Toyota plug-in hybrids to offer 124-mile electric-only range

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/toyota-plug-hybrids-offer-124-mile-electric-only-range

by clouddrover • 3 years ago

26 107 3 years ago

autocar.co.uk

This sort of range is absolutely incredible; and, if they are pushing the electric motor as the primary motor, maybe the performance of the car, too, will be very good, rather than the terrible 0-60 times of a Prius.

jacquesm3• 3 years ago

The terrible 0-60 times of a Prius are a feature, not a bug.

kirykl2• 3 years ago

The even more sluggish post 60 acceleration can a safety problem on fast moving highways

t-writescode2• 3 years ago

If a car has good throttle control options, a torquier or faster car can always operate in a similar way to a slower; but the opposite is not true.

A car that 0-60s more slowly is only good at limiting someone with a lead foot.

dmurko• 3 years ago

The new one has 7.1 0-60 which is pretty solid: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42229923/2023-toyota-priu...

nanliu• 3 years ago

That’s when both electric and gas motor are running. If you want to restrict to electric only and take advantage of the battery for short daily driving it will be significantly slower.

4pkjai• 3 years ago

I drove a Toyota Corolla Hybrid a few months ago. Loved the car.

lostlogin• 3 years ago

This as a wagon or a Camry wagon with plug in option. My ultimate.

My ICE Corolla was bullet proof. I’d love some of that with a battery.

asplake• 3 years ago

I have one and am very pleased with it. Before that a Rav4 hybrid, one of best cars I have ever owned.

I found Toyota’s past resistance to EVs embarrassing. This is a very welcome step.

robertlagrant3• 3 years ago

This is a plug-in hybrid, though? They've been selling a plug-in Prius since 2012.

delta_p_delta_x• 3 years ago

Or 200 km. Of course it's a nice, round number in SI.

zinckiwi2• 3 years ago

This seems like the goldilocks zone to me. A day's urban driving comfortably, and fossil fuels for the very occasional long trip.

nolok• 3 years ago

Not familiar with hybrid very much, but doesn't that mean essentially carrying the internals of two different engines, and thus double the maintenance risks just "for the very occasional long trip" ?

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

No, that’s not how it works.

Many are a variant of this:

http://www.automd.com/news/2011/06/08/hybrid-vehicles/

hytdstd• 3 years ago

The prius is one of the most reliable vehicles on the road today. These are just priuses with larger batteries and more powerful electric motors.

windowsrookie• 3 years ago

No, it does not double the maintenance risk. Hybrid cars have one gasoline engine, and one (or more) electric motors. Toyota I believe, uses one of the electric motors to also start the gasoline engine (eliminating the starter motor on a traditional ICE engine). Toyota Hybrids are actually a much simpler setup than a modern turbocharged/direct injected ICE car.

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.

lm28469• 3 years ago

ICE wear and tear mostly is due to short trips with frequent stops when the car doesn't have time to heat up properly (ie. city driving) and when you put pressure on the gearbox

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)

hcho• 3 years ago

120 miles of urban driving? Are you a taxi driver?

zinckiwi2• 3 years ago

I'm thinking: cross town errands, 40 or 50 miles round-trip, traffic, maybe it's winter and the usual range is cut by a third... plus general headroom to reduce anxiety. ~100 miles seems like a good target for the 99th percentile of days.

ldarby2• 3 years ago

They haven't published the fuel tank size or non-electric range (at least, I couldn't find this info easily), so I'd expect it to be similar to the BMW i3's tea cup sized fuel tank.

ZeroGravitas2• 3 years ago

The i3 had it's fuel capacity artificially limited in the US due to some rule necessary to get subsidies.

But I think the same pressure will apply, if they make it too big then it'll look like a regulation workaround.

yardie5• 3 years ago

many BEVs’ batteries aren't used to their full potential very often. This means BEV drivers lug around redundant capacity and weight,

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?

egil• 3 years ago

Not to mention the required maintenance of said parts.

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

Modern ICE components don’t really require that much maintenance these days

viraptor• 3 years ago

It could be useful for people who will basically never need gas, but are too scared to make a full switch and are happy to pay extra for the complexity.

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?

DoingIsLearning• 3 years ago

It could be useful for people who will basically never need gas, but are too scared to make a full switch and are happy to pay extra for the complexity.

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.

buran772• 3 years ago

In theory you are correct but the extra ICE parts are for people for whom EVs don't cut it (too expensive, no proper charging infrastructure, usage pattern, etc.). This is actually a vast chunk of the world's population. So if you can't consistently go electric a PHEV is a good mix.

