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Damn, people who want to be a car owner and spend a dime over a Mitsubishi Mirage are just idiots looking for a badge of honor. You don't have a Mitsubishi Mirage do you?
YOU Answered this ^ BS, with your next comment:
Originally Posted by sam
Yes they are different cars, yes they are in different price brackets, no they should not be compared
. Nuff said.
Originally Posted by sam
but unfortunately there isn't really much to compare this thing to. Tesla is, even though you hate it for reasons beyond my comprehension, the benchmark when it comes to EVs and every EV from here on out will be compared to a Tesla until there are enough other good options to compare to.
Then just be a journalist with actual integrity and review the car (Toyota) for what it is. If it stands by itself in the ev world for now, so be it. don't go out there comparing the Toyota to a car that is 20K more expensive and is being made for an entirely different audience. FFS! Journalists like this are bullshit and lazy. Just another article for the ignorant to read and say "ooooooohhh wow look how great Tesla is. They totally kicked the ass of that Toyota." *ignorant boy runs out to buy a Tesla
Which is what exactly? YOU compared these two to EV's.
Originally Posted by pttl
Then just be a journalist with actual integrity and review the car (Toyota) for what it is. If it stands by itself in the ev world for now, so be it. don't go out there comparing the Toyota to a car that is 20K more expensive and is being made for an entirely different audience. FFS! Journalists like this are bullshit and lazy. Just another article for the ignorant to read and say "ooooooohhh wow look how great Tesla is. They totally kicked the ass of that Toyota." *ignorant boy runs out to buy a Tesla
Fucking ridiculous.
I don't disagree but if someone is dumb enough to go drop $20k more on a Tesla just because some journalist made a comparison that's 100% on the idiot making that call. I haven't watched or read any reviews of this Toyota so I can't make any statements on it but, again, a comparison to Tesla is going to be a thing for a LONG time at every price point whether you like it or not.
Which is what exactly? YOU compared these two to EV's.
No. I didn't compare them to evs. Why would I compare those two lightweight, engaging, driver centric, fun to drive, 3 pedal, sports cars to any ev on earth? I simply stated that I would take either one of them over any ev on earth.
Watch the video and you'll quickly see the point of their review, and the point of the existence of those 2 cars.
No. I didn't compare them to evs. Why would I compare those two lightweight, engaging, driver centric, fun to drive, 3 pedal, sports cars to any ev on earth? I simply stated that I would take either one of them over any ev on earth.
Watch the video and you'll quickly see the point of their review, and the point of the existence of those 2 cars.
that right there compares them to EV's...
I get why they exist and I also get why they don't really sell all that well.
I get why they exist and I also get why they don't really sell all that well.
no. That right there is not a comparison. It's a statement of preference.
Sales? Who cares about car sales? They are not the profit makers for the companies. They exist for drivers who want to engage with their car. In the video the reviewer even makes a point that Mr.. Toyoda loves the GR86, so it exists.. Watch the video.
At the end, it tells you oh by the way it is also $20k more... well no shit... that is like saying X3 M40i is better and faster than a 1.5T CRV Touring...
BMW X3 is more refined than Honda CRV. but i am not sure Model Y is that much luxury or refinement compared to Toyota. Toyota has strong brand image globally with claim of 90% or so battery retention power over long term. Tesla will not enter alot of markets as support infrastructure cannot be sustained.
In December 2021, we told our readers that the electric sedan Toyota said it would build with BYD was probably the bZ SDN concept it presented on December 14. That suspicion was confirmed by multiple spy shots that emerged ever since. Now, patent images show, and more spy shots tell us almost everything we need to learn about this vehicle. 10 photos
According to the Chinese media, the new Toyota should be called bZ5, something its dimensions perfectly admit. While the SUV is 4.69 meters (184.7 inches) long, the sedan is 4.73 m (186.2 in) long, making it slightly larger. The wheelbases are also very close: 2.86 m (112.6 in) for the bZ4X and 2.88 m (113.4 in) for the bZ5.
