My Yaris Hybrid

[Richard Davies]

After 5 years away from from owning a Yaris I've bought a 2018 hybrid.

This was because my Wife wanted to drive due to her work & has only driven an automatic before, as well as wanting to catch up technology wise.

I'm still getting used to driving it after 26 years of driving manuals, but picking things as I go along.  The brake pedal is quite sharp, but only needs to be applied to come to a complete stop, as lifting off the accelerator drops the speed quite quickly thanks to the regenerative braking.

Acceleration seemed to be slow especially when motorway driving, but I had it in Eco mode a first, and turning it off seemed to help things out.  

Being an Excel it has the displays with lots of functionality, which I'm still learning all the features.

[TonyHSD]

Welcome and great choice for a small automatic car 🚗 
Toyota hybrids are slightly different from all other automatics and more close to full electric cars with the difference that the later doesn’t have an engine to roar when pushed. You said the regenerative braking is strong, did you drive the car by any chance in B position on gear leaver or in D? 
In normal day to day driving only use D for forward drive and B only when going long downhill as extra stopping power provided by the hybrid system and to safe pressing the brakes so often. Once you have passed  the downhill shift back to D and enjoy relaxed driving experience. Driving modes eco, normal or power as personal preference, I always drive Normal mode and this gives me best felling of the accelerator and best performance efficiency ratio. 
Regards 👍
 

 

[Richard Davies]

Thanks

I kept it in D for most of my journey home from the showroom, but haven't tried B yet.  I know it only really needs using when driving downhill.

The Nissan Micra I previously had a quite a gradual travel on the brake pedal, and I'm probably still used to this.

I'll keep it in Normal to see how I get on.

[Cyker]

I've never used B except to see what it did - The default regen braking is more than enough for the vast majority of cases, even rolling down hills! They seem to have increased it in the newer cars compared to the previous gen HSD as mine soaks up speed much faster than my friend's Auris (Which seems to be able to coast much further!)

 

[TonyHSD]

Someone has shared a tip perhaps here on the forum and I did try it and it works. Improve mpg for real. They called hyper milling and works like when you want to free coast.
De press accelerator but not completely just press very slightly and watch the power meter hand should be exactly between regenerative braking and eco drive , then the car is free coasting without putting back energy to the Battery 🔋 but also without using the power from either 🔋⛽️.
Your gen 4 hybrids can do that even of higher speeds , my one gen3 is limited to around 45 ish mph because of the rotational speed of mg1. Like this on my picture but in D and while driving. No energy comes out or goes into the Battery and power meter hand dead on the line. 👍

[Roy124]

On Brake sensitivity, that is probably down to muscle memory from your normal motoring. 

You might remember the difference on clutch pedals on other cars. 

[Richard Davies]

I remember my old Yaris had a sharpish clutch, compared to my Mum's Ford Fiesta and my Nissan Micra.

I'm getting more used to driving it, I took it to my Mum's house today & found I only needed B going down a long steep hill as it takes off a lot of speed.

[preperationlaunch]

The brakes also feel somewhat different because some of the braking feel is electronically controlled.

The master cylinder has a plunger in it to simulate the feel of a normal brake pedal, whilst working to blend regenerative braking and friction brakes.

[ashmj]

Being used to manual cars as well I hope you don't do what I did and put it into P while moving, oops. Better than an emergency stop 🙈

[Richard Davies]

Thanks for the advice.

I know not to engage Park while moving, though the layout is designed to make it hard to select.

My Mum tried driving an Automatic in the USA a few years ago, which went OK apart from the time her left foot went for a non existing clutch pedal, hit the brake & we did a dramatic emergency stop!  Luckily nobody was behind us at the time.