Prius Chief Engineer Confirms Hybrid Yaris

With a 1 litre 3 cylinder, 70 mpg minimum

 

depends on where you drive it... i think the biggest issue is that the best mpg wont be much different (one you get from cruising at 45 mph), big difference will be in the city and real life driving conditions where it could get 20-30% better consumption than Prius... problem is that there is no way for people to realize that until they drive it, because govt tests wont reflect those improvements.

and of course, some smart euro journalists will drive it 85 mph on highway and conclude that 520d or E220CDI gets better mileage

 

Yaris has decent boot -you can fit stroller in there. Perception problem is that there was an shelf there that made seats fold perfectly flat and under it you had rest of the trunk... in facelift they removed that shelf, and it makes it less functional but pereceptionally it shows a "lot bigger trunk".

Next gen Yaris is rumoured to be based on iQ tech, which means more space in same package, and Yaris is already packaging champion. In fact, Toyota suggested that there will be 7 seater based on Yaris which tells you how much space they will be saving based on iQ technology.

 

Uhm, the extra small size is kinda the whole point. If you want a family size hybrid, go with the Prius or the new Lexus hybrid. If you want a small hybrid, Honda already has the Civic Hybrid and Insight, no reason to fight the two of them. So this comes in under that for the truly fuel efficient-minded consumers. No one car will work for everybody.

They just really need to make an efficient minivan hybrid, even if they have to do away with the flat cargo floor in the back for the battery pack (apparently that's one of their hangups, Toyota thinks consumers won't buy a hybrid minivan if the back seat can't be taken out or folded flat and a loading dock be available there).

 

Danny ventured the first guess in the story article (home page, or follow link on first post). He guessed 65 mpg as being a possibility

 

I'm in no rush. Holding out for a HSD Fit.

 

This is where the screwed-up patent system will be a problem.

The point of the patent system was to have designs published openly, so they could be used for advancing the state of the art, in return for rewarding the inventor for doing so. Instead it's being used as a way to prevent designs being used, either by restricting them to their original inventor or to take them off the market entirely (Cobasys NiMH patent). You can't even search patents for a prior solution, to find out if it's covered, because if they can show that you knew a patent existed they can hit you for triple damages.

Instead of everyone using the demonstrably superior HSD system, we have a situation where every car company (barring Ford, who effectively developed it independently and had something Toyota wanted in the form of diesel patents) is trying to come up with their own hybrid scheme. The arguments are frequently spurious.

There's just no way that Toyota will license HSD to Honda on reasonable terms, and no way that Honda will beg Toyota for it. Honda will be producing ASSIST hybrids until the Toyota HSD patents expire.

 

It just keeps getting better.
Before we know it, 90% of cars on the roads will be hybrids.

Hybrids. The next big economic boom?

 

Thanks for the thoughtful post Mike.

No doubt it will be easier for Toyota to adopt Honda's smart ideas that the reverse for now, but good ideas *do* spread, if slower than you or I might wish for.