Auris Hybrid at 20mph

[Kwazii]

Current manual Auris 1.33 getting a bit old in the tooth, and been drinking oil for ages, time for an upgrade. I've been thinking about going Auris Hybrid, but city now all 20mph on most roads. How is the Auris Hybrid at these low speeds? Have heard some automatic owners complain about the gearing keep changing. I wonder if the Auris Hybrid drives OK at these speeds or whether I should stick with a manual, non hybrid car. Cheers for any thoughts? 

[loz8]

Ask a taxi driver. I'm not one,but when ice has warmed up,battery kicks in till it needs charge,repeat, mileage should be good,a smooth drive.

[flash22]

The Auris hybrid is an e-cvt, so it does not change gear..

what you are reading about is the MMT (automated manual) these are slow and jerky at lower speeds, when they go wrong they are not cheap to fix (these are in the non-hybrid cars) Toyota also use a CVT as well on some models (good boxes if looked after, again non hybrid cars)

the Hybrid is very good in town 20-30 mph it will run in EV mode most of the time 60 MPG is realistic

[TonyHSD]

1 hour ago, Kwazii said:

Current manual Auris 1.33 getting a bit old in the tooth, and been drinking oil for ages, time for an upgrade. I've been thinking about going Auris Hybrid, but city now all 20mph on most roads. How is the Auris Hybrid at these low speeds? Have heard some automatic owners complain about the gearing keep changing. I wonder if the Auris Hybrid drives OK at these speeds or whether I should stick with a manual, non hybrid car. Cheers for any thoughts? 

Agree with Bob. If you are looking for a car for town driving the best ones are full ev and then Toyota/Lexus hybrids, these drives exactly the same as full electric cars, no gears, no clutch, silky smooth drive. 👌

[Kwazii]

Thanks all, worries alleviated. I'm expecting to do longer journeys (40 mins), largely dual carriageway plus 20 mph for 10 mins, 3 days a week, and the remaining days trundling around the mostly 20 roads. Sounds like the Auris Hybrid will be quite suitable. It seems like a nice car. 

[MagicBoy]

It's perfect for that sort of use. Smooth, easy to drive, will spend a lot of time in EV mode. Creeps like a normal auto. No worries with gearing or clutches as it's an eCVT.

[Cyker]

I reckon the Auris Hybrid, or any Toyota hybrid, is literally perfect for your use case  

The Toyota Hybrids have the smoothest drivetrain of any vehicle that uses an engine. Its only rivals are full EVs!

[Anthony Poli]

The common mistake by the motoring press, they always complain about the gearbox being noisey, but they mistake the engine revving up from it's quieter and optimal range whilst under acceleration like joining the motorway. When cruising at your desired speed, the noise level drops back down again. 

Around town doing upto 30, you'll be more surprised when the engine suddenly starts once the Battery needs to charge. 

[Cyker]

That's one thing that makes me wonder if half the motoring press are just mindless parrots.

It was definitely true of earlier hybrids, in that you could plant the accelerator and the car would make a lot of noise, but nothing much would happen, and a lot of criticism was made of that.

However they keep saying the same thing even tho' it isn't true any more - The new ones especially: Now, you plant it, the car makes a lot of noise, and it hauls ass!

But they seem to be stuck repeating the original criticism despite the fact that even a Ford Fiesta ST would make a lot of noise when you plant the accelerator. All petrol cars do - The point they seem to miss is that, yeah, the old ones didn't really have much action to suit the noise, but difference is the new ones definitely do, just like any petrol car!

[Kwazii]

That's really good to know. I've always wondered whether that was a problem. Seems it's not really much of an issue at all. 

[Anthony Poli]

I haven't driven any of the newer generation with the launch gear, if I am not mistaken it was a Prius only thing and may have been just for the plugin model. It would go all the way upto 70Mph in EV mode without being slow.

