Electric, hybrid, gas powered - what the heck do they do differently? How do they run? How does the owner use them differently?
I know diddly about cars and how they run so please treat me like a child.
The following articles do not dumb it down to the level of a child but they seem easy to understand. At least they have photos to help the explanation:
How Car Engines Work
How Electric Cars Work
I’m assuming you’re generally familiar with the concept (if not the working internals which the howstuffworks link explain) of a gasoline car. An electric car has an electric motor which runs off a battery which is charged from the regular old electric grid. Their range is typically far shorter than a gasoline car, so you have to plug it in typcially every day. There really aren’t any fully-electric passenger cars that are sold in any great number in the US however.
A hybrid car is the exact same as a regular gasoline car except that it has a clever system which recaptures the energy lost from braking and turns it into electricity which it stores in a battery. It also has an electric motor-- in some hybrids this is just a secondary “booster” motor which uses the energy stored from braking to supplement the normal gas drivetrain (which goes through a transmission which directly connects the engine to the drive wheels), or alternatively some are always driven by the electric motor and the gas engine strictly acts as a generator.
However, the important point is that 100% of the energy which propels a hybrid comes from the gasoline in its fuel tank and in terms of use and ownership they are exactly the same as a gasoline-only car, only a little more fuel efficient (especially in stop-and-go traffic).
Another technology which is not avaliable now but is likely on the horizon is the plug-in hybrid. These will be like the hybrids mentioned above which only use the gas engine as a generator, but they will also have an option to charge the batteries by plugging it in. This will allow you to drive a certain number of miles on electric power only, using no gasoline whatsoever until you deplete the intial charge.