RAV4 vs Tucson vs 3008 - Plug-in hybrid AWD test (turn on subtitles)

[Flatcoat]

Thanks for respective responses. To be honest my wife has driven the car more than me since collecting it last Friday. Still need to ‘play’ with it properly! 

[Nick72]

4 hours ago, philip42h said:

? ... It's obviously NOT the correct setting to select ...

In snow and ice and other slippery conditions you want to apply the minimum amount of torque to the wheels necessary to get the car to move but not so much as to make the tyres slip and the wheels spin. Hence the sensible addition of winter tyres. You want to apply power as gently as possible - i.e. in Normal mode with a light foot or even in Eco to get the car to help by reducing throttle response (and I think they did try that in the video). The last thing you'd want to do is stick it in Sport to get a sharper throttle response and a better chance of wheel spin ...

Driving RAVs in poor conditions I've tended to find that all I need to do is drive gently and patiently, and let the car sort itself out.

According to many threads on this topic on the USA forums the view is that in off road conditions including mud and slippery conditions that sport mode works the best. 

So whilst you have lost the insensitive throttle response (which simply means you need a lighter foot) the R4P seems to change how often and how much power is passed to the rear motor.

Indeed, over rocky terrain for instance, the general view was NOT to use trail mode but Sport instead.

I've done some light off road so far and it is definitely more grippy when in sport mode because of the rear motor operating more often. 

However, my much maligned 3008 hybrid4 300GT did feel like a better performer in wet, snow, offroad conditions. Largely because you had to depress the 4WD button if you wanted 4WD since normal EV mode drives only the rear wheels, where as ICE hybrid mode drove only the front wheels. That took some getting used to! 50 50 power split front and back electric motors.

[Flatcoat]

There is NO sports mode!! 

[Nick72]

5 hours ago, Roger_N said:

I understand your comment but the Rav did seem to drive the rear wheels less than the other 2 cars, so what I was trying to find out is there more drive to the rear wheels in sport mode?

Yes it does from my experience and that on the US forums.

[Nick72]

3 minutes ago, Flatcoat said:

There is NO sports mode!! 

Turn the dial right? Everything goes red? Like star trek? We are talking PHEV aren't we.

[Vogit]

3 minutes ago, Flatcoat said:

There is NO sports mode!! 

There is on the PHEV!

[Nick72]

On 1/12/2022 at 2:16 PM, kucyk said:

I personally found RAV4 struggling a lot in this video, not too bad, but I was expecting more vs brands with a little to none AWD experience. Amazing performance by 3008. Absolute joke in terms of plug-in capabilities of Tucson.

RAV4 doesn't seem to be utilising the rear drive fully, despite having 54HP which is more than enough to move the rear wheels on the snow. However, I noticed the car wasn't in the sport mode in which it seems to be utilising the rear engine the most, just by looking at other videos.

Had 3008. Performance off road was better than R4P speaking from direct experience. Permsnt 4WD if you press the 4WD button. Car was a $#!t show in most other respects however.

[ernieb]

PHEV driving modes…..

[Nick72]

14 minutes ago, ernieb said:

PHEV driving modes…..

That's what I thought until trying it out and reading the US forum posts but it seems more grippy and happier in sport. Now if I had engineered it then I'd almost exclusively run the car in FWD when in ECO unless really struggling for grip. Keep the power doing to a motor that has already overcome frictional (including thermal related) constraints. It saves energy. Which is what Toyota has gone over the top on here. Whereas in sport I'd just send all available power to both motors from the off.

This is what I'm pretty sure they are doing. So the better performance over dodgy terrain is better by what is in essence a side effect of the design in terms of power delivery.

[Nick72]

2 minutes ago, Nick72 said:

That's what I thought until trying it out and reading the US forum posts but it seems more grippy and happier in sport. Now if I had engineered it then I'd almost exclusively run the car in FWD when in ECO unless really struggling for grip. Keep the power doing to a motor that has already overcome frictional (including thermal related) constraints. It saves energy. Which is what Toyota has gone over the top on here. Whereas in sport I'd just send all available power to both motors from the off.

This is what I'm pretty sure they are doing. So the better performance over dodgy terrain is better by what is in essence a side effect of the design in terms of power delivery.

Here's something to try then...

 

Put the car into each mode in turn and put the energy screen on the infotainment display, and set off from standstill. Try it with light throttle on launch and foot down floor it seperately.

If my hypothesis is correct in Eco mode it will just put power to front wheels under light throttle but, might, send power to both front and back when you floor it depending upon how they've implemented the oh s*** logic.

In sport I expect it to send power to all wheels under light and foot down throttle.

 

May be worth a mid throttle position too if we are to do this test properly.

 

At the end of the day if Toyota wanted a 5.7s 0 to 60 time to compete with PHEV AWD rivals from Pug, Volvo, etc. then the eco business goes out the window a bit and all available power goes to all the wheels. If they didnt do this and sent power to just FWD and waited for wheel spin to say ah lost grip, then engage the rear motor they will have lost half a second or more. Can't see them implementing it like that. It would be daft engineering in my book. 

 

[ernieb]

9 minutes ago, Nick72 said:

That's what I thought until trying it out and reading the US forum posts but it seems more grippy and happier in sport. Now if I had engineered it then I'd almost exclusively run the car in FWD when in ECO unless really struggling for grip. Keep the power doing to a motor that has already overcome frictional (including thermal related) constraints. It saves energy. Which is what Toyota has gone over the top on here. Whereas in sport I'd just send all available power to both motors from the off.

This is what I'm pretty sure they are doing. So the better performance over dodgy terrain is better by what is in essence a side effect of the design in terms of power delivery.

I think they run in AWD drive so that they can recover energy from the rear wheels. A lot of Video reviews I’ve seen appear to keep the power on when the wheels slip the then the systems seems to catch up locking spinning wheels and apply power when it can be used.