Saudi Gazette report
The new technology of Toyota Hybrid is the new future of automobile. As the name indicates, it combines both gasoline engines and electric motors. This combination helps in improving fuel economy and engine power. And the important factor the hybrid provides is that it is environment friendly and reduces pollution.
What is hybrid technology? In the drive for cleaner, more efficient car technology, many alternative energy approaches have been tried with varying success. Engines fueled by petrol or diesel deliver plenty of power, but produce potentially environmentally damaging exhaust emissions, while electric motors run emission free but struggle to deliver sufficient power for all situations. Hybrid technology offers the best of both worlds. It is a highly fuel efficient way to power vehicles using a combination of electric battery power and petrol.
Hybrid Synergy Drive, developed by Toyota Motors, is the world’s leading hybrid technology, delivering all the power needed for dynamic acceleration, yet reducing fuel consumption and emissions compared to similar sized vehicles.
Toyota’s exclusive Hybrid Synergy Drive is a full Hybrid System. That is, it uses two motors in harmony with each other — a battery-powered electric motor and a petrol-driven combustion engine. And unlike the motors in many other hybrid cars, both the petrol and the electric motors in the Hybrid Synergy Drive system can power the car alone or in combination.
Hybrid Synergy Drive is smart technology, telling the car when to switch between petrol and electric power and when to combine both for maximum efficiency, which guarantees a high level of on-road performance while minimizing fuel consumption and pollution from exhaust gases. When the petrol engine is running, it charges the battery and when the car brakes, energy that most cars waste as heat lost during braking, is converted to electricity for the car to use later.
Because the battery receives plenty of charge from the petrol engine when coasting and from the regenerative braking system when slowing down, Toyota’s hybrid cars never need plugging in to a mains supply.
The sophisticated engine management system even recognizes when the car is stationary and switches off to conserve power, automatically switching back on again when needed.
Both the petrol powered combustion engine and the electric motor in Toyota’s hybrid cars have been improved constantly since the technology was first developed, thanks to Toyota’s kaizen philosophy (a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices, personal efficiency). As a result, each power unit supplies significant amounts of power using the bare minimum of fuel in the process. This makes, according to Toyota, its hybrids cleaner, quieter and great to drive.
A Hybrid System is really two power sources, an electric motor and a petrol engine, working in unison to propel the car. Not all hybrids are created equal — some car manufacturers claim to produce hybrids but many of these are known as ‘mild’ hybrids, meaning the electric motor doesn’t generate enough power to do more than assist the petrol engine.
Toyota’s world leading Hybrid Synergy Drive is ‘full’ hybrid technology.
This intelligent system can seamlessly switch between the electric motor and the petrol engine, or run off the combined power of both, depending on driving conditions. The petrol engine has been refined to offer maximum performance on minimal fuel use, while the electric motor uses permanent magnet technology to generate enough power to drive the car on its own.
Toyota’s full hybrid technology intelligently manages the power flow from both sources so that the car is responsive in every road situation while emissions and fuel consumption are reduced compared to similar sized vehicles. But the intelligent technology goes further still. Hybrid Synergy Drive knows when the car is stationary and switches off the petrol engine to save fuel, and then switches back on when it’s needed again.
Not all hybrid engines are created equal. In the Camry Hybrid model: The battery is a large, corrosion resistant unit that stores the energy, which powers the electric motor. It never needs to be plugged into the mains as it receives all the charge it needs from the petrol engine during normal driving. The two energy sources complement each other to give you powerful, smooth acceleration and a dynamic drive in all conditions.
Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive is a revolutionary advance in car technology, and is driving the automotive industry forward. The Australian Government’s Green Vehicle Guide, with the highest rating of five stars, has recognized the technology. More and more drivers are recognizing that cars powered by Hybrid Synergy Drive offer a cleaner, more efficient solution without compromising power or performance.
In city driving conditions, where continuous stop-start traffic is often the norm, a great deal of energy is recaptured and stored, contributing to the overall efficiency of the hybrid car. This also helps to ensure that the battery always has plenty of charge to power the electric motor.
Toyota offers a battery with plenty of power, a long life expectancy and an 8-year warranty or 160,000km (whichever comes first). The hybrid battery is a pretty substantial piece of kit, generating and sustaining sufficient voltage to power a car in low speed situations, without any support from the petrol engine.
While the production of powerful hybrid batteries has a small, additional impact on the environment, testing has shown that this is more than compensated for by the environmental benefits of driving a Toyota hybrid car. Add to this, the long battery life expectancy and the company’s commitment to recycling (arranged through a Toyota dealership at no cost to owners), and you can see why Toyota’s hybrid cars have earned worldwide recognition as efficient vehicles.
Toyota invented the concept behind Hybrid Synergy Drive over 30 years ago. Since then it has continuously developed and improved the technology. And starting with the Prius, Toyota has been mass-producing hybrid cars for over a decade. It has since sold over 3 million hybrid cars worldwide. And while other manufacturers are just considering building their first ever hybrids, Toyota are on the third generation of its hybrid technology and expanding its range beyond Prius to deliver cars that meet the demands of your lifestyle.
As anyone who has test driven the latest Prius will tell you, the benefits of Hybrid Synergy Drive are obvious, delivering incredible fuel savings and very low emissions without sacrificing performance. As other car manufacturers are starting to build their first hybrids, Toyota is extending Hybrid Synergy Drive across more vehicles in more markets around the world. As well as the Prius, Toyota builds the Camry Hybrid in Australia and its range of Hybrid offerings is set to expand in the near future.
Many years ago, Toyota committed itself to doing everything possible to reduce the carbon footprint of the company and to continuously improve its technology to help reduce global warming and conserve the world’s natural resources. Toyota’s engineers realized this involved lot more than just achieving lower fuel consumption.
Long before other automotive companies even recognized the need or acknowledged the existence of global warming, Toyota set itself the goal of providing motorists with sustainable transport technology — its aim, to achieve zero emissions.
In fact in some driving situations, Toyota, claims, that its hybrid cars already generate zero emissions. And thanks to its philosophy of continuous improvement, both its production methods and its car technology are becoming cleaner in small ways, every day. This results in an ever-decreasing carbon footprint and less and less global warming.
This is good news for all of us, and the planet.
