British car mag Auto Express is confirming that Toyota is working on a successor to the Prius that upgrades it hardware not only with a better Lithium Ion battery pack that recharge faster and hold more power for longer, but also adds a lean-burning 1.8L turbocharged engine. The next Prius will be host to Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive II system that will coordinate the power play between these two drivetrains and may also gain plug-in capabilty. Auto Express reports Toyota's goal is to have its cake and eat it, too – high economy and high performance.
Coming from a European source, we here in North Americans shouldn't necessarily expect this news to apply to us. Our Prius sports a weaker battery pack than Prii sold elsewhere in the world and lacks other abilities, as well.
[Source: Auto Express]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
mark @ Jun 7th 2006 7:28AM
Sure.. give the America the crap.. and charge them the same prices.. typical car company.
bernie @ Jun 7th 2006 7:41AM
Is turbocharging a Prius like getting a Diet soda with your Boig Mac? Or maybe it's like wearing a condom while shooting heroin.
A stupid idea!
Gil @ Jun 7th 2006 7:52AM
bernie: not quite. The engine could run in two modes
1.economy - turbo charger used at minium or to improve torque, electric motors in main use
2.performance - turbo charger on full assisted by electric motors to improve torque at low revs (man I love this idea)
You switch between the two depending on driving conditions
matt @ Jun 7th 2006 8:34AM
We dont even know how effective it is yet and youre already saying its stupid? At least wait till it comes out first.
Glenn A. @ Jun 7th 2006 8:47AM
Turbocharging the Atkinson Cycle Prius engine would make it a Miller Cycle engine - at least, when in boost mode. The Mazda 929 had a supercharged Miller cycle V6 a few years back.
I also heard that Toyota's looking for 100 mpg plus on the next Prius, plus want to reduce the price differential (for hybrids) in half.
Faster, twice as economical and lower cost.
Man, you other car companies are going to have your lunch grabbed and eaten by Toyota, then will pay them for doing you the favor of showing you how to do it to someone else.
GhostDoggy @ Jun 7th 2006 9:29AM
Why not just put a turbo diesel in it?
Paul @ Jun 7th 2006 9:30AM
hybrid = teh lose
true electric = ftw
I still cant wrap my mind around the hybrid idea, you can easily make a pure gas engine that gets similar gas mileage with few parts to mess up and no heavy metals in batteries.
Trey H @ Jun 7th 2006 10:17AM
Heavy batteries and electric motors aside, it's all about volumetric efficiency when internal combustion engines are concerned. And turbochargers are highly effective at increasing volumetric efficiency and by harnessing the wasted heat energy of the exhaust they fit very nicely into the entire hybrid mantra. I say it makes perfect sense for a hybrid. Of course, the gentleman who suggested the turbo diesel is taking it one step further.
Would I buy one? Not a chance.
matt @ Jun 7th 2006 10:20AM
"I also heard that Toyota's looking for 100 mpg plus on the next Prius, plus want to reduce the price differential (for hybrids) in half."
Glenn, I read that the next prius will be over 100mpg as well but this is in japan. The fuel economy standard is different in japan. This generations prius gets 99mpg on their standard with the next generation prius expected to get somewhere from 113-120mpg depending on the source. Inside line was one of the publications that had an article on this.
heres the link: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=109981
matt @ Jun 7th 2006 10:22AM
"I also heard that Toyota's looking for 100 mpg plus on the next Prius, plus want to reduce the price differential (for hybrids) in half."
Glenn, I read that the next prius will be over 100mpg as well but this is in japan. The fuel economy standard is different
in japan. This generations prius gets 99mpg on their standard with the next generation prius expected to get somewhere from 113-120mpg depending on the source which is around 14-20% improvement, not double. Inside line was one of the publications that had an article on this.
Heres a link to their article, http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=109981
Chris @ Jun 7th 2006 10:53AM
When is Toyota going to put HSD in a Scion? It's going to be the only way they'll sell a hybrid to the under-30 crowd. But then again, putting HSD in a Scion will utterly destroy it's "inexpensive" entry-level image.
Karl Aldinger @ Jun 7th 2006 11:20AM
Um, turbo can increase fuel efficiency, but not if you keep engine at same displacement of 1.8L. The electric motor's the obvious answer for stoplight drag speed. I'd expect a turbo to be tuned to maximize fuel efficiency only and if you're going there, any 1.8 NA should translate to a 1.3L Turbo (or smaller). [I'm just bitter because the great gains from the Insight design were all lost on the bottom line. Creativity and real gains in efficiency are losing out to mediocrity of how can we get a Tahoe driver to switch to one of our cars/trucks. I greatly appreciated the option for extreme mileage gains, and I see them being retracted very quickly.]
Hung2 @ Jun 7th 2006 11:38AM
...and get ready for the recalls!!
skeptical @ Jun 7th 2006 12:12PM
I don't buy it.
First of all, on a gas engine, turbocharging reduces fuel efficiency. It increases power output per unit volume or per displacement, but these power increases require reducing the compression ratio. Reducing the compression ratio is an automatic, unavoidable loss in efficency.
Second of all, turbochargers are somewhat imprecise. It's difficult to control the fuel-air ratio and fuel burn rate as precisely as would be required to be super-mega-ultra-low (or whatever it is) emissions vehicle.
I could be wrong, but right now I'm a bit skeptical on this.
Note that on the other hand, on Diesels you don't have to give up efficiency to turbocharge.
Daggy @ Jun 7th 2006 12:44PM
A turbocharged engine would work well with E85 fuel.
Lower compression would reduce Nitrous Oxides which are still too high in modern engines.
Jeffrey @ Jun 7th 2006 12:48PM
Turbo hybrid? Sounds like the Subaru TPH hatchback concept shown earlier. Maybe Toyota's new partnership with Subaru is driving this idea.
Hobart @ Jun 7th 2006 1:40PM
Ok, we're making the "efficient" gas burner less so in the interest of "power."
But, what happens when that battery wears out?
Go diesel, make your own fuel. Forget petroleum and its fossilized industry.
Corey W. @ Jun 7th 2006 1:52PM
"Man, you other car companies are going to have your lunch grabbed and eaten by Toyota, then will pay them for doing you the favor of showing you how to do it to someone else."
Yeah right!! ....In the end it still DRIVES and LOOKS LIKE A PRIUS, only people buying this car are tree huggers (don't take that in a bad way), and people who want a daily commuter because their 2-3 other luxury vehicles get terrible gas mileage. ;-)
Fabulo @ Jun 7th 2006 3:47PM
Maybe the turbo spool is also driving a big alternator, for that double-the-recharging power of the li-ion batteries :)
Otherwise, I did not think turbo = better economy. We're talking about cramming more fuel in to be burnt. Especially when the engine mentioned is 1.8L (vs the current 1.5)
Reusing some lost energy is a good idea. I think they should use exhaust heat to boil water to make coffee. Or just plain steam power. 3xhybrid: gas, electrim, steam + caffeine. Sounds like a winner to me.
Jon @ Jun 8th 2006 12:58AM
Paul, #7: if "you can easily make a pure gas engine that gets similar gas mileage with few parts to mess up and no heavy metals in batteries" -- then how come I can't buy one?
Corey #18: "people who want a daily commuter because their 2-3 other luxury vehicles get terrible gas mileage." Boy, do I hear a lot of that attitude on autoblog. Our only other car is a '97 Subaru Legacy that we bought used.
I bet ten years ago a lot of people would have said that Toyota was dreaming when it proposed to create an affordable mass-market mid-size sedan that got 45 mpg in real-world city driving with extremely low emissions. Me, I'm keeping an open mind about any Toyota announcement.