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.

yardie5• 3 years ago

The vast majority of the world don’t need a car at all.

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?

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

this FUD is so annoying. go look it up, it requires less weight to convert ICE to PHEV than PHEV to BEV. In other words, BEV is actually the one lugging around redundant capacity. The Kiro Niro illustrates this fact perfectly as one of the few vehicles that has both an ICE, PHEV and BEV variant.

add to the fact that most miles driven for most people are within the range of PHEV electric range, BEV makes literally no sense.

surgical_fire• 3 years ago

I have one of those hybrid models because the place I live in has a shitty EV charging infrastructure. And I live in an apartment building. Not living in a single family home makes EVs more cumbersome to have.

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.

tr_user• 3 years ago

You live on the same planet. If you want to spite the EV fan, go punch one. Why spite the rest of us?

linsomniac2• 3 years ago

People with plug-in hybrids: What do you do about gasoline aging out? Do you add Sta-Bil to most tanks? Do you just stop charging it after a few months to burn through the tank? Just curious.

theshrike79• 3 years ago

I think some PHEV cars forcibly run the engine to prevent that issue specifically.

syntaxing2• 3 years ago

I usually let my engine run purposely every 3 months or so. I also try to only keep my gas tank half full.

dsfyu404ed2• 3 years ago

Gasoline doesn't go bad that fast in a modern sealed fuel system and engines with modern electronic control systems that have a lot of latitude to adjust in real time are really forgiving.

People are mostly projecting their experience with much more finicky lawn equipment to cars.

linsomniac2• 3 years ago

References? Because I'm seeing fairly recent discussions saying things like "gasoline starts to oxidize into varnish surprisingly quickly" and suggesting not letting gasoline sit for 6 months.

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

I think this is the right strategy. People lamenting the extra gas engine components and their maintenance must not be familiar with the reliability of a modern (ICE) vehicle.

brk• 3 years ago

You're probably right about them not being aware of the reliability of ICE engines.

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.

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

There are stabilizing fluids you can add that extends the life to years. If owners can’t be bothered to do that the car could be programmed to use fuel every 6 months to prevent the negative side effects (in the case of cars like the Pacifica PHEV and Prius Prime, this is what happens)

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.

jqpabc1238• 3 years ago

It is a strategy that is subject to being superceded very soon.

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.

moogly2• 3 years ago

A dual power train just costs more --- both initially and in terms of maintenance

I won't argue against the maintenance, but pure BEV vehicles are still quite more expensive to buy than (P)HEVs.

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

Efficiency and cost are also less than optimal.

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.

pandaman• 3 years ago

ICE cars had an electric motor, a battery and an alternator since the earlier 20th century. Without those they were not very practical and required the driver to manually crank to start the engine. PHEV do not add a second power train, they just have a beefier electric system than a regular car and a charger.

syntaxing2• 3 years ago

I own a PHEV and it’s crazy how much it increases your quality of life. It’s so nice to be able to do local errands on electric and if I use gas, I get over 40 mpg easily which is really good for a SUV so I get about 500 mile range on a single tank. I honestly think this car fits the bill for so many families in the US. It’ll sell really well as long as dealership stops being greedy.

christkv• 3 years ago

This change will make these models best sellers in Spain (outside of Madrid and Barcelona) as the charging structure is still massively primitive and this cover the commutes on electric during the week and the longer trips on weekends with a combination).

ZeroGravitas2• 3 years ago

I'd rather see Toyota put it's money and engineering talent into making more and better batteries, but PHEVs were a cool stepping stone.

Fast and easy electric charging on long trips is their Achilles heel. The better that gets the more pointless they are.

geokon4• 3 years ago

Maybe someone who knows more on the matter could help me understand the efficiency problem.

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 :)

endisneigh16• 3 years ago

Wouldn't it be more efficient for long trips to run a small generator in the car that charged the batteries?

See the Toyota Prius. This is already what is done.

geokon4• 3 years ago

Oh, it is in effect kinda similar. Though it does it through gearing

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

zb2• 3 years ago

This is called a series hybrid and there are lots of them on the market.

geokon4• 3 years ago

Yeah, I was wrong. Thanks for pointing it out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vehicle_drivetrain#Seri...

achow• 3 years ago

Literally nobody has done this

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...

dagw• 3 years ago

Literally nobody has done this

This is exactly what the Fisker Karma was doing 10-12ish years ago.

lostmsu• 3 years ago

Could they have added the list of models? Ugh

Toyota plug-in hybrids to offer 124-mile electric-only range

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