Wish list to Toyota

[martin68]

I really hope Toyota designers will read this thread as I have several things that I would want in my next Auris Hybrid in years to come.

1, a place to put my mobile phone, preferably with a wireless charging pad, Its weird that in out mobile phone age, that theres no place to store it while driving except in the cup holders.

2, Keyfob controlled window closing. Theres nothing more anoying to forget to close a car window, and you have to jump back in the car and worse still you have to start the hybrid system (power on mode does not work) to close the windows. 

3, integrate a HUD in the dashboard.

4, make the Head unit compatible to mirror your phone screen, this can be useful when using in phone apps that you want to monitor while driving, such as google maps.

5, produce a plugin Hybrid version of the Auris. They already make a Prius plugin, so whats the delay with an Auris version.

What would you like you see as an improvement?

[FROSTYBALLS]

Toyota Owners Club have no association with Toyota, and we don't whether anyone from Toyota even looks at the forums.

1) the second generation Auris has already gone through its mid life facelift - so the third generation may have a wireless charging pad. However, bear in mind that not all mobiles have wirefree charging.

2). Global opening/closing. Hasn't, as yet been available on UK Toyotas.

4). The first generation Auris hybrid was an adaptation of an existing model. The second generation Auris is a re-wortked first generation, and carried forward the Type Approval from 2007. Presumably there isn't room within the current Auris to accommodate the larger Battery. Yes, there is a Prius Plug-in, and the third generation Prius was designed to accommodate a Plug-in version (preproduction versions were being tested in 2009). Sales of the Prius Plug-in to date, represent only 8.3% of combine Prius/Plug-in sales in the UK since 2012 (1,838 having been sold) - so to date the Plug-in has only been a very low volume seller in the UK.

There is a new Prius Plug-in due to go on sale in Europe towards the tailend of this year.

There was speculation last year that Toyota may switch over all their hybrid production to Plug-in drivetrains.

The third generation Auris may be due in the next couple of years, and that presumably with have Toyota's modular platform, within which it will be easier to accommodate a Plug-in drivetrain.

 

[haelewyn]

- Make higher speed possible in EV mode or electric driving.

- Make a bigger traction Battery that will last longer (distance). 50 procent bigger would be good.

- Do something about the sound of the engine when increasing speed, if possible put a gearbox with automatic gear shifting in the car.

- Give the car a smoother suspension and more precise road feeling with less powered steering.

- Automatic parking system : make the moves more smooth, less abrupt,  .. let the car make it's turn less close to the car in front when possible,  make parking in parking bays possible instead of just in lane. In other words : make the SIPA a real IPA.

- Safety system should be standard. Traffic sign control can still do a lot more. Needs to be developed more, I guess by the system manifacturer.
- Use materials that don't make sounds like on a 6.000 £ car. Suspension, interior materials should be spot on in any car. I want to see them, not hear them.

- Don't suppose everybody wants 17 inch. Some of us don't. I would be happy with 15 inch.
- Make the choice of 'cheap car colors' larger.

[Blue Canary]

I would really like to see proper support for Android phones. And if the fine folk at Toyota could get the radio to deal with radiotext competently that would be good.

[martin68]

I totally agree with wanting higher speed in EV mode and a longer lasting Battery, that would make a big difference, also faster acceleration in EV mode would be nice. 

[eygo]

On 22/05/2017 at 10:44 PM, haelewyn said:

- Make higher speed possible in EV mode or electric driving.

- Make a bigger traction battery that will last longer (distance). 50 procent bigger would be good.

- Do something about the sound of the engine when increasing speed, if possible put a gearbox with automatic gear shifting in the car.

 

i think you need to buy a plug in next time as this will answer the 3 questions above,

but are plugins the way forward as the new yaris hybrid advert shows a yaris driveing

straight past a charge station sign as if its saying hybnd is better.

[Anthony Poli]

The Prius was created as a hybrid from the start, so it gets all the new technology first.

The hybrid technology is then added to the rest of the cars, while trying to keep them competitive with other manufacturers.

The Prius is a big car, so the challenge is to squeeze things into the smaller cars.