As expected, the SUV is wider – 1.86 m (73.2 in) against 1.84 m (72.4 in) – and taller – 1.65 m (65 in) against 1.48 m (58.3 in) – than the electric sedan. However, that has more to do with the body style than with the market segment in which these vehicles will compete. As we said, bZ5 is perfectly coherent with the longer sedan. Its top speed will be 150 kph (93.2 mph). Using LFP cells will make it a relatively heavy vehicle: 2,215 kilograms (4,883 pounds).
The patent images present only Toyota’s version for the electric sedan. It is very likely that BYD will not just badge-engineer this vehicle, which is a recipe for disaster. Looking and costing the same as a Toyota product, BYD’s sedan would not be very competitive unless the idea is to sell it in foreign markets for different customers.
According to CarNewsChina, the development process is still far from finished, and the patent images just present the current stage, with very few details of what the EV will look like. Without rear-view mirrors or door handles in the pictures, we must agree they are pretty generic. Despite that, we think the bZ5 may arrive in less than one year in production form, as the prototypes already photographed in the wild suggest.
Toyota joins Redwood Materials' EV battery recycling initiative
June 21, 2022
June 21 (Reuters) - U.S. startup Redwood Materials Inc on Tuesday said Japan's Toyota Motor Corp has become the latest auto industry giant to join its comprehensive electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling and remanufacturing initiative.
Redwood Materials, whose partners include automaker Ford Motor Co and EV battery maker Panasonic Holdings Corp, is building a closed-loop battery ecosystem aimed at lowering EV costs by lessening dependence on imported materials while also reducing the environmental impact.
The five-year-old company has focused initial work at a 175-acre campus in northern Nevada, and plans to build another complex in southeastern United States, its chief executive and founder, JB Straubel, said in an interview.
The new facility would be able to supply Toyota's planned $1.3 billion battery plant in North Carolina, as well as Ford's planned battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky with SK On, a subsidiary of South Korea's SK Innovation Co Ltd .
Redwood Materials is ramping up production of anode and cathode components to 100 gigawatt-hours by 2025, enough to supply batteries for 1 million EVs a year, then to 500 GWh by 2030, enough to supply 5 million EVs a year or more, said Straubel, a co-founder of Tesla Inc.
Toyota has been building hybrid electric vehicles under the Prius name for more than two decades. With a car's average lifespan roughly 12 years, some early Prius models will be reaching the end of their useful lives.
Once out of service, their nickel metal hydride batteries can be recycled and materials such as nickel and copper reintroduced into the battery supply chain, where they can supplement raw materials from mines.
Toyota is reportedly developing a small, mid-engined sports car that could be cheaper than the 2022 Toyota GR86.
Citing Best Car (an often reliable Japanese magazine) Forbes reported this week that Toyota, its subsidiary Daihatsu, and ally Suzuki are teaming up to build a mid-engined sports car. It'll reportedly be based on Toyota's GA-B platform (used in the GR Yaris), and powered by a 998-cc turbo three-cylinder from Suzuki. Rather than the 109 horsepower and 125 pound-feet of torque it makes in the Suzuki Swift, the engine is reportedly expected to make about 150 horsepower. From there, it'll apparently travel to the rear wheels through a six-speed torque converter automatic transmission. The car may arrive in 2025 with a price in the mid-$20,000s.
This development expands on a collaborative sports car rumor that circulated last December, albeit with details on the platform, pricing, and arrival timing missing. It fits a recent pattern of Toyota splitting the development of new models with other makes: Toyota worked with BMW on the GR Supra, and Subaru on the BZ4X and GR86.
However, the rumor doesn't fit perfectly with Toyota's known plans for its sports car lineup. In 2019, the Supra's program lead said there isn't room below the GR86 in Toyota's "Three Brothers" sports car lineup. Since then, Toyota has muddied the waters on whether a third member (like a rebooted Celica or MR2) is actually coming, or is already here in the form of the GR Yaris or GR Corolla—Toyota declined to tell us earlier this year whether either completes the trinity.
