Automobile accessory power can be transferred by several different means. However, it is always ultimately derived from the automobile's internal combustion engine, battery, or other "prime mover" source of energy. The advent of high-powered batteries in hybrid and all-electrical vehicles is shifting the balance of technologies even further in the direction of electrically powered accessories.
An engine has one or more devices for converting energy it produces into a usable form, electricity connection through the alternator, hydraulic connections from a pump or engine system, compressed air, and engine vacuum; or the engine may be directly tapped through a mechanical connection. Modern vehicles run most accessories on electrical power. Typically, only 2% of a vehicle's total power output has gone towards powering accessories. Electrical and hybrid vehicles may use a larger proportion of energy for accessories, due to reduced inefficiencies in the drive train, especially the elimination of engine idling.
Read more about Automobile Accessory Power: Mechanical, Electrical, Hydraulic, Vacuum, Pneumatic
Famous quotes containing the words automobile and/or power:
“Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain—at least in a poor country like Russia—and his vanity begins to swell out like his tyres. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“What preoccupies us, then, is not God as a fact of nature, but as a fabrication useful for a God-fearing society. God himself becomes not a power but an image.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)