HV Safety & Procedure
The physical device pulled to isolate the high-voltage battery before servicing a hybrid vehicle.
What is the Service Plug / Manual Service Disconnect?
A hybrid setup where both the internal combustion engine and electric motor can mechanically drive the wheels independently or together
What is a Parallel / Full Hybrid?
This system captures kinetic energy during deceleration and converts it back into stored electrical energy.
What is Regenerative Braking?
The primary reason a conventional internal combustion engine loses the majority of its fuel energy.
What is Thermal / Heat Loss?
This term describes reducing a high-voltage system's electrical potential to safe levels before working on internal components.
What is De-energizing?
A vehicle configuration where the gas engine acts purely as a generator to charge the battery and has no direct link to the wheels.
What is a Series Hybrid / Range Extender?
The power system that combines hydrogen fuel and oxygen to produce electricity with water vapor as the only emission.
What is a Hydrogen Fuel Cell?
Standard federal emission classifications used to group vehicle tailpipe output levels.
What are Emissions Standards / EPA Tiers?
Personal protective equipment rated for specific voltage levels that must be inspected for air leaks prior to high-voltage work.
What are Insulated / Class 0 HV Gloves?
This category of hybrid cannot run purely on electricity and primarily uses its small motor for start-stop and power assist.
What is a Mild Hybrid?
A metric used to compare the amount of energy stored per unit volume or mass between gasoline and electric batteries.
What is Energy Density?
The feature that automatically shuts down the internal combustion engine when idling at a stop to save fuel.
What is Start-Stop Technology?
Software-based de-energization requires this type of diagnostic equipment connected to the vehicle communication port
What is a Scan Tool?
A fully electric vehicle that relies exclusively on grid charging and internal battery storage without an ICE engine
What is a BEV / Fully Electric Vehicle?
Because electric compressors run off high-voltage DC rather than a belt, this specific type of non-conductive oil is required for A/C service.
What is POE / Polyolester Oil?
Tying up drive wheels off the ground or using a flatbed is critical during this procedure to prevent the generation of damaging EMF voltage.
What is Towing a Hybrid / EV?)