On top of that, the business case for a cheap, mid-engined sports car has only gotten worse since then. If there is any mid-engined driving experience on the way, it's likely coming in the form of that larger, pricier electric sports car concept. And even if these rumors of a smaller option pan out, there's still no guarantee the model will make it stateside.
For now, it seems all we can do is cross our fingers that the mid-engined Toyota will return one day. If you have a direct line to Akio Toyoda, now would be the time to make that call.
Toyota has made it clear time and time again that it has no interest in rushing into fully electric cars. However, it will listen to its customers and follow the market's needs. In order to chip away at some of Tesla's growing market share in China and Europe, the Japanese automaker is ready to bring its fully electric sedan to market.
As Toyota slowly moves forward with EVs, it has developed its own proprietary global platform that's designed for electric cars from the ground up. The E-TNGA platform will serve as the foundation for a number of Toyota electric vehicles going forward.
The first fully electric Toyota vehicle on the E-TNGA platform is the bZ4X compact SUV. The automaker actually already started delivering the new model, however, there's now a global delay to the launch of the electric crossover due to a recall for a wheel-mounting concern.
According to Autocar, Toyota CEO and president Akio Toyoda shared last year that the bZ4X would be followed by a long list of future Toyota EVs. One such vehicle was known as the bZ Sedan when it was still a concept, though the publication believes Toyota will officially call it the bZ3.
The Toyota bZ3 electric sedan will enter the Chinese EV market soon. It's expected to perform well in China since there's a high demand for sporty sedans. Sales in Europe are expected to begin as early as 2024. There are currently several new electric models working to take market share away from Tesla, and the bZ3 will join the bandwagon to rival the Tesla Model 3.
According to information published on China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website, the bZ3 will be available with two powertrains making either 178 or 238 bhp. The EV will weigh 1710-1840 kg and have a top speed limited to 99 mph.
It's also important to note that thanks to Toyota's partnership with BYD, the bZ3 is expected to employ the company's Blade lithium iron phosphate battery tech. The battery tech is reported to have a high energy density while being safer than other chemistries. With energy-dense batteries, the battery pack can be smaller, which allows for more interior space.
So I'm a little mad at Toyota right now. After sorting through EV vs. PHEV I decided on plug in hybrid for now and went looking for a Lexus NX 450h. Long story short, Toyota can't get enough batteries to produce quantities commensurate with demand, so the few they do make will get prioritized for Europe, China, and California where the laws require higher EV availability rates. Basically was told you will not be able to buy a 450h (and also Rav4 Prime) in 2023, except for the few that might make it to CA. Where they are marking them up considerably. They don't even have a date for the RZ 450e or it's Toyota equivalent.
Looked into other options and very similar stories. Even got close to pulling the trigger on a Kia EV6 and it was 6-8 month wait. Other EVs are already sold out for 2023.
So anyway back to Toyota, all the noise is cute but not terribly interesting until these actually show up in show rooms. I'm not a Tesla fanboy by any stretch but at least they can put cars in showrooms that people can buy. So Toyota can "take aim" at the Model 3 all they want - people will be 3-4 years into owning one before the bz3 hits the showrooms.
So I'm a little mad at Toyota right now. After sorting through EV vs. PHEV I decided on plug in hybrid for now and went looking for a Lexus NX 450h. Long story short, Toyota can't get enough batteries to produce quantities commensurate with demand, so the few they do make will get prioritized for Europe, China, and California where the laws require higher EV availability rates. Basically was told you will not be able to buy a 450h (and also Rav4 Prime) in 2023, except for the few that might make it to CA. Where they are marking them up considerably. They don't even have a date for the RZ 450e or it's Toyota equivalent.
Looked into other options and very similar stories. Even got close to pulling the trigger on a Kia EV6 and it was 6-8 month wait. Other EVs are already sold out for 2023.
