There were two (or was it three?) hybrid vehicles on display at the Sydney Exhibition Centre. We went there specifically to look at the hybrids.

Both are now available in Australia; both use a combination of petrol engine and electric motor.

Above is the Honda Insight, while opposite is the Toyota Prius.

Toyota’s Prius was launched with much fanfare. Honda had their Insight there – but being a year old, it wasn’t given star treatment (in fact, it was almost undersold – I had to ask if it was actually there!). And since the show, I’ve discovered that there was a Toyota Tarago hybrid also on display – at least according to the Toyota PR people.

OK, so what exactly is a hybrid vehicle? To be more accurate with the answer, we should say there are two different types of hybrids – series and parallel. Both are based on the same theme: motive power is provided by both hydrocarbon fuel (usually petrol) and electric engines.

In a series hybrid, the whole of the fuel engine output is devoted to driving a generator, which in turn supplies the electric motor which turns the wheels. It’s a similar arrangement to a diesel-electric locomotive. The main difference is that in most series hybrid vehicles, there is also some form of battery storage which can power the vehicle independently of the fuel engine – to some degree, anyway.