Among the brand new options of the Toyota C-HR plug-in hybrid lately launched in Europe is an efficiency-boosting journey planner that may very well be helpful to Toyota’s U.S. plug-in hybrid clients.
Called Predictive Efficient Drive, this characteristic analyzes visitors circumstances and learns the driving force’s conduct and common routes to maximise use of electrical mode, in response to a Toyota press launch on the C-HR plug-in hybrid.
In that Toyota PHEV, a geofencing perform additionally robotically prompts electrical mode in city low-emission zones, as a part of a trip-planning perform that saves electrical operation for these route parts.
2024 Toyota C-HR plug-in hybrid (European-spec)
Predictive Efficient Drive is a system that Toyota additionally touts for the Prius Prime. But as Green Car Reports discovered in follow-ups with Toyota within the U.S., the Prius Prime’s model of this method is a bit completely different.
For one, it does not embrace the geofencing characteristic to determine the densest city areas which may greatest be electric-only. And within the U.S., the system does not draw from crowdsourced data or a deeper layer of map information, aside from stay visitors information.
Instead, the automobile itself is gaining route-specific details about your driving. That studying is “kept local on the vehicle and is not shared outside the car or stored on the cloud,” in response to Toyota. And whereas some efficiency-based techniques—similar to these from Audi—draw from terrain information embedded in maps, Toyota’s Predictive Efficient Drive is primarily learning the drive pressure and highway load.
2024 Toyota Prius Prime
The takeaway, primarily based on this, is that whereas the characteristic because it’s supplied to America within the Prius Prime may not enable you be extra environment friendly on a highway journey, it’ll assist “learn” the place it ought to prioritize electrical driving in your each day commute, or on one other journey that you just do repeatedly. And that ought to assist reduce the quantity of gasoline you utilize.
Prius Prime will get good on EV use for the commute, not new locations
The U.S. Prius Prime already contains an EV Auto mode that prioritizes EV mode relying on driving circumstances; however it does not “see” the overarching route plan and what’s forward. A extra complete trip-planning characteristic may be a very good match for the U.S.-market Prius Prime. Toyota additionally rolled this characteristic to Europe beginning final yr within the Lexus NX plug-in hybrid. The Prius Prime’s comparatively sluggish 3.5-kw onboard charger would not make sense for mid-trip charging stops, however for future PHEVs with faster charging and even DC fast-charging, such a characteristic would possibly add much more carbon-averting performance.
“As Toyota’s HEV and PHEV lineup evolves, so, too, shall the supporting technologies behind their management,” famous Toyota to Green Car Reports, in what sounds to be a robust trace that such smarter urban-EV options could also be on the way in which.
The C-HR plug-in hybrid’s powertrain consists of a 2.0-liter inline-4 gasoline engine and electrical motor, which mixed generate 220 hp. A 13.6-kwh lithium-ion battery pack—the identical measurement as that used within the Prius Prime—provides the C-HR 41 miles of vary, as measured on the European WLTP testing cycle. That compares to as many as EPA-rated miles for the Prius Prime within the U.S., and it is smart as a distinction as Toyota notes the C-HR is tuned for sportier driving.
The Toyota C-HR is not bought within the U.S., though Toyota has additionally proven a compact EV for Europe that may be U.S.-bound.
Lexus in Europe continues to make use of the complicated “self-charging hybrid” for its non-plug-in hybrids, regardless of a earlier crackdown by Norway’s client company, which noticed it as deceptive. In the U.S. Toyota has additionally tried a few of this creating advertising, recasting its hybrids with out cost ports final yr as “hybrid EVs.”
So the selections Toyota makes on this know-how integration might doubtlessly communicate volumes to how the corporate intends to pitch its plug-in hybrids for America within the close to future.
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with reporting from Stephen Edelstein
Source: www.greencarreports.com