So anyway back to Toyota, all the noise is cute but not terribly interesting until these actually show up in show rooms. I'm not a Tesla fanboy by any stretch but at least they can put cars in showrooms that people can buy. So Toyota can "take aim" at the Model 3 all they want - people will be 3-4 years into owning one before the bz3 hits the showrooms.
Exactly. No batteries means no EVs. Sounds familiar…. right???
The electric Corolla is finally out in the woods. Toyota presented in China the bZ3, the company’s second electric vehicle designed to be one. Before the bZ4X, the company only sold or leased electric cars based on combustion-engined projects, such as the RAV4 EV. The new electric sedan is the first product developed in partnership with BYD. 7 photos
Toyota only mentioned that the Chinese titan supplies the Blade Batteries that go into the bZ3’s battery pack. That suggests the motors are from Toyota, but this is not the information we got from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in August. Called TZ200-XS022, the electric motor comes from Fudi Power, BYD’s electric powertrain division.
According to the MIIT, it can deliver anything from 135 kW (181 hp) to up to 180 kW (241 hp). The motor powers the rear wheels, which can use 215/65 R16 or 225/50 R18 tires. The bZ3 weighs 2,215 kilograms (4,883 pounds) and has a top speed of 150 kph (93.2 mph). The Japanese company only confirmed that the platform is the same one that underpins the bZ4X: the e-TNGA.
We have been calling the bZ3 the electric Corolla, but some may prefer to name it the Camry on batteries. The truth is that it could fit perfectly as one of those vehicles sold in China with an extended wheelbase, which makes calling it a Corolla the most fitting description. As autoevolution readers have known since June, the bZ3 is 4.73 meters (186.2 in) long, 1.84 m (72.4 in) wide, and 1.48 m (58.3 in) tall, with a wheelbase of 2.88 m (113.4 in).
The Corolla is 4.63 m (182.3 in) long, 1.780 m (70.1 in) wide, 1.46 m (57.3 in) tall, and has a wheelbase of 2.70 m (106.3 in), while the Camry is 4.89 m long (192.7 in), 1.84 m (72.4 in), 1.45 m (56.9 in) tall, and a wheelbase of 2.82 m (111.2 in). As you can now compare, the bZ3 is longer than the Corolla, shorter than the Camry, and has a wheelbase that is second only to the Toyota Century’s (3.09 m, or 122 in).
Toyota did not share much more about the new electric sedan. It only said that it seats five people (predictably), has a CLTC range of more than 600 kilometers (373 miles) and a drag coefficient of 0.218. Without its frontal area, that is just an interesting detail. The car will offer a battery pack warranty of 90% retention for ten years, just like that one in the bZ4X. However, the Japanese carmaker did not disclose if it will have a mileage limit like the electric crossover does. With the bZ4X, it is ten years or 240,000 km (150,000 mi). It only said that "the 90% battery capacity retention rate after ten years is not guaranteed under all conditions." We are yet to discover the exceptions.
Toyota will make the bZ3 in China with its joint venture partner, FAW, but it did not disclose when deliveries will start or how much the electric Corolla will cost. It would be nice if Toyota were willing to share if it has international plans for the bZ3, but we will probably only learn about that when the Japanese carmaker starts exporting some units.
Exclusive: Toyota scrambles for EV reboot with eye on Tesla
By Norihiko ShirouzuOct 24 (Reuters) - Toyota (7203.T) is considering a reboot of its electric-car strategy to better compete in a booming market it has been slow to enter, and has halted some work on existing EV projects, four people with knowledge of the still-developing plans said.
The proposals under review, if adopted, would amount to a dramatic shift for Toyota and rewrite the $38-billion EV rollout plan the Japanese automaker announced last year to better compete with the likes of Tesla (TSLA.O).
A working group within Toyota has been charged with outlining plans by early next year for improvements to its existing EV platform or for a new architecture, the four individuals said.
In the meantime, Toyota has suspended work on some of the 30 EV projects announced in December, which according to the sources and a document reviewed by Reuters include the Toyota Compact Cruiser crossover and the battery-electric Crown.
