Toyota plug-in hybrids to offer 124-mile electric-only range
autocar.co.uk
autocar.co.uk
Many are a variant of this:
Electric motors are essentially zero maintenance. Also, the gasoline engine in a hybrid is running less per mile (compared to a standard ICE car) extending its lifespan.
The Toyota Hybrid also uses what they call an E-CVT transmission. It's not related at all to traditional CVT transmission. The Toyota E-CVT uses planetary gear sets and the electric motor to vary the output speed. It has proven to be extremely reliable.
Toyota's Hybrid drivetrain likely makes Toyota cars the most reliable on the market. It has been refined over 20+ years and I am not aware of any significant issues with it.
I am somewhat of a car enthusiast. I don't own any Toyota products because I find their cars a bit boring. But, for anyone who just wants reliable transportation, I always recommend a Toyota.
If you use the electric part in the city and the combustion engine on the highway you should get very low wear on the ICE (constant rpm/speed at highway speed = low wear and low consumption)
But I think the same pressure will apply, if they make it too big then it'll look like a regulation workaround.
And hauling around a whole ass ICE, fuel tank, cooling system, emissions and exhaust is better and also not a waste. Countries are pushing their emission standards down to 0. Where does even a tiny gas engine fit in that scenario?
ICE cars (including modern ones) require so much maintenance they have entire franchises dedicated to the maintenance of those cars.
Mechanical issues are not maintenance. The drive train on a EV is so simple that manufacturers have to invent new tools and procedures. EV techs are more likely to have an electrician or computer background than a auto mechanic background.
Prius owners would like to have a talk. Their brakes got rusted and seized because they were using regen braking instead. All BEVs using brake discs will have this problem. Also the reason why VW used drum brakes in their ID.3
Tell that to shitty, billionaire internet troll: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1078010341651492865
why say things that are so easily falsifiable?
In that scenario would you rather see someone to hold on to their car running on gas until it dies, or get one where they use the gas once a year?
No. Hybrids at this point serve the purpose of not killing the Auto industry with regulations. You have a whole industry of designers and suppliers for ICE tech both on gasoline and diesel designs.
The original intent in many countries is that no ICEs should be produced (outside farming etc.) after 2030s. Automakers cried out and now suddenly hybrids are on the table as 'not-ICEs'.
Sure it's an in between solution but we no longer have the luxury of time to be accommodating lobbies.
… who have neither have a garage, nor even a parking pad, at home and have to park on the street, and may not have convenient charging infrastructure.
But on the topic of hauling, I can detect some bigotry in the complains about some people needlessly hauling the ICE parts of a PHEV when most drivers are needlessly hauling an entire car for something a bike and public transport do just fine. The environmental difference between EV and bikes is far, far larger than between EV and PHEV.
So maybe let's just agree that some changes can't or won't happen in a single step and some intermediate, less than ideal positions are needed. Complaining about everyone who doesn't fit exactly our model of needs, likes and capabilities is usually just virtue signaling.
My problem isn’t with the the transition vehicles like PHEV. It’s the fact that Toyota doesn’t seem to have any strategy at all. None of the Japanese car mfgs have a ZEV strategy and 2030 is a lot closer now than it was in 2020. They won’t be able to sell their cars in China in a few years. The largest, fastest growing market right now. Where do you think they’ll be in 5 years?
On paper they could go all in on EVs but they'd make a pitiful number while competing with the big players who have a lot more room to maneuver with their margins.
A PHEV with 200km electric range might as well be a full EV 90% of the time but being able to cover the other 10% (every other condition and anxiety) is enough to win more people over. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
add to the fact that most miles driven for most people are within the range of PHEV electric range, BEV makes literally no sense.
That said, love my hybrid. Very economical, I manage to run on EV quite often, don't need to refuel so much. Much more practical than EVs, especially considering I mostly drive in the city. Almost never drive on the highway.
But I swear, the petulance of EV fans online is sometimes so infuriating, that it almost makes me want to buy a Diesel generator and leave it running to throw some extra carbon on the atmosphere just out of spite.
But I don't see anyone mentioning how the ethanol-mix fuel, which is nearly unavoidable, can turn to shit in a few months of sitting and cause all kinds of engine issues. I'd be more worried about fuel issues over the long term if these truly become "a couple times a year" use cases.
Ethanol fuel needs to be banned, IMO.
The fuel issue is simply FUD. I’d be more concerned about BEV and range anxiety honestly. In Maine, for example, some Tesla owners reported the range being cut in half, during the winter. Simply unacceptable.
Reliability is just one part of the problems with hybrids. Efficiency and cost are also less than optimal.
