Toyota Auris Hybrid challenge

I tried to see if the Auris is available in the US and what the name would be, but couldn't find it...



They supposedly upped the battery a little in capacity and probably gave it a facelift (but I never look at it as I am pleased with the Prius and would only get rid of my Volvo V70 AWD for something completely electric).

So to celebrate, they are giving away electric bicycles to the winners of the Auris challenge in the Netherlands: testdrive an Auris Wagon over a predetermined route and get over 50% electrical propulsion (it's not a plug-in so sounds quite daunting). and you might win.

I kept postponing it as I had all kind of stuff to do (like finish laying my solarpanels), but managed to book two (!) testdrives at different dealers at the last day of the 'challenge' (30th of September)
First one was a 30km route that I had to follow in an unfamiliar surrounding of off a printed A4 page from Google Maps. That certainly cost me. I tried the pulse and glide on the highway but later found I had driven 0% on electricity alone on that stretch!!! (you can't see if the engine shuts off).
Still managed ~55% electric drive.


Second dealer was more familiar surroundings, short route (12km) and again a Google maps printout. Still managed to drive wrong and pretty much no eletric drive on the wrong part
But in the end managed 61%. I did feel like the battery was pretty empty when driving off the lot, but again, no visual indication of this. Whenever trying to switch to EV, (like the last 2 km ) it would tell me the battery was too low. Then again, it would make sense if they had somehow disabled this function.

Both dealers told me people had done better, so little chance of winning an electric bike (my daughter was promissed one for her birthday (17km to school, they carpool with the wife but have to get up too early), so I'll have to buy one now...).

And two days ago, I got two packages in the post.

4000mAh powerbank x 2 since I did two testdrives.
Goes nicely with the wind-up/solar radio I received totally out of the blue from Toyota just for filling out a form* when looking at the very first gen 1 Prius (not even testdriving it!). And I wasn't kind about the back-seat headroom...

They give out nice gadgets



* I actually have no idea why I got that radio, but I assume it had to do with me looking at the Prius (since it is a hyblid radio and says "Toyota" on it) and I guess I wrote down my address on the form.



Moral of the story: if you have the time and something like this is done in your country: do it! It's fun to do and you might wind up with some nice gadgets in the process.

 

New Challenge for the C-HR




First drive was not a pre-determined route (in unknown surroundings). Managed 4.7l/100km and 65% electric. Different dealer than the two from last time.

This same route was the second drive I took with the C-HR. Had my daughter to read the route, using the printed out Google-Maps route, the onboard navigation and a phone running Maps in real-time.
The saleswoman looked at her iPad strangely upon returning. I thought I did reasonably well, so said: it didn't record it, did it?
But turned out I did very well according to her, probably best so far (Challenge runs all through December)
Again 65% electric, but this time with 4.1l/100km
And managed very clear pulse and glides on the highway stretch this time, so with the Auris, it was clearly an empty HV battery, now it worked like a charm and would have been even better if I would have let the big truck pass me instead of trying not to get in its way and speed up whenever it came too close behind me... So sped up to close to 120km/h (75mph) at times. Keeping under 100 would probably have given me an extra % in electric.

It showed an EV-car-symbol whenever driving electrically (YES!, an indication!!!), so whenever that extinguished, I gave it quite a lot of gas to speed up (often above speedlimit...) and then tried to get the light on again while coasting.

I'll try to book a third testdrive...
If I get to the next round, there will be a test with other drivers on a closed circuit to determine one or a few winners of a/the 2500euro bicycle(s).

 

The third test-drive slash hybrid challenge did not go so well

They gave me a cold car. Around freezing and it hadn't moved that day. And the route was only 5 miles/8 kilometers. it did not shut off the engine until I was at least at a quarter of the route. Ended up at 45% electric and 5.6liters/100km.

In hindsight I should have just stayed put on the dealers court until it shut the engine off. There is a chance the percentage 'electrically driven' is actually just calculated from distance and just standing around is not counted toward your 'not electrically driven' percentage.

Good point for the next test drive... Just use the EV button and stop by the side of the road anytime it wines it can no longer sustain EV

 

Fourth testdrive. Again with a cold engine. So I stayed on the dealercourtyard until the engine shut off after >5 min. Then started the drive*, did everything right, even could not set it to EV for the last mile as the battery was "too weak"
Had some problems finding the sweetspot of pulse and glide on the highway, but still expected to be closer to 70 than 60%!



And I got 49%..

I will graphically measure the electric vs gasoline part, but I think it is safe to say it somehow did measure the warming up phase even though I did not move more than 50ft during that time.

Meh. Next time I'll book a double testdrive and have e.g. the wife take the first to make sure the hybrid battery is filled to the brim and the engine is warm

There is some EV missing in this drawing (where the EV light was on, but doesn't show here) but mainly it is how I remember. Yellow is ICE, blue is EV.



* the recording of the testdrive is done on the dealers tablet or computer and is often started before the dealer even gets the car from the back of the courtyard to give it to you.

 

Sorry for the late reply. "You" as a country: yes, "you" as a person: no.

Fun thing is that the advertisment says: turbocharged and hybrid. I was pretty sure Toyota didn't bring out a turbocharged hybrid, but I found it really hard to read/interpret it any other way.
But it turns out you can get a turbocharged 1.2 liter OR a hybrid (I am assuming it is the standard 1.8liter).

Just for the fun of it (as it is not a hybrid and has 600hp on front wheels only):



Nicked the pic from Dutch website. Here's a video on it:

 

I never updated, but I didn't do well enough to get through to the second round.

I did two runs in the Auris and received two 4000mAh aluminium USB owerbanks.
I did four testruns in the C-HR, but I only received ONE 'USB-powerbank', so they are clearly on to me .

It is a pen-like 650mAh battery so it is pretty useless unless you use it for bluetooth in-ear headphones or the likes.
Well I have used USB powerbanks as a powersource for little projects, so it may end up being used in that way.


And there's a USB output on top (not visible, on the other side of the charging USB-plug).