Toyota said it was committed to carbon neutrality but declined to comment on specific initiatives.
"In order to achieve carbon neutrality, Toyota's own technology - as well as the work we are doing with a range of partners and suppliers - is essential," the company said in response to questions from Reuters.
The four sources declined to be identified because the plans have not been made public.
The revamp under consideration could slow the rollout of EVs already on the drawing board. But it would also give Toyota a chance to compete with a more efficient manufacturing process, as industry-wide EV sales run past Toyota's earlier projections.
As part of the review, Toyota is considering a successor to its EV-underpinning technology called e-TNGA, unveiled in 2019. That would allow Toyota to bring down costs, the people said.
The first EV based on e-TNGA — the bZ4X crossover — hit the market earlier this year although its launch was marred by a recall that forced Toyota to suspend production from June. Production resumed earlier this month.
TESLA AS BENCHMARK
The review was triggered in part by the realisation by some Toyota engineers and executives that Toyota was losing the factory cost war to Tesla on EVs, the sources said.
Toyota's planning had assumed demand for EVs would not take off for several decades, the four people said.
Toyota designed e-TNGA so that EVs could be produced on the same assembly line with gasoline cars and hybrids. That made sense based on the assumption Toyota would need to sell about 3.5 million EVs a year – roughly one-third of its current global volume – by 2030 to stay competitive, the sources said.
The person leading Toyota's EV review is Shigeki Terashi, former chief competitive officer, according to six people with knowledge of the work, including two people close to Toyota. Terashi did not respond to a request for comment.
Terashi's team has been designated a "BR" or "business revolution" group within Toyota, a term used for major changes including a revamp of its development and production processes two decades ago.
"What's driving Mr Terashi's effort is the EV's faster-than-anticipated takeoff and rapid-fire adoptions of cutting-edge innovations by Tesla and others," one of the people said.
All six people declined to be named because of the confidential nature of the plans.
Terashi's team is considering an option to prolong e-TNGA's usefulness by coupling it with new tecnnologies, three of the sources said.
Terashi could also propose to retire e-TNGA more quickly and opt for an EV-dedicated platform engineered from the ground up. That could take roughly five years for new models, two of the sources said. "There is little time to waste," said one.
Toyota is working with suppliers and considering factory innovations to bring down costs like Tesla's Giga Press, a massive casting machine that has streamlined work in Tesla plants.
One area under review is a more comprehensive approach to an EV's thermal management - combining, for example, passenger air conditioning and electric powertrain temperature control - that Tesla has already mobilised, the sources said.
This could allow Toyota to reduce the size and weight of an EV battery pack and cut costs by thousands of dollars per vehicle, making it a "top priority" for Toyota suppliers Denso and Aisin, one of the sources familiar with the matter said. Denso (6902.T) and Aisin (7259.T) had no immediate comment.
The recognition within Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, that Tesla has set a new benchmark for EV manufacturing costs marks a major reversal.
A decade ago when Toyota took a stake in Tesla and the two collaborated to produce a battery-electric version of the RAV4, many Toyota engineers believed Tesla's technology was no threat, two of the sources said.
"They concluded back then there wasn't much to learn," one of the sources said.
Toyota discontinued the electric RAV4 in 2014 and sold its stake in Tesla in 2017.
By 2018, when Toyota finally set up a dedicated zero-emissions division and began building an e-platform, Tesla already had three models on the road.
************
Guess somebody has gotten the memo to wake up from slumber
Toyota is known mostly for its hybrid-powered vehicles, with the Prius first coming into mind, but with all the other manufacturers racing towards an EV-only future, the Japanese brand seems to be lagging in terms of a wider-scale adoption on the electric-only front.
In fact, it’s reportedly one of the reasons why its CEO, Akio Toyoda, who’s the grandson of the firm’s founder, will be stepping down in April. But even as Toyota moves to develop its first dedicated EV platform, it still won’t make the shift to an all-electric lineup and now it’s using science to tell EV-only extremists that they’re wrong.