A dual power train just costs more --- both initially and in terms of maintenance. There is no way around this. It is also a drag on efficiency --- for both long and short trips.
On short trips, the electric power train has to drag around the ICE components. On a long trip, the ICE has to drag around the electric components.
This strategy leaves the competition with a clear path to produce a lighter, more efficient, less expensive alternative.
Any sort of battery breakthrough will kill this hybrid strategy. Rather than promoting or leading this breakthrough, Toyota is effectively betting against it --- primarily for cultural reasons rather than technological ones in my opinion.
I won't argue against the maintenance, but pure BEV vehicles are still quite more expensive to buy than (P)HEVs.
Battery cost is declining at a double digit rate per year as production ramps up. Within the next 5 years, BEV will be cheaper.
We are one battery breakthrough away from killing hybrid and ICE autos. Even more/better recharging stations might be enough to do it.
even now, after price costs, a Model 3 is more expensive than nearly all PHEVs
you could buy a Prius Prime and a used BEV cheaper than a new Model 3.
Or a PHEV and save $15K or so compared to a Model 3. no matter how you think about it, BEV doesn't really make sense.
A new Prius Prime is roughly $30K
The cheapest Model 3 is now about $43K --- and it comes with a $7500 rebate.
A Chevy Bolt EV is about $27.5K.
A rebate for qualified people. There are PHEVs that also qualify for rebates...
Regardless, a rebate does that mean the car's MSRP is cheaper.
Back to how they cost a few years ago? Also, I remember this: https://www.engadget.com/2008-06-30-tesla-motors-elon-musk-p...
> Battery cost is declining at a double digit rate per year as production ramps up. Within the next 5 years, BEV will be cheaper.
I thought we were talking about right now, and not prognosticating about the future.
Based on what? A Kiro Niro PHEV is cheaper than a Kiro Niro BEV.
https://www.kia.com/us/en/niro-plug-in-hybrid
https://www.kia.com/us/en/niro-ev
The same trend exists for all other cars that have both PHEV and BEV models.
> On short trips, the electric power train has to drag around the ICE components. On a long trip, the ICE has to drag around the electric components.
The same could be said about BEV and the extra weight, amounting to hundreds of unnecessary pounds being towed, which by the way weighs more than ICE components than a PHEV. (in the case of the Kiro Niro, the plug-in hybrid components add 250 pounds compared to ICE, and the Niro BEV adds a whopping 700 pounds extra compared to ICE. In other words, the BEV differential from PHEV adds more than from ICE to PHEV).
The amount of FUD surrounding PHEV every time it's mentioned really is amazing.
Based on the simple fact that battery costs are rapidly trending downward as production ramps up --- while ICE components are not following a similar trend.
"Magic" is assuming that the added complexity of a dual power train will always be cheaper.
https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-recall
battery fires are cool tho
> Park your vehicle outside immediately after charging and do not leave your vehicle charging indoors overnight.
what a joke
also, the Hyundai Ioniq PHEV is cheaper for its class of vehicle than the Bolt EV, so looks like BEVs are still more expensive.
My ICE Corolla was bullet proof. I’d love some of that with a battery.
I found Toyota’s past resistance to EVs embarrassing. This is a very welcome step.
The entire point of a plug-in hybrid is that you can use it as a straight EV in a non-trivial subset of cases.
> Maybe a whole new category electric cars with optional ability to use petrol.
That’s usually called a range-extended EV, but that’s reserved for “series” architectures, which is not something Toyota wants to do.
The Volt and i3 are probably the most well-known examples. The volt has a pretty short all-electric range (topped out at 50 miles on the second gen), the i3 was designed as an EV first so the range extended models had a more respectable 125mi all-electric, plus ~75 from the range extender (the straight EV model topped out at 150mi range).
It was very much a transitional model though, both successors are only available as pure EVs.
100+ miles means it's, for a lot of people, basically an electric car.
Perhaps the defining line is that with 100 mile range you'd be likely to top-up the battery part on a long journey rather than just ignoring it. I do feel that makes it a different category, more like the range extended EVs.
That’s not a point because it has nothing to do with the moniker “plug-in”. And is also not really true (because what “the standard”?)
Ah so a strait up lie then.
> I'm pretty sure you are just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point. You haven't added anything useful.
Aside from giving you an example of a 10 years old hybrid with the kind of all-electric range you exclaim had never existed before, which you just decided to ignore entirely as you spouted a bunch of baseless assertions in not-support of your destruction of objective language?
Have you considered reading your comments?
