When the “World of Toyota” automotive exhibit opened last week, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo rolled about on the main stage in what looked like a hairdryer on four wheels. Futuristic, to be sure. Realistic—not yet, unless you want to get a perm on the highway. The more significant vehicle at the event was a comparatively ordinary-looking hatchback; the President is expected to take much longer drives in this one—the world’s best-selling gasoline-electric hybrid car, the Toyota Prius.
The Prius may look sedate when placed beside futuristic concept vehicles, but the car itself looks decidedly high-tech when compared to other showroom offerings. Rather than installing an innovative drivetrain inside an ordinary vehicle, Toyota designed a unique body for the Prius. That’s good marketing sense. If we were to buy a car whose main selling point was its being extremely fuel efficient and environmentally friendly, we’d want others to know about it, too. (Then we could also join the Prius owners’ club to hobnob with Cameron Diaz.) With only two known examples in the country, the Prius is the only Toyota that can attract as much attention on the streets as a Ferrari.
The ultra-modern appearance is partly due to the demands of aerodynamics. The single-plane hood and windshield, sharply sloping rear (resulting in an unusual triangular greenhouse), and a minimum of apertures in the bodywork allows the car to slice through the air with a minimum of resistance. Its coefficient of drag is among the highest of today’s production cars, at 0.26. The Prius not only looks like a dolphin; it’s apparently as slippery as one too.
The key technology of the Prius is its hybrid drivetrain. Under the hood, the Prius has two power sources: a gasoline engine and an electric motor. The engine is a 1.5-liter inline-4 with variable valve timing, good for 76 horsepower and 111 Nm of torque. The engine follows the Atkinson combustion cycle. The intake valves are held open longer than usual to effectively reduce the compression ratio and lengthen the power stroke. The result is greater efficiency to the detriment of power output. To make up for that, there’s the secondary power source, the electric motor. The motor provides a maximum of 67 horsepower, and impressive torque of 400 Nm from 0-1200 rpm. The torque is what you’d expect from a 5-liter V8 gasoline engine.
The Prius is designated as a “full hybrid,” meaning it can run on electric power alone. In low-speed (particularly stop-and-go) driving, the electric motor drives the car, getting its energy from nickel metal-hydride batteries located under the trunk. The gasoline engine fires up when more acceleration is needed, or to top up the batteries. When full acceleration is called up, the electric motor assists the gasoline engine to deliver a maximum of 110 horsepower.
Getting the Prius ready for a drive is more like powering on a laptop than starting up a regular car. The Prius incorporates a convenience-entry system similar to the new Camry’s. We approach the car with the key in our pocket and the door automatically unlocks as we tug on the handle. With the key still in our pocket, we push a big power button beside the steering wheel. What happens next is…nothing. Or at least it seems that way, because there’s no sound and no vibration; the internal combustion engine has not fired up at this time. In reality, the battery and computers have begun supplying power to the various components, including the drive motor. Even with the engine off, we turn on the electrically-driven air conditioning.
The “gearlever” is a short stub beside the steering wheel with only three positions: Reverse, Neutral and Drive. The lever controls a continuously-variable transmission. A pull to the left and down engages Drive. With a tap on the “gas” pedal, we roll away from the parking lot. The only sound we hear is the faint crunch of gravel under the tires.
The gasoline engine fires up once we’ve rolled out of the driveway. It’s nearly as inaudible as the electric motor. The clearest indication of its operation is the orange animation on the vehicle monitor screen. Acceleration from standstill is satisfyingly brisk; you