Hybrid cars, and which ones are available these days

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#2909092 2-May-2022 07:23

My mother has just got a Yaris hybrid. My observations:

Handling is surprisingly good.
Powertrain is pretty refined, although the transition to the petrol engine isn't entirely seamless.
The feature set is a bit strange as it has some high end features such as heads up display and radar guided cruise control, but lacks some basic features such as electric handbrake and adjustable seatbelt anchors.
The entertainment system is a dog. I normally just use CarPlay but had to fight to get it to connect. Also, there is only one USB port in the entire cabin.

I've driven a petrol-only RAV4 as a rental and I didn't really find it particularly endearing. That's why I'm more interested in the Tucson hybrid but the prices for that look outrageous.

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#2909176 2-May-2022 09:32

I have had a RAV4 Hybrid for the last couple of months. 2022 model.

Really enjoying driving it and it's as economical as the stats would suggest.

I have the base model GX and it has quite a few bells and whistles for a bottom-of-the-barrel vehicle, which include Rader cruise Control, dual zone aircon, auto-everything (wipers, lights etc) and a few drive modes such as eco, sport, normal, trail etc.

I'd certainly recommend one, but they are scarce as hens teeth.

Edit: a few small things to consider though: Because of the placement of the batteries and associated gubbins, the bottom squab of the rear seat doesn't lift up, so the seats don't completely fold flat.

Not a lot of additional storage nooks or cubbies - I have had a number of vehicles in the oast that were festooned with storage areas - little drawers, underfloor or underseat containers etc.

The RAV4 Hybrid doesn't have these. It has the most basic, with a few cup/bottle holders and a decent sized boot, but no cargo net or additional storage.

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#2909227 2-May-2022 10:51

The other thing I noticed with the RAV4 is that there is a lot of cheap hard plastic in the cargo space. It makes it look a bit like a trademan's vehicle.

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#2909239 2-May-2022 11:39

alasta:

The other thing I noticed with the RAV4 is that there is a lot of cheap hard plastic in the cargo space. It makes it look a bit like a trademan's vehicle.

I get them quite frequently as rentals. The plastic floor drives me nuts. I usually wind up getting my hard suitcase out of the boot and putting behind the front seats so it doesn't spend my whole work trip sliding around the boot.

NB. How does one compare EV "fuel' usage to petrol? I have plenty of info regarding litres per 100km etc over the course of several years, but I want to work out the equivalent of EV ownership, IE 15,000kms at 6.0L/100kmh gives me a fuel cost of X. How do I do that with electric presuming I could charge at home?

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#2909380 2-May-2022 14:37

alasta:

The other thing I noticed with the RAV4 is that there is a lot of cheap hard plastic in the cargo space. It makes it look a bit like a trademan's vehicle.

You're right - the hard plastics are a bit cheap in the boot, but I throw a lot of stuff in there, like boogie boards and mountain bike stuff, so it's probably more fit for purpose for me.

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#2909396 2-May-2022 15:43

mudguard:

NB. How does one compare EV "fuel' usage to petrol? I have plenty of info regarding litres per 100km etc over the course of several years, but I want to work out the equivalent of EV ownership, IE 15,000kms at 6.0L/100kmh gives me a fuel cost of X. How do I do that with electric presuming I could charge at home?

So there are some government estimates of running costs and lifetime costs at genless, they estimate an average of $2.79 per 100kms.

https://genless.govt.nz/stories/total-cost-of-ownership-evs-vs-petrol/

A crude estimate you could make yourself would probably be something like:

(100km/(EV Range / EV Battery size / 0.95) x Electricity unit cost

The 0.95 is in there to account for the loss of energy when you convert AC (mains) -> DC (Battery) and probably depends on the car and charger.

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#2909441 2-May-2022 17:32

ev-database.com has good per km energy use info from real world conditions.

[urll]https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electric-car[/url]

For instance my Model 3 works out to be 3c/km when charged at home. Until RUCs start of course. My Camry Hybrid worked out to about 15c/km with 91 petrol at $2.80/l.

