At the end of the weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated two hybrid cars, which function on both gasoline and electricity, IRNA reported.
The two plug-in hybrid cars, named Runna, were unveiled at the end of the cabinet's meeting while President Rouhani in a symbolic gesture drove the car for a short distance. In a move to reduce air pollution, the government is bringing in more alternative powertrain vehicles. So is Iran's largest automaker, Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) contributing to that end by introducing the Runna plug-in hybrid car. IKCO asserts that the hybrid Runna powertrain could be ideal for urban traffic and might even be applicable to Iran's public transportation system.
Runna has a small, made-in-Iran combustion engine that comes in three- and four-cylinder variants. The electric motor can move the car between 70 and 80 kilometers (about 43 to 50 miles) on a single charge and reach a top speed of 120 kilometers per hour (about 75 miles per hour).
Once the battery has been depleted, the vehicle can slip back to being a regular fuel-fed hybrid and recharge its batteries using the gasoline-powered motor as a generator. The big difference here is that you can also plug it in and recharge the electric motor instead of using the engine to charge it up.
A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), also known as a plug-in hybrid, is a hybrid electric vehicle with rechargeable batteries that can be restored to full charge by connecting a plug to an external electric powersource.
A PHEV shares the characteristics of both a conventional hybrid electric vehicle, having an electric motor and an internal combustion engine; and of an all-electric vehicle, also having a plug to connect to the electrical grid.