 

[TonyHSD]

This what cyker says most likely been about the very firs Prius gen 1 and Honda Insight from early 2000’s. With Prius gen 3 the hybrid system been updated completely and the whining noise and rubbery feel gone together with the typical cvt type cones and belt that transfer torque from drive units to the wheels. Since gen 4 and Prius 2016-> the drive train goes in parallel set up, reduce the size of e motors again while make them more durable and able to spin at higher rpm to give to the car ability to coast in ev at higher speeds. Launch Gear is only present in latest Toyota cvt mounted to the 2.0 dynamic force engines but not the hybrids.
The trick to get a Toyota hybrid to accelerate faster with minimal or no whining at all is to push it to the floor sharply and the car reacts immediately and with maximum torque available from both engine and e motors. Since there are no gears all control from the driver happens with the accelerator only. Once you drive the car long enough to master these techniques you will enjoy and will never look back to conventional auto, dsg or manual. Evs are only step forward, anything else is last century. 
Auto journalists with few exceptions are indeed parrots and not the smartest ones. 👌👍

[Cyker]

Yeah the 'Launch gear' is something else* and relates to the belt-driven CVTs, not the Hybrid/HSD system which has no belts or clutches or torque converters unlike the CVT.

(This is why I refuse to call the HSD an eCVT as it just confuses things)

I just mean the newer HSD's have much better torque in both the engine and the electric motors which make them far nicer to drive and more economical than the older ones. It's very rare you get real world improvements in power AND economy at the same time like this!

(On paper yes, but not in real life!)

 

 

 

*The launch gear is actually a real 1st gear they put in the newest gen CVTs to give it better off-the-line responsiveness. It's quite a clever bodge for the traditional engine-screaming-but-the-car-isn't-moving sensation you get from trying to launch a CVT-gearbox car from a standstill.

Since the HSD doesn't have a gearbox per se it wouldn't be possible to do something like this and would be pointless anyway since MG2 gives far better launch from a standstill than any gearbox could!

 

[MagicBoy]

IME the Auris is going faster than it feels, mainly due to the linear power delivery. I drove a car with a VW TDI previously and that gave you an almighty shove in the back as the turbo spooled up and delivered maximum torque. The TDI is quicker in the correct gear as it's got more torque, where the hybrid just linearly makes progress with a mild assault on the ears. Suspect a 2.0 Corolla would be the better compromise.

[Cyker]

Yeah, I find diesels very underrated - Much nicer to drive than petrol cars in normal day-to-day use IMHO.

Sadly as they are the new scapegoat it's unlikely we'll ever see any more innovation in that area. It really sucks as there was some promising tech that could have removed the need for a DPF or Adblue which would have restored their reliability and given a hefty mpg increase!

I'm just glad Toyota have improved the HSD so much that I can now scratch my torque itch with my Mk4 instead (I missed that so much when I was stuck with the Mk2 1.33VVTi!)

 

[The Aardvark]

On 4/29/2022 at 6:40 PM, Cyker said:

Yeah, I find diesels very underrated - Much nicer to drive than petrol cars in normal day-to-day use IMHO.

A diesel-engined vehicle is completely unsuitable for city driving at 20mph, as the OP described his most-frequent journey.

One under-reported feature of the hybrid engine is the lack of filth being pumped out of the exhaust pipe when sat in stationary or slow-moving traffic.

Quote

diesel...is the biggest source of air pollution in towns and cities, and a source of some of the most dangerous air pollutants for health: NO₂ and particulate matter (PM¹⁰ and PM^2.5).  Diesel cars produce more of these dangerous pollutants than petrol cars. - source: https://doctorsagainstdiesel.uk/

 

[Cyker]

Yeah that's why we're all recommending the hybrids - Much better for that use-case.

Still, it is a shame as there was some strong research that could have curbed diesel emissions to be at least on-par with petrol. Petrol isn't exactly that clean anyway - petrol emissions have been getting worse as they adopted diesel tech like lean burn and direct injection in the pursuit of better mpgs, and without the knock immunity of the diesels-cycle they've had to waste fuel to cool down the AF mix in turbo-charged petrol cars which also worsens emissions - So much so they now need particulate filters too! VW's lean-burn/stratified petrol engines also had NOx levels on par with diesel but that was swept under the carpet until they bodged it with software maps.