If you look at something like the Eclipse Cross PHEV (because I ran the numbers recently) it uses its 13.8 kWh battery up to go 50km, about 180Wh/km. It’s a bit hard to be exact because I don’t know if the full capacity is usable. But that is about 4c/km when charged at my home. Then when the battery is expended it runs in serial HEV mode at about 6l/100km which is approx 17c/km (at current 91 price). Someone who runs a pre 2022 Outlander PHEV will be able to give a pretty good steer because the Eclipse Cross has the same running gear. The new gen Outlander PHEV is even better (apparently).

So if you can stay below 50km between charges, the bill will be ‘quite low’. But the official 1.9l/100km is a pretty nonsense number. Companies have used it to their advantage in the UK where road tax is based on official emissions figures. Their reps then run around on petrol purchased on the company credit card and don’t bother wasting time (or their home electricity) charging the vehicle. And in doing so actually achieve worse emissions than a pure hybrid by lugging the bigger battery around.

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#2911159 6-May-2022 19:52

Driven review of the Honda jazz hybrid 2021 35k:

https://www.driven.co.nz/reviews/honda-jazz-e-hev-luxe-review-extended-test/

They were impressed with the feel and features. Fuel economy on their run around in NZ conditions was 4.2 per 100km. I've seen other reviews clock it at 5.2 for inter-city driving. In either case similar to prius the gold standard.

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#2911171 6-May-2022 21:07

According to this page, the Nissan Qashqai e-Power is going to be available here towards the end of the year. This could be one to watch, as it apparently rocks 140kw/330Nm performance with fuel consumption of 5.3l/100km.

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#2911227 7-May-2022 05:33

Sorry, I just noticed my BBCode skills lacked a little finesse. Corrected below.

ev-database.com has good per km energy use info from real world conditions.

https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electric-car

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#2911232 7-May-2022 07:14

alasta:

My mother has just got a Yaris hybrid. My observations:

Handling is surprisingly good.
Powertrain is pretty refined, although the transition to the petrol engine isn't entirely seamless.
The feature set is a bit strange as it has some high end features such as heads up display and radar guided cruise control, but lacks some basic features such as electric handbrake and adjustable seatbelt anchors.
The entertainment system is a dog. I normally just use CarPlay but had to fight to get it to connect. Also, there is only one USB port in the entire cabin.
I've driven a petrol-only RAV4 as a rental and I didn't really find it particularly endearing. That's why I'm more interested in the Tucson hybrid but the prices for that look outrageous.

heh i've been watching clip after clip of souped up Yaris defeating Porsches and [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0qRevwN8po]BMWs[/youtube] on race tracks on youtube (casual drivers) :)

and watch the 2021 COTY in action ->

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#2911362 7-May-2022 18:37

Was talking to 2 car dealers this week, asking what are their biggest hybrid sales these days. Reply:
- Honda Vezel Hybrid 2016+
- Aqua 2016+

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#2911400 7-May-2022 20:37

Yeah the Aqua seem very popular, slightly more fuel efficient that the standard Prius I think. The dealer I was talking to in Hamilton also said they were his number one sellers...

Just switched from a second gen Prius to an Outlander PHEV. Bit sad to take the drop in fuel efficiency ~4-5L/100km to ~6.6L/100km. However, it probably will overall reduce the amount of fuel we use, as the PHEV component gives us ~40km on battery a day for ~12kWhs of electricity. The majority of our driving is around town or near by so that's likely to cover 90-95% of our usage per year.

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#2911430 7-May-2022 22:00

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/nissan/note/listing/3522479770?bof=oDQSYvof

This one would be good if it actually had something in the description!

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#2911585 8-May-2022 14:35

What is a small PHEV available these days? wife currently has a Honda Jazz, so a 4 door but small car. so looking for something thats not a big SUV or sedan. Looking at some comparisons there doesn't seem to be anything that is very small out there in this class.

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