With some solid facts and figures at hand, the carmaker’s Chief Scientist Gill Pratt says that the best approach for a sustainable future is a multipronged one, blending EVs with hybrids and other green technologies, and not a full-on commitment to battery-powered cars only.
Automotive News writes that this pitch was first made at the World Economic Forum in Davos and more recently, Pratt repeated the message from Tokyo, in a bid to offer some context to Toyota’s long-term strategy.
"Time will show that our point of view is actually the correct one," Pratt said in Tokyo. "One way or the other, there will be a diversity of powertrains used throughout the world."
This statement comes as several car brands pledged to go full-electric at some point in the future, with Honda, Acura, Cadillac, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and more saying they’ll do the best they can to become carbon neutral in this century.
By contrast, Toyota wants to sell around 5.5 million internal combustion-engined and plug-in hybrid cars per year from 2030, as well as 3.5 million EVs, including 1 million Lexus-branded cars.
So Toyota isn’t anti-EV, but it believes in a diversified approach and it’s predicting a global shortage of lithium, which is the most important material used in today’s lithium-ion batteries found in pure EVs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids.
Gill Pratt and his team concluded that to lower carbon emissions as much as possible, it makes more sense to spread the limited supply of lithium among as many cars as possible, electrifying as many cars as possible.
He hypothesized a fleet of 100 internal combustion engine cars with average emissions of 250 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer traveled. Now, assuming a limited supply of lithium, there’s only enough of it to make 100 kilowatt-hours of batteries. Toyota’s Chief Scientist says that if it were used for a single, big battery, the average emissions of the whole fleet would drop by just 1.5 g/km.
But if the small amount of lithium were spread among smaller, 1.1-kWh batteries, it would be possible to make 90 hybrid cars, which would still leave 10 traditional combustion cars, but the average emissions of the theoretical fleet would drop to a much lower 205 g/km.
It’s a counterintuitive idea, that a big fleet of hybrids would make a bigger positive impact on emissions than a smaller fleet of EVs, and Toyota says this nuance is lost in the talks about adopting EVs on a global scale. Pratt also criticized rival car companies’ ambitions, calling them “happy talk” and saying that their forward-looking statements usually have an asterisk that says “if conditions permit”.
"What has to change is that we have to mature a little bit, and we have to stop doing wishful thinking," he said. "A real discussion is that these are the constraints in the development of resources in the world, both material resources and charging infrastructure and renewable power… If that is true, how do we reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide that will accumulate? That is a mature discussion, not a kind of dream discussion."
According to Automotive News, Gill Pratt was inspired to dig deeper into the battery question by his own family’s experience with a Tesla Model X, which has over 300 miles of range, but the car is typically driven less than 30 miles a day, which means 90 percent of the battery is “dead weight”.
"What has to change is that we have to mature a little bit, and we have to stop doing wishful thinking," he said. "A real discussion is that these are the constraints in the development of resources in the world, both material resources and charging infrastructure and renewable power… If that is true, how do we reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide that will accumulate? That is a mature discussion, not a kind of dream discussion."
I think this is the kind of thinking that will be more productive than the hysterical and frankly unrealistic promises most auto makers are throwing around right now.
Electrification has effectively put manual transmission in limbo. Most pure electric cars only need a single-speed transmission (though Porsche's Taycan has a two-speed gearbox), and even most electrified internal combustion engines (ICE) come with an automatic since it'll be incredibly complex if you blend the brains of a computer that decides whether to drive in gas or electric with the human interaction needed in actuating a clutch. More rudimentary mild hybrids with an integrated starter generator (ISG) do come with manuals, but most true hybrids often don't come with such a transmission - the last one being the CR-Z.
Toyota, however, isn't giving up on manuals yet. Even in the EV age, it is developing a manual that can mimic the feel of driving an ICE car, which may sound weird and too synthesized when put into practice. What's more realistic to achieve is a recently-uncovered patent filing by The Drive that reveals how Toyota will implement the pleasure of driving a manual with hybrid electric vehicles.
