City Car Club Hybrids

The UK's first car club company

Ben and Mits from City Car Club played a vital role in the People's Eco-Rally: ferrying us, our film crew, most of our equipment and our judges to Brighton the night before the big day.

Their brand new Honda Civic Hybrids use a petrol and electric engine. The system incorporates a continuously variable transmission (CVT) which can change steplessly through an infinite number of effective gear ratios between maximum and minimum values. This contrasts with other mechanical transmissions that only allow a few different discrete gear ratios to be selected. The flexibility of a CVT allows the driving shaft to maintain a constant angular velocity over a range of output velocities. This can provide better fuel economy than other transmissions by enabling the engine to run at its most efficient revolutions per minute (RPM) for a range of vehicle speeds.

The Honda civic hybrid also utilises the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system. Which uses an electric motor mounted between the engine and transmission to act as a starter motor, engine balancer, and assist traction motor. Again making a fuel efficient car even friendlier to the environment. www.citycarclub.co.uk