p> Hybrid vehicles need a conventional power train and an electric motor and batteries, so the buyer has to essentially pay for two power trains, which explains why the vehicles are more costly than conventional cars (Lemieux, 2003). Hopefully, most of this cost will be offset with savings on fuel, since the hybrid is more fuel-efficient than the conventional gasoline engine. One problem in designing a hybrid engine is power management because adding an electric motor means more power needs to be dissipated beyond the dissipation of power caused in the gasoline engine by driver circuits, which are notoriously high power because they drive external actuators. If power is not dissipated, the electronics will be damaged.
Because the reason for designing hybrid cars is to improve fuel efficiency, embedded systems must be very efficient and require a minimum of power to operate (Lemieux, 2003). Many battery-powered embedded devices increase battery life by switching to a low-power mode when not being used. This small saving is essential because of
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