Couple of things I wanted to check with the group:
1) petrol motor started up as soon as we pushed the on button. Couldn’t seem to get it on pure EV mode the whole time. Is there something we’re missing there?
2) does the 2014 have any energy flow type screen graphics? Could only see the stereo screen showing gps and wondered if it had been replaced. If you change the head unit are you losing any original display functionality there?
1a) the petrol motor is quite noisy. Overall the whole thing felt quite farm vehicle like coming from a 2010 Mazda MPV which has soft cloth seats and is very quiet/refined inside the cabin. Middle row seats in the MPV are captains chairs with recline, arm rests and even foot rests etc. outlander felt like thin cheap hard vinyl plank seats by comparison.
Also brakes were really bad as it’s a wallowing heavy vehicle.
I have predicted inflow of numerous hybrids into NZ a while ago.
One of the car dealers had 120 Aquas in Auckland last week - sorted by color!!!
I have developed and continue to develop Japanese to English conversion solutions for modern speedometers in hybrids (and some ICE cars too) - various makes and models. e.g. hybrids:
Honda: Vezel, Grace, FIT, Jade, Shuttle
Toyota: Aqua (up to 2022), Sienta (compact 7-seater with slidiing doors), Harrier, Vitz, Axio, Fielder, CROWN AWS210, Some Lexus
Modern models come with various safety features - e.g. Lane Departure Alerts, Collision Prevention Parking Brakes and corresponding warning messages in the Instrument Cluster (AKA Combination Meter or Speedometer)
Amount of information in those speedometers are enourmous - some have over 600 phrases in Japanese. I have translated all of them. Brief videos on my youtube channel.
I am very rarely on GZ these days, but always reachable by Whatsapp or mobile voice calls.
I have predicted inflow of numerous hybrids into NZ a while ago.
One of the car dealers had 120 Aquas in Auckland last week - sorted by color!!!
I have developed and continue to develop Japanese to English conversion solutions for modern speedometers in hybrids (and some ICE cars too) - various makes and models. e.g. hybrids:
Honda: Vezel, Grace, FIT, Jade, Shuttle
Toyota: Aqua (up to 2022), Sienta (compact 7-seater with slidiing doors), Harrier, Vitz, Axio, Fielder, CROWN AWS210, Some Lexus
Modern models come with various safety features - e.g. Lane Departure Alerts, Collision Prevention Parking Brakes and corresponding warning messages in the Instrument Cluster (AKA Combination Meter or Speedometer)
Amount of information in those speedometers are enourmous - some have over 600 phrases in Japanese. I have translated all of them. Brief videos on my youtube channel.
I am very rarely on GZ these days, but always reachable by Whatsapp or mobile voice calls.
Your work sounds amazing. Do you have an offsider working in Wellington. Auckland gets all the good ones.
i'd like to know if there are easy ways for the average buyer to check the battery health of self charging hybrids
their capacity is 1-2kWh and by the time it gets to 5 years old it would have had thousands to tens of thousands of discharge cycles
Not really for Toyota's at least.
I took mine to the battery clinic, and they ran the battery down while hooked up to a scan tool, and didn't find any flagging issues (but didn't give me a state of health either).
Yeah, they will have an epic number of cycles, but that is not really an issue. The batteries are tightly managed by the car, and will typically run for hundreds of thousands of KM's.
Allways interesting lookign up the highest mileage toyota hybrids on trademe (often ex taxi).
Generally having a battery replacement is a selling point so they get advertised.
At the moment there is a Prius with 420,000km. Got a new battery last year.
A camry with 380500km. Got a new battery in 2018.
A camry with 375,000km. Original Battery.
Prius 315,000km, some cells replaced last year
Prius 305,000km, Orginal battery
Prius 298,000km, Battery replaced at 180,000km
prius 288,000km, Orginal battery
Prius 282,000km, Orginal battery
Camry 252,000km, Battery health 77%
General assumption is that taxi duty is harsher than private duty. Lots of time sitting still (likely with the air con on), lots of short trips, lots of city traffic.
But from the above data, it seems that if you get a good car it will last well past 300,000km on the orginal battery. and the worst case seems to be about 180,000km.
these Toyota Hybrids seem to defy logic.
whereas i got scared when someone on GZ as a first owner of a newish Outlander PHEV had a poorly performing battery.
on my second Leaf now, they also seem to be a lottery, but at least buying second hand you kinda know the initial trajectory up to the point of purchase.
“of a newish Outlander PHEV had a poorly performing battery.”
Common concern seems to be the car BMS prematurely degrading its expected capacity of the battery, rather than an issue with the battery itself.
A bit like how apple were found to be slowing older iPhones as a precaution to assist the battery.
Still a real issue for the owner with less range on battery, but a distinction worth considering compared to outright battery failure/severe physical degradation.
Jaxson: Test drove a 2014 Outlander tonight quickly.
Couple of things I wanted to check with the group:
1) petrol motor started up as soon as we pushed the on button. Couldn’t seem to get it on pure EV mode the whole time. Is there something we’re missing there?
2) does the 2014 have any energy flow type screen graphics? Could only see the stereo screen showing gps and wondered if it had been replaced. If you change the head unit are you losing any original display functionality there?
It was a Outlander PHEV, not Outlander Hybrid?
With our Outlander PHEV 2014 there is a few things that kick the petrol engine on:
1) If the tank of petrol has not been topped up by 50% or more in the last 3 months, the engine will run constantly until you have a 50% top up. Aparently this is to stop the car having a tank of bad/old petrol that could damage the engine.
2) AC, having the AC on (especially in heating mode) causes the car to turn on it's engine, some engineer probably decided is was better to heat the car using waste engine heat rather than the 10kWh in the battery. It can also do this in Cooling mode if cranked up to high.
3) If either the Battery Saver or Battery charge modes enabled (buttons in the center column by the handbrake), or the battery is pretty much empty.
4) Rapid acceleration, but your foot down hard and the car spins the engine up then keeps it running for a while. In Eco mode it's possibly a bit slower to spin the engine up and a bit quicker to turn it off when you slow down or come to a stop.
Our 2014 has a couple of energy flow options on if you cycle through the dashboard options with the button that looks like two stacked cards next to the steering wheel. Second on the entertainment console, There is a 'EV information' option in the menu, press that then choose current trip and you can see where the energy is going or coming from.
We brought a 2013 Prius a few years ago. Didn't get the battery tested so I have no idea on its status, we just drive it like a normal car.
End of the day, it gets about 850km off a 40L tank of 91, mostly around town driving. I think that's OK, if the battery is"under capacity" its still getting good results!! - certainly better than my diesel van.
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