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wodenokoto

I don’t understand what is being announced here. As in, I can’t understand the marketing speak.

It’s an update of a 2011 car, but why is it newsworthy?

If it’s a Prius, why is it called Aqua?

If it’s electric only, why is it a hybrid?

What does nickel-hydrogen battery do better?

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This is All-New model different from 2011- Aqua. It shares same platform as Yaris.

Aqua is the name for used in Japan, called Prius C on other market.

This is just HEV.

This release argues that there are significant improvements by using bipolar battery. That's why I post here.

> Compared to the previous-generation nickel-hydrogen battery, the all-new bipolar nickel-hydrogen battery delivers 1.5-times greater output per cell, and packs 1.4-times more cells in the same-sized space; together, this leads to a total output increase of approximately two-fold.

This release argues that there are significant improvements by using bipolar battery. That's why I post here.

What other kind of battery is there?

non-bipolar as described in release.

So it's the electrode that's bipolar, not the battery.

Plain Ni-MH

In Europe it's just Yaris - they share the same name for hybrid and non-hybrid drive trains.

I wonder why Toyota decided to give them different names (which all sound equally global) in different regions, seems really confusing. As far as I know Toyota, all other cars Toyota sells have the same name worldwide.

Add more complexity: Yaris was named as "Vitz" in Japan from the beginning until 2019 Yaris was sold. Aqua coexists with Vitz Hybrid and Yaris Hybrid so Aqua can't be named as them. It seems that EU Yaris Hybrid are equivalent to Vitz/Yaris Hybrid.

Probably Yaris didn't work well on focus groups, most likely being associated with something that wasn't suited for the brand.

Or simply people liked Prius more.

Aqua is the nameplate in Japan. Prius-C elsewhere. New battery technology apparently for NiMH and a higher electric-only mode speed (before the ICE kicks in).

Toyota seems to prefer the NiMH batteries as they've got a long history with them and a mature (and highly regarded) system. I think it might also avoid patents and other entanglements with Li-ion.

It's true that Toyota does employ NiMH batterys often, but they still offer models with Li-ion (Prius Prime, FWD Prius). The NiMH batteries tend to be found in the cheaper models (Prius C/Aqua) or those intended for colder climates (Prius AWD).

Interesting news is that some Japanese article said that only most cheap grade uses Li-ion battery meanwhile other grades use this nickel battery. I wonder is it because really superior than Li-ion or just because it's expensive initially.

Edit: This article said that the new nickel is 1000Wh/L meanwhile Li-ion on cheaper model is 740Wh/L. It seems that now nickel overcomes Li-ion for Wh per volume. (other Li-ions also seems to <= 800Wh/L)

https://car.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1338990.html

https://www.eenewspower.com/news/nanograf-hits-800whl-milest...

NiMH batteries are also offered in higher-end models like RAV4 AWDi, etc. Purchasing RAV4 in EU one doesn't even know at the time of purchase what battery type will arrive with the car, what I find kinda strange.

Both types of batteries have pros and cons - this YT channel of a Toyota mechanic provides pretty clear explanation of the differences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS3Lg3qJcnc

> I wonder is it because really superior than Li-ion or just because it's expensive initially.

Pretty much one, and only remarkable trait is that they work well at < 0C°

Don't know the chemistry used by Toyota, but NiMH is less likely to feature Cobalt than a LiIon cell. If so, it's a benefit.

>but why is it newsworthy?

Because Toyota.

The HN demographics love Toyota as much as they love Tesla, arguably more (Tesla is more polarizing, at least some people actively dislike them).

Do we? I have a C-HR, and it's very underwhelming. Only reason I bought it was because I totaled my Honda, and we had bought a RAV4 for my wife less than a month before - we traded in 2 cars, so on my credit it looked like I had 4 loans outstanding at that moment, so that one dealership had all the paperwork to prove otherwise.

Cars don't always have the same name in different locales, just like if you're building an app or website you wind up changing strings to better fit a locale, even if it uses the same language.

Not particularly newsworthy. Just an update.

It's not electric-only. It's a hybrid electric-only (as in a non-plug-in hybrid). They hyphenated it in a confusing way. (Edit: I guess they increased the electric mode max speed…)

Doesn't seem to do anything massively better, really. It's nickel metal hydride like the old one, although tweaked and optimized a bit. I guess it's cheap?

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