In the past, the car only had a power source of fuel or electric energy, and later with the progress of technology, the concept of "hybrid" appeared, hybrid as the name suggests is the meaning of hybrid, the most common is the gasoline-electric hybrid, that is, it can be driven by both electric and oil, hybrid is more specific, it can also be divided into plug-in hybrid, non-plug-in hybrid, range extender, etc. So what are the differences?
Plug-in and non-plug-in hybrids are easy to distinguish, simply put, whether the vehicle can be charged directly, whether it can be on the green card, etc., and the battery capacity of these two types of vehicles is very different, the corresponding pure electric mileage is very different, plug-in hybrid basically has a pure electric range of more than 50 kilometers, like BYD can do more than 200 kilometers, and non-plug-in hybrid due to the small battery capacity, often only a few kilometers of battery life, because the two are easy to distinguish, there will be no more descriptions here.
There are many similarities between plug-in hybrid and range extender in terms of system structure, usage mode, pure electric range, etc., such as oil and electricity, no range anxiety, etc., so that many people can't tell the difference between the two.
Plug-in hybrid and range extension, from the perspective of system structure, there is not much difference, both are mainly composed of engine, drive motor, large-capacity battery, but the role of the engine is very different. For example, in the stage of low engine efficiency such as vehicle start-up and low-speed driving, the engine can be disconnected from the wheels and directly enter the high-efficiency zone for power generation, and then the electricity is stored in the power battery, and the vehicle is driven by electricity through the motor, thus improving the efficiency of the whole system. When the vehicle enters the stage of high-speed driving, the engine can directly drive the vehicle under the best working conditions, thereby avoiding the energy loss in the process of power generation, storage, discharge, etc., and improving the fuel utilization rate of the whole vehicle.
Compared with plug-in hybrid, the engine role of the extended range type has an essential difference, the engine on the extended range model will not participate in the drive of the whole vehicle, but is responsible for generating electricity for the battery, so this engine is called "generator" is more accurate, when driving at low speed, its working mode is not much different from the plug-in hybrid, that is, let the engine generate electricity and store it in the battery, and then supply the vehicle to pure electric driving. But when it comes to high-speed road conditions, even if the engine can be driven under the best working conditions, but the engine is still generating electricity at this time, then charge the power to the battery, and then output it to the engine to drive, after several energy conversions, there will inevitably be energy loss, so in terms of fuel utilization and economy, the range extension is definitely not as high as the plug-in hybrid, and from the current technical performance on the market, the fuel consumption of the high-speed road range extender is generally high.
Compared with plug-in hybrid and hybrid, in addition to the difference in engine role, energy consumption, etc., there are also differences in performance, such as power, the power of the extended range is completely provided by the motor, and the plug-in hybrid can realize the parallel connection of the engine and the motor, that is, the two output power at the same time. Under the premise of equal motor power, the power of the plug-in hybrid model must be better than the extended range, so that the performance of the vehicle can be improved and the driving experience can be better.
To sum up, plug-in hybrid and extended-range models, although they look similar in structure, but the structure of plug-in hybrid is more complex, the technical difficulty is higher, and the advantages are greater, which is the development route of many old car companies, and the representative brand is BYD, and its "DM-I", "DM-P", "MD-O" and other technologies have brought plug-in hybrid to a new level. The structure of the range extender is relatively simple and the technical threshold is low, so some new car brands prefer to use the range extender. However, in terms of the comprehensive performance of the two, plug-in hybrid has obvious advantages in terms of performance and energy consumption, so it is recommended to choose a plug-in hybrid model with more advanced technology.