivers. Go into any of the Honda UK dealerships and you’ll be able to find out about the different models that are available and decide which one would be right for you.
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