Among the many new options of the Toyota C-HR plug-in hybrid just 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.
Referred to as Predictive Environment friendly Drive, this function analyzes visitors situations and learns the motive force’s conduct and common routes to maximise use of electrical mode, in keeping with a Toyota press launch on the C-HR plug-in hybrid.
In that Toyota PHEV, a geofencing operate additionally routinely prompts electrical mode in city low-emission zones, as a part of a trip-planning operate that saves electrical operation for these route parts.
2024 Toyota C-HR plug-in hybrid (European-spec)
Predictive Environment friendly Drive can be a system that Toyota additionally touts for the Prius Prime. However as Inexperienced Automotive Stories came upon in follow-ups with Toyota within the U.S., the Prius Prime’s model of this technique is a bit totally different.
For one, it would not embrace the geofencing function to determine the densest city areas which may finest be electric-only. And within the U.S., the system would not draw from crowdsourced data or a deeper layer of map knowledge, aside from stay visitors knowledge.
As an alternative, the automotive itself is gaining route-specific details about your driving. That studying is “saved native on the automobile and isn’t shared outdoors the automotive or saved on the cloud,” in keeping with Toyota. And whereas some efficiency-based techniques—similar to these from Audi—draw from terrain knowledge embedded in maps, Toyota’s Predictive Environment friendly Drive is primarily finding out the drive pressure and highway load.
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2024 Toyota Prius Prime
The takeaway, primarily based on this, is that whereas the function because it’s supplied to America within the Prius Prime won’t assist you be extra environment friendly on a highway journey, it’ll assist “be taught” the place it ought to prioritize electrical driving in your every day commute, or on one other journey that you simply do repeatedly. And that ought to assist reduce the quantity of gasoline you employ.
Prius Prime will get good on EV use for the commute, not new locations
The U.S. Prius Prime already consists of an EV Auto mode that prioritizes EV mode relying on driving situations; nevertheless it would not “see” the overarching route plan and what’s forward. A extra complete trip-planning function could be a very good match for the U.S.-market Prius Prime. Toyota additionally rolled this function to Europe beginning final yr within the Lexus NX plug-in hybrid. The Prius Prime’s comparatively gradual 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 function may add much more carbon-averting performance.
“As Toyota’s HEV and PHEV lineup evolves, so, too, shall the supporting applied sciences behind their administration,” famous Toyota to Inexperienced Automotive Stories, in what sounds to be a powerful trace that such smarter urban-EV options could also be on the best way.
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 dimension as that used within the Prius Prime—offers 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 sensible as a distinction as Toyota notes the C-HR is tuned for sportier driving.
The Toyota C-HR is not offered within the U.S., though Toyota has additionally proven a compact EV for Europe that could 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 shopper company, which noticed it as deceptive. Within 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 choices Toyota makes on this know-how integration might doubtlessly converse volumes to how the corporate intends to pitch its plug-in hybrids for America within the close to future.
–with reporting from Stephen Edelstein