Is an HEV simply a transition vehicle between a conventional vehicle and a pure EV?
No. Most experts agree that the car of the future will be an HEV of some kind. Because the energy density of electric batteries will never equal that of liquid or gaseous fuels, these fuels will likely need to continue to be a part of future vehicles. Even fuel cells, which are a promising long-term technology for personal transportation, will most likely still be put into an HEV configuration with a high-power energy-storage/buffer device on board. With further development, we might get to the point where we can select the propulsion system on our HEV in the same way we select a 4-cylinder engine or a V8 today.