I like the latest Prius can get unto motorway speeds in EV, now thats something I think we all would love to have.

[haelewyn]

Any improvement is welcome, I think.
Toyota has a good system for the Auris but there's nothing wrong with making it better. It can be done .. see the new Prius.

Prius is too big and expensive for me. Plug in is completely out of my budget of what i want to spend on a car.
I am not buying a 200 pound knife or fork either..  For everything I buy, the price must stay reasonable. For me, the Prius doesn't have an acceptable price ticket for my wallet.
I don't want to connect a wire to the car outside on the street. Wouldn't change my house or adress just for the car at this time.

[haelewyn]

More for the wish list :

- Make the warming up phase of the car more controlable by the user and decrease the consumption. In winter, I think the car has rather dreadful MPG on short rides and misses it's purpose that way.
- The meter that was taken away for temperature of the cooling system, rev counter : put them back and send the engineer who is responsible to Siberia

- Add a speed counter to the dash, in digital numbers
- Don't fall for electronic handbrakes.. They have no added use, just something more to put on the car specs list. Electronic hand break has no grades. Just on or off, so it's not better.

- Unite the systems and beepers for front parking sensors and back parking sensors. Now it's more a bit of a mess. 
Unite the systems for parking by putting the sensor grafic info on the camera screen. Now there are too many screens and too many different beeps to work on.

[Heidfirst]

& no doubt you want all this for the same or lower price ...

I fear that you are going to be disappointed on a no. of items when eventually the replacement for the Auris II breaks cover.

[Catlover]

If only they could link the new 1.2 petrol engine to the Hybrid system, fuel economy would be really good.

[Anthony Poli]

20 minutes ago, Catlover said:

If only they could link the new 1.2 petrol engine to the Hybrid system, fuel economy would be really good.

Try the new plugin Prius, with unto 283Mpg 

The problem as always, I need a get rich quick scheme that works lol

[Cyker]

283mpg my foot! It doesn't count if you keep charging the Battery! 

I think that 1.2 would give it a lot more refinement tho', since it wouldn't have to rev to the moon to put down the power like the 1.5 and 1.8 do!

And ++++++++ on eliminating electronic handbrakes and bringing back futuristic digital dashes!  (Or on HSDs just getting rid of the handbrake entierly; If the car holds itself when in drive, what's the point of it?? Just make P engage the brakes and that's all the uses of a handbrake covered for a HSD!)

(If they would just release a HSD Yaris with the collimated dash tunnel and a proper sunroof I'd let my hatred for autoboxes slide and get one! )

 

[Anthony Poli]

If you drive with lead feet, then you will need to keep charging the battery 

[Catlover]

If it does 283 miles and only uses one gallon of petrol then that is 283 mpg, no matter how many times the Battery is recharging.  I thought that was the whole point of a Hybrid go as many miles as you can using petrol/electricity combination.

[haelewyn]

47 minutes ago, Cyker said:

I think that 1.2 would give it a lot more refinement tho', since it wouldn't have to rev to the moon to put down the power like the 1.5 and 1.8 do!

And ++++++++ on eliminating electronic handbrakes and bringing back futuristic digital dashes!  (Or on HSDs just getting rid of the handbrake entierly; If the car holds itself when in drive, what's the point of it?? Just make P engage the brakes and that's all the uses of a handbrake covered for a HSD!

I asked the Salesman here what's the reason for choosing this 1,8 for the Hsd.  I think they have one, if not just the size, weight and shape of the block to compensate for the electric engine on the other side. No turbo on it could maybe be cause it gets switched off tens of times every day.

No idea... and the Salesman didn't know either. Only thing he came up with was that it was developed by highly schooled engineers. So was the Pisa tower..

The Park on the gearbox, holding the car : does great for me until now. I too think I haven't really used the handbrake (and had to use it) since I bought the car. I also doubted about the use of the hill start assist on this car but we don't have any hills in my area so I can't be sure if it's useful sometimes. Having the Park position, automatic gearbox, handbrake, Hill start gadget made me wonder if this all was developed for mountain climbing or people who never been behind a steering wheel before. 