As mentioned, a manual hybrid already existed in the form of the Honda CR-Z or even the much older Honda Insight, so you're probably wondering how this is innovative in the first place. Well, to bring you up to speed, we have to first talk about the three types of hybrids: Series, Parallel, and Series-parallel. The first one is the Series Hybrid, which in this case is how Nissan's e-Power technology works. With e-Power, the ICE never powers the wheels. Instead, it simply acts as a generator to charge the battery that powers the electric motors. On the other hand, a Parallel Hybrid system uses both the ICE and the electric motors simultaneously to propel the car's wheels. Oftentimes, the electric motors in parallel hybrids are sandwiched between the ICE and the transmission - hence the parallel name due to its arrangement in a circuit. Think of Honda's older Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) drivetrain in the Civic Hybrid and CR-Z, which is why fitting a manual transmission in a parallel hybrid is easy and straightforward.
Lastly, the Series-parallel Hybrid (or the power-split hybrid) is what Toyota and Lexus are famous for, and is the most popular type of hybrid in terms of sales. As the name implies, the ICE in a series-parallel hybrid can both act as a generator to charge the battery or to directly power the wheels. This is why Toyota and Lexus hybrids are able to run in pure electric mode in certain situations - switching between gas and electric on their own. With this in mind, how do you integrate a manual transmission in a car that's meant to also be driven by just electric motors?
In order to achieve this, the incredibly-complex manual transmission comes with a shuttle valve with three clutch cylinders. One of those three cylinders is still the master cylinder that's directly linked to the actual clutch pack. Meanwhile, the remaining two cylinders are each connected to the actual clutch pedal (labeled as 102), and the other is linked to the ECU (labeled as 112 and 114). A valve (labeled as 116) then opens up depending on which of the two cylinders has more pressure so as not to confuse the system.
So, how does this incredibly complex system work? It's not as complex as the patent drawings may suggest. The way you drive the car is still (mostly) no different from a traditional manual, but the ECU is now able to depress the clutch on its own--disconnecting the transmission from the engine and letting the electric motors run during starting and stopping, as well as coasting. This is unlike Honda's IMA manual-equipped parallel hybrid system since the CR-Z isn't able to run in pure electric mode.
At least on paper, not quite. That's because as mentioned, the valve opens depending on which of the two cylinders has more pressure, whether it's the ECU or how much force you apply to the clutch pedal. What this basically means is under normal circumstances, the clutch pedal is automatically depressed by the ECU when you start off or crawl to a stop, but if you don't like how the ECU is managing the car's drivetrain, you're able to fully depress the clutch and take the ECU out of the equation entirely. The patent even describes a drive mode wherein the ECU is completely deactivated, and you now operate the manual-equipped hybrid as you traditionally would. Just don't forget that at this drive mode, the engine can now actually stall, alright?
As the world heads toward an electric future, why does Toyota seem so heavily invested in creating a complex manual transmission for hybrid cars? Well, under Akio Toyoda's leadership, the Japanese automaker wants to continue to cater to driving enthusiasts. It's not an innovation that will change the world, but it's an innovation that will keep cars fun even in the age of electrification. Building a hybrid with a manual probably isn't a technology that the world needs, but it's a piece of complicated tech that will keep driving enthusiasts happy in a sea of cars that all cruise in silence and with barely any mechanical connection left. It's definitely going to be a game changer among enthusiast cars in the electrified vehicle space when the patent comes to life, but it probably won't revolutionize how the typical non-enthusiast driver will commute from A to B.
^ Hybrid so it will have the sounds of dino juice blowing up.
This will never actually go in production anyway. The number of people who would buy this is tiny, wouldn't make sense for anyone (let alone Toyota lol) to offer this.
02-14-2022, 09:53 PM
They exist for drivers who want to engage with their car. In the video the reviewer even makes a point that Mr.. Toyoda loves the GR86, so it exists.. Watch the video.
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