It's all a bit moot anyway tho' as everyone is cutting research into any ICE as we move haphazardly towards BEVs. 

I'm just a big fan of diesel as IMHO it is the best cycle - It can theoretically run on any combustible fuel, which opens up diversity of fuels, and it has the highest thermal efficiency of any combustion engine. If the research to curb its emissions without needing to bolt on more obstructions panned out I reckon we could be hitting well over 100mpg in normal use, even more with hybridization, but we're throwing all that away in favour of BEVs.

One good thing about BEVs is it will greatly reduce our dependence on oil, which is effectively us subsidizing other countries with draconian regimes.

I'm a long way from getting a BEV as they're nowhere near close to being suitable for my use case, but here's hoping these 3x/4x higher capacity batteries are real and not just marketing BS. Hopefully I'll have my own house by the time they come to market! (Will probably take that long  )

 

[TonyHSD]

Last night had to visit north London and a lots of 20-30mph and almost empty roads.  Auris consumption went above 70mpg, so much in EV drive,  it’s unbelievable. I think if I use this car regularly like that I will be getting similar mpg to Prius and Yaris , no joke 👌👍 My gf on recent trip to the seaside made a compliment how quiet and smooth is the overall experience, she said your car drives better than before when was new 😀👌 She owned it previously with 17”🛞 and Kumho tyres, now with 16” and Goodyears. Makes a difference. 

[Cyker]

Yeah, it's turning me into a crazy person as I almost enjoy being in traffic now because all that low-speed stop-start really pushes up the mpg! 

But then I get to some open road and let rip so it goes down again  

It's one thing I love about the dual-personality nature of car, how it feels good to drive in both extremes - Very few cars have that!

 

[MagicBoy]

Yeah, I'm more partial to taking the urban route that takes a little more time with a Hybrid and enjoy the waft.

Went to see a family member yesterday, it's about a 25 mile trip into deepest Cheshire. "Quick" way there contains a bypass that's mostly 70 limit and there's a good half dozen roundabouts on it. Which doesn't really suit the hybrid, as I get to roundabout number four and the Battery is fully fully charged and it disables the regen braking. Gets me there 5 minutes quicker than the shorter windy A-road route, which reports 65+mpg, rather than 50mpg.

The TDI, I always took the bypass and exploited the turbo torque to make progress. Did 55mpg whichever route I took.

[DaddyBaddy]

On 4/26/2022 at 4:40 PM, Kwazii said:

Current manual Auris 1.33 getting a bit old in the tooth, and been drinking oil for ages, time for an upgrade. I've been thinking about going Auris Hybrid, but city now all 20mph on most roads. How is the Auris Hybrid at these low speeds? Have heard some automatic owners complain about the gearing keep changing. I wonder if the Auris Hybrid drives OK at these speeds or whether I should stick with a manual, non hybrid car. Cheers for any thoughts? 

As a 2016 Auris Excel hybrid hatchback driver for the last 13 months, I can tell you with absolute clarity that if you buy a hybrid for commuting in slow speed traffic, it’s absolutely the right tool for the job. It’s a beautiful, relaxing, smooth commute. Thoroughly recommended. Here’s mine:

[Soggyrolo]

I have owned 2014 aurus excell for the past year and I totally agree with daddy baddy post .

I wish I had bought one sooner so smooth and easy to drive 

[DaddyBaddy]

With my last car (a 2010 1.6 diesel Ford Focus Titanium without stop/start) I used to avoid commuter traffic jams and go the slightly longer way round in order to keep moving (rather than sit in stationary Nottingham traffic). My Auris hybrid LOVES queues and slow moving traffic. It’s changed how I drive for the better. I read the road ahead much further in order to brake / regen and accelerate smoothly. I now enjoy rush hour jams and heavy traffic. And I never thought I’d hear myself saying that!! 🤣 🚙🔋 🚗 🚛 🚐 🚌 🚗 🏍 

[mcntosh]

I agree with the previous comments - it's a great car for slow-moving city traffic (or indeed slow-moving traffic anywhere). I too think it's made me a better driver, and also a calmer one.