- Ford Kuga PHEV: 28-41 miles
- Mazda CX-60: 39 miles
- Volkswagen Tiguan PHEV: 30 miles
- Kia Niro PHEV: 33 miles
- Toyota RAV4 PHEV - 46 miles
- BMW Model 3: 32-36 miles
You yourself called the BMW I3 an range extended EV. Why does that deserve a different name but not a Prius with a much extended range?
A range extended EV doesn't have a gearbox or a diff. Just a generator attached to the battery. So they drop all that complexity and weight.
I always thought they were a brilliant design in that sense, as far back as 2010ish when the Chevy Volt was announced. I'm surprised they haven't caught on more vs hybrids.
A plug-in hybrid would hardy fit the definition if it had a 1kwh battery more typical of a conventional hybrid but with the technical ability to plug it in. No more so than the ability to run an old fashioned manual petrol on the starter motor for a few meters made those hybrids. Usain Bolt and a marathon runner both use their legs to move but they are hardly equivalent.
Any Prius driver you see being a hazardous rolling roadblock on the highway is a Prius driver problem, not a Prius capability problem.
In practice it seems like if you give people one step forward in acceleration they get two steps picky about what gaps in traffic they need to do their thing (merge, left turn, whatever) resulting in a net decrease in the overall performance of the car + driver system.
I've driven >> 1,000,000 million kilometers in 36 years of driving and to date I've never seen a single instance of the speed of acceleration being a safety issue. Even on short on-ramps - which is really the only spot where acceleration in normal traffic matters - almost every car will do just fine, and in case it doesn't you either stop or use the emergency lane (if that's allowed where you live).
Above 60 you are already in traffic and the differences required to overtake another car are minimal, you can do it faster to be out of the left lane a bit quicker but you're still limited by the speed limit and traffic that comes up from behind will just have to be patient.
What may be the case if this is a situation that you encounter frequently that the problem somehow lies with you and/or your driving style. Most people just want to get from 'A' to 'B' safely and economically, and speed of acceleration considerations don't enter into it at all. Given all the other vehicles that you share the road with, a large number of which are much slower to accelerate than a Prius ever would be the whole idea is to work together to keep everybody safe and get them home in one piece. Not to extract the maximum performance from their vehicles.
Did you have it checked out by a competent garage? Prius is a complex machine and needs proper care or it will break. I had a similar hybrid in Canada and it worked like a charm except for when it was < -20 Celsius, then all kinds of weird stuff would happen. Apparently the manufacturer had not really thought about the range of operating conditions that their product would be exposed to. So in the dead of winter when it was super cold acceleration would be underwhelming, but once you know that it is like that you simply don't put yourself in situations where this can be a problem. I've driven 2CV with an anemic 600 CC engine (there also existed an older one with only 375 CC) and it was perfectly safe in traffic, if you worked within the limitations of the car.
In the end it is the driver that matters, not the vehicle and if you put yourself in a position where 'you need power to get out of a situation' you are most likely already at the end of a long string of mistakes. Keep in mind that there isn't a truck on the road that can accelerate as fast as a personal car and yet they are not constantly in danger because of a lack of power.
A car that 0-60s more slowly is only good at limiting someone with a lead foot.
Wouldn't it be more efficient for long trips to run a small generator in the car that charged the batteries?
A car engine needs to deal with variable power/torque/etc. It's got transmissions and radiators and all sorts of extra complexities. A generator runs at one speed and is efficiently tuned to that one speed. If you suddenly need more power to accelerate then that would be provided by the batteries. Batteries are like >90% efficient. So going motor->battery->wheels seems like you wouldn't loose much even in the worse case of coasting on the highway at an ICE's optimal speed.
Generators are also generally simpler and smaller. You could envision one that you could pop into the frunk when you need extra range. It would continuously recharge your batteries as you drive - even before they're depleted. Even if it didn't recharge as fast as you were using up power - you'd still drastically increase your range. Forthermore you could leave it running overnight to charge your car if you're in some remote place with no charging stations
Literally nobody has done this - so there must be some reason I'm overlooking :)
See the Toyota Prius. This is already what is done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
Not quite motor->battery->wheels. I guess to have the generator be removeable you need a much smaller engine as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vehicle_drivetrain#Seri...
Not entirely true.
Diesel-Electric Locomotives though colloquially called 'Diesel trains' but they do what you are proposing. And this tech is from 1930s-40s.
https://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/diesel-electric/in...
This is exactly what the Fisker Karma was doing 10-12ish years ago.
People are mostly projecting their experience with much more finicky lawn equipment to cars.
Fast and easy electric charging on long trips is their Achilles heel. The better that gets the more pointless they are.