Will Toyota Prius Prime achieve EV route planning smarts?

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 circumstances and learns the driving force’s habits and common routes to maximise use of electrical mode, in line 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 is a system that Toyota additionally touts for the Prius Prime. However as Inexperienced Automobile Stories discovered in follow-ups with Toyota within the U.S., the Prius Prime’s model of this technique is a bit completely different.

For one, it does not embody the geofencing function to establish the densest city areas that may finest be electric-only. And within the U.S., the system does not draw from crowdsourced info or a deeper layer of map information, apart from dwell visitors information.

As a substitute, the automotive itself is gaining route-specific details about your driving. That studying is “stored native on the car and isn’t shared outdoors the automotive or saved on the cloud,” in line with Toyota. And whereas some efficiency-based programs—reminiscent of these from Audi—draw from terrain information embedded in maps, Toyota’s Predictive Environment friendly Drive is primarily finding out the drive pressure and highway load.

2024 Toyota Prius Prime

The takeaway, based mostly on this, is that whereas the function because it’s supplied to America within the Prius Prime may not assist you to be extra environment friendly on a highway journey, it’s going to assist “study” the place it ought to prioritize electrical driving in your every day commute, or on one other journey that you just do usually. And that ought to assist reduce the quantity of gasoline you utilize.

Prius Prime will get sensible 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 circumstances; nevertheless it does not “see” the overarching route plan and what’s forward. A extra complete trip-planning function is perhaps match for the U.S.-market Prius Prime. Toyota additionally rolled this function to Europe beginning final 12 months within the Lexus NX plug-in hybrid. The Prius Prime’s comparatively sluggish 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 would possibly 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 Automobile 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 measurement 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 bought within the U.S., though Toyota has additionally proven a compact EV for Europe that is perhaps 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 client company, which noticed it as deceptive. Within the U.S. Toyota has additionally tried a few of this creating advertising and marketing, recasting its hybrids with out cost ports final 12 months as “hybrid EVs.”

So the choices Toyota makes on this expertise integration may probably 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