Is the Hybrid really the solution?

[Tony Curcio]

A Prius really is a sh_t box. It is not the only hybrid, and far from the best, only one of the first. Toyota keeps them ugly because that appeals to a market segment consisting of organic vegetarians that are making a political statement with said sh_t box.

But the question asked was, "are they the future"?

At The 24 Hours of Lemans, there will be hybrids and in past years there have been"flybrids" entered by Toyota in Prototype and Porsche in GT. They are dumping millions into energy recovery systems, such as a lightweight, high rpm flywheel system that keeps spinning from its own momentum, both while running, and after shut off to continue charging the battery pack, hence the name, flybrid.

The Toyota will have electric motors on each wheel, two will power wheels, two will be spun by the wheels to act as alternators, and thus recharge the batteries while in motion. One journalist asked if having motors on each wheel could be used as a form of traction control, which is illegal in that form of racing. Fair question.

There may also be an all-electric that will have super-capacitors for energy storage, I think instead of batteries, or maybe in addition to. This car is not expected to be anywhere near the lead lap when the race is over, but they do think it will run competitive laps in between extended pit stops. The long stops will be needed for re-charging. Why they don't just swap out the battery packs is beyond me.

Last, a Belgian company is working toward developing a hydrogen powered race engine, also for Lemans. The biggest engineering challenge comes from sealing the engine. Hydrogen being lighter than air, it seeps out everywhere, the valve guides, the ring gaps, they even have to keep the injector rail pressure low because of seepage. This, in turn, limits the rpm. Who knew. But these sound like solvable issues. The real challenge will be making it affordable.

Ground transportation is definitely going to be different sooner or later. But that doesn't mean it has to be boring.

[340Cuda]

My wife drives a 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Its a SUV not quite a big as a Tahoe with three rows of seats. She purchased it new when her 1999 300M was getting long in the tooth.

It was the only car she could find that could meet her requirements of something that was not as low as the Chrysler, she liked driving and got better fuel mileage than the 300M.

Since the battery is typically never either fully charged or fully discharged, in the real world battery life appears to be very good with 200,000 miles plus reported.

The car accelerates very well, if you add up the horsepower of the three electric engines and the gas engine I think its over 400 hp although the computer does not let you use that much, I think Toyota rates the package at over 300hp.

It gets better mileage in town than on the road and better mileage in the spring and fall. This is because the gas engine runs more in the winter and the AC (which is electric) drains the 400v battery more when the gas engine is off. Mileage in town ranges from around 23 to 27. On the road around 22. When we take it to Colorado in the summer it does well in the mountains as it will top the batteries off going down the passes.

Over all its a very interesting car that has served us well. What will we replace it with? Hard to say as that will be many years off and as mentioned earlier there could be many different choices.

Bill