Would like to mention the, in my opinion, crazy idea of 2 zone heating or cooling in a car.  I feel homesick for the times we had 3 big switches to control the entire heater system without having to even look at it. Now I do need to study the thing, find the button.. aim for it cause it's so small and in the middle of many others on the heating system. I do have the feeling temperature control was better and more stable when it was just a mechanical thing.

I think I mentioned some things to make cars cheaper. Cheaper cars, do I will that ? I would love to get one for free from the factory and drive it all the way up to Japan in return as a marketing stunt. Some things could maybe be made better and cheaper at the same time.

Auris is a nice car. It's already a miracle they managed to get it so reliable altough I feel toyota did less well than 10 years ago on the corolla.. if fiat or vw had to be a pioneer in hybrid cars, we would all break down every month or so. Even Honda didn't get the hybrid idea worked out so well. So.. it is a good car. But can be made better every year.

[CurranShelter]

Good post... joining in the wishlist, in the hope that some Toyota folks are reading... so, +1 for the remote closing of windows via key fob... come on Toyota, this idea has been around for decades!

+1 improve steering feel and precision - not sure if this is better post-facelift, but pre-facelift it's definitely over-light and imprecise (the latter having being a fault right back to Corolla days).

+1 somewhere better to put phone whilst charging, maybe USB power outlets too (so no need for converter).

+1 for better range and acceleration in EV mode (although not necessarily expecting both at once :) There's a particular junction on my commute which sometimes has a long queue, and on worse days I can't get to the end of it without the Battery being exhausted and engine kicking in.

Also, why does EV mode have quite such a low upper speed threshold before it can be turned on manually or before it deactivates itself? Especially seeing as it deactivates under harsh acceleration anyway?

Average fuel economy is of course nothing like advertised (50-odd, not 70-odd), which must be sorely disappointing to anyone who believes the official blurb, but I know this is an industry-wide problem which the EU are apparently trying to resolve (finally - it's taken long enough).

Also, good point about heating demand causing the engine to run on the hybrid and causing poor MPG in winter, for short runs especially. This problem can be reduced by switching to Eco Mode, but often I want the performance and responsiveness of normal mode but still don't want to run the engine for the sake of the heating. Nor do I want to switch the fan off or turn it to cold either (if say it has already warmed up a bit). Would be nice if there was a system setting to enable or disable the ability for climate control to invoke the ICE.

I'd also like to see much better performance from the HSD when tackling hills... obviously there's the much-discussed racket associated with the CVT, but even aside from that it really does seem to make heavy weather of hills, such that I always seem to have a car hanging off my back bumper waiting for me to get a move on.

Body roll - a big gripe on the pre-facelift Auris (TS hybrid especially?) but I think that may already have been improved a bit on the facelifted models.

Audio system - among other niggles, it would be nice to be able to scroll back and forth between modes via the steering wheel controls. Getting from DAB back to FM (for example) involves something daft like 4 or 5 presses and even then there's a bit of lag and it's easy to end up on the wrong one.

Oh, and please... no more tacky gloss 'piano' black interior trim (facelift version). The previous brushed steel finish is so much more practical and in my opinion looks better too.

[cuius]

"Fuel economy
Your Toyota is designed to achieve the best possible fuel economy during
normal driving (using the gasoline engine and electric motor [traction motor]).
Driving in EV drive mode more than necessary may lower fuel economy."

 

[haelewyn]

Pure logic.. If you use up all electricity by driving small distances in EV mode, there is none left to add to the ICE when necessary and the ICE will be turned on to charge the Battery to a minimum level.

[Catlover]

6 hours ago, cuius said:

"Fuel economy
Your Toyota is designed to achieve the best possible fuel economy during
normal driving (using the gasoline engine and electric motor [traction motor]).
Driving in EV drive mode more than necessary may lower fuel economy."

