by 
Anonymous
ANSWERS: 2
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The premise of your question is a bit off-target, but I'll explain anyway. A conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) does not make very much torque at low engine speeds. In contrast, an electric motor makes its maximum torque just above 0 RPM. Torque is needed to accelerate a car to speed. Hence, a hybrid car will be *quicker* from a standing start (but not necessarily faster in top speed) than a roughly comparable pure-ICE car. There are limits to this. A Toyota Prius is not going to out-accelerate a Bugatti Veyron. But using a hybrid powertrain gives more power at an equivalent pure-ICE fuel consumption, or better fuel consumption at an equivalent pure-ICE power level. Check out this link for more information. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car.htm
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Interesting... I just watched a show that explained that Hybrid cars have slower acceleration, but since they are designed for economy, it was considered to be an acceptable tradeoff by most owners. Personally, I don't know of any hybrid cars that can outperform a gas-only vehicle in terms of acceleration or top end, however... A typical gasoline-only car has an engine that is much large than necessary for maintaining a cruising speed, in order to provide lots of extra power for acceleration. In a hybrid car, the gasoline engine can instead be optimized for steady-state cruising. The resulting engine might provide relatively poor acceleration along, but coupled with the electric motor, the car can achieve the performance of a gasoline-only car that has a significantly larger engine. http://www.insightcentral.net/KB/compare/compare-propulsion.html
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