I have always been a bit of a cynic when it comes to NEVs… for those not up to date with the latest marketing buzzwords, these are New Energy Vehicles, ranging from pure electric to those with hybrid propulsion systems combining internal combustion engines with electric motors and batteries. When the first NEV, Toyota’s Prius hybrid, hit the market, I was underwhelmed. I wrote back then that, if you really wanted to save the planet by reducing your carbon footprint, you’d do more by taking the then R400 000 cost of the Prius and buying thousands of tree saplings with the money.
Those trees would be pretty tall now and would be doing a good job of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and converting it into lovely, free oxygen. I believed then, and I still do (to an extent), that NEVs are more about marketing than science. At the same time, I do not dismiss the dangers of climate change.
The highest global population of Priuses at one stage was in and around Los Angeles, where all the Hollywood A-listers liked to be seen in one in public to burnish their “green” credentials. (Never mind there was also a gas-guzzling supercar or Ford F-150 truck also in that Beverly Hills garage…) Yet the NEV game has moved on to where the newest hybrids make extremely appealing family cars, because when they are used in their most frequent role, in the city, they can save piles of cash. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Toyota’s Corolla Cross Hybrid, the country’s best-selling NEV.
Read Full Article on The Citizen
[paywall]
Driving it in an urban setting for a week, I saw an amazing fuel consumption of 4.8 litres per 100km. That’s not far off Toyota’s claim of 4.3L/100km. That’s down to an electric propulsion system which, although part-time (it cancels at speeds above 40km/h or heavy throttle openings) drives the car for much of those start-stop city journeys. The small battery is recharged by the 1.8 litre petrol engine, as well as by regenerative braking systems, which recover the energy from decelerating.
[/paywall]
