hour rule

"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69) 04/23/2018 at 06:17 • Filed to: hour rule, Toyota

2

8

Toyota Prius concept

bhtooefr > pip bip - choose Corrour 04/23/2018 at 07:12

2

I find the concept amusing, largely because it was never intended to be a hybrid.

The project was started as a packaging experiment primarily, and a rapid product development concept - turns out that if you make a compact sedan a little taller and constrain the overhangs, you can get a lot of passenger and cargo in not much footprint. And, turns out if you bypass bureaucracy and make a project priority #1 for the entire company, you can get something to market in a crazy fast timeline.

However, the engineers were told to come up with a hybrid system specifically for the concept. Basically, typical concept car bullshit that would never make it to production, they were just going to put a conventional powertrain in for production:

(I know there’s a higher quality version somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.)

To be fair, that system did not make it to production.

Interestingly, though, they were told to never say the word “hybrid”, to avoid tipping off other automakers. (They did tip Honda off, who copied exactly that system for the Insight, but they beat the Insight to market in Japan anyway.)

That’s because the executives that said to make it a hybrid were trying to convince the engineers to actually make a hybrid, and it worked - in two years, they developed a second unrelated hybrid system, and shipped that.

pip bip - choose Corrour > bhtooefr 04/23/2018 at 07:15

0

interesting read.

bhtooefr > pip bip - choose Corrour 04/23/2018 at 07:16

1

http://static.hybrids.ru/files/The%20Prius%20That%20Shook%20The%20World.pdf

I’ll just drop this PDF link in here.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > bhtooefr 04/23/2018 at 07:18

0

The packaging of the Prius is more appealing to me than the hybrid system. So it’s interesting that’s where the project started. The rear leg room/head room and cargo area always impressed me. Which is why I engines up buying a 2nd gen Fit which plays the same game, but drops the hybrid system. Although the fact that Honda hasn’t made a hybrid Fit is strange, but not as disappointing as the fact that they haven’t made an Si.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > pip bip - choose Corrour 04/23/2018 at 08:09

0

From the thumbnail, I would have thought it was a Saturn.

Chuckles > bhtooefr 04/23/2018 at 08:51

0

Wasn’t the Toyota Echo based off of this same architecture, just minus the hybrid system?

bhtooefr > Chuckles 04/23/2018 at 10:46

1

The Vitz/Platz (what we know as the Echo, and Europe knows as the first-gen Yaris) was based off of some of the same ideas, but was an unrelated, smaller platform.

That said, the NZ engine that was developed for the top-end Vitz/Platz was first used in the Prius.

bhtooefr > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 04/23/2018 at 10:47

0

Honda actually has made a dual-clutch hybrid system for it in Japan, and as I understand it’s a reliability nightmare.