 

I am struggling to see the logic in what you say. A petrol engine is at its most efficient when it is stationary ie not working. An electric vehicle is very efficient because it does not use petrol.... problem is, pure electric vehicles cannot do many miles before they need recharging (at the moment), and charging can be an inconvenience once away from your own personal charging point. So a Hybrid is a compromise, but that compromise does bring an ICE into the equation. Perhaps you could explain more why "Driving in EV drive mode more than necessary may lower fuel economy." to help me understand your thinking.

I would imagine the new Prius with plug in technology AND Hybrid technology would be a vdery good way to go - if you cant get to a plug in point then you still have the benefit of an ICE to keep you going.

 

 

[haelewyn]

It seems very clear to me that the 'fuel economy' text was a copy from the Toyota manual and as thus the opinion from Toyota and not from the member here.. It's on page 209 in my english version...
Maybe you could ask them to clear it up ... ?

[Anthony Poli]

1 hour ago, Catlover said:

I am struggling to see the logic in what you say. A petrol engine is at its most efficient when it is stationary ie not working. An electric vehicle is very efficient because it does not use petrol.... problem is, pure electric vehicles cannot do many miles before they need recharging (at the moment), and charging can be an inconvenience once away from your own personal charging point. So a Hybrid is a compromise, but that compromise does bring an ICE into the equation. Perhaps you could explain more why "Driving in EV drive mode more than necessary may lower fuel economy." to help me understand your thinking.

I would imagine the new Prius with plug in technology AND Hybrid technology would be a vdery good way to go - if you cant get to a plug in point then you still have the benefit of an ICE to keep you going.

 

 

When the traction Battery is down to the minimum and needs charging, look at the instantaneous mpg, it is something like 25 mpg or lower, without the motor to helping, its like you have pushed hard on the accelerator. 

The system is designed to keep the Battery at an average level, so it never gets completely full and completely empty.

[eygo]

39 minutes ago, Anthony Poli said:

When the traction battery is down to the minimum and needs charging, look at the instantaneous mpg, it is something like 25 mpg or lower, without the motor to helping, its like you have pushed hard on the accelerator.

to be honest why worry about your mpg you have a hybrid with a cvt transmission this means

you will always be in the correct ratio for the speed and terrain your driving on and you know

you'll be getting great mpg so why be concerned, it doesn't matter what the mpg is when the

ice is running it could be 20mpg but if the overall being achieved is say 5ompg your a happy chappy.

chill

[Anthony Poli]

1 minute ago, eygo said:

to be honest why worry about your mpg you have a hybrid with a cvt transmission this means

you will always be in the correct ratio for the speed and terrain your driving on and you know

you'll be getting great mpg so why be concerned, it doesn't matter what the mpg is when the

ice is running it could be 20mpg but if the overall being achieved is say 5ompg your a happy chappy.

chill

I am a happy chappy with my hybrid 

The only bit that I am jealous of with the facelift version, is the bigger boot 

[Cyker]

It's understandably to be concerned about the mpg; How else will you be able to improve your driving style?

As for the over-use of EV mode thing, the ICE in the HSD isn't actually particularly efficient; It's fine under low loads but under anything else it struggles because it has less torque than a monk who's taken a vow of silence (Aha did you see what I did there? :P).

This is why the HSD is quite clever - The electric motor has spades of torque so the two of them complement each other well under normal conditions.

However, if you use EV mode too much and drain the Battery, the electric motor can't assist the ICE any more, so the ICE has to to *all* the work and the mpg will be awful.

The thing about the HSDs is that they are not inherently all that efficient - It's still powered by a petrol engine which has a far lower efficiency ceiling than e.g. diesel.
The primary reason they get good mpg is because they can do something *no* ICE-only car can do: They *RECOVER* wasted energy, specifically from braking.

When you brake, you are dumping *huge* amounts of energy into the brake rotors as heat - In any other car that just dissipates into the atmosphere and is wasted; If you can recover even a fraction of that, you're laughing all the way to the energy bank.

This is why a good HSD driver will brake more early and gently - The longer you can brake using only the regen brakes and not the friction brakes, the more energy you'll recover and the higher the mpg will be; Sharp braking in a HSD is extremely wasteful as the system can't recover so much energy in such a short space of time, so most of it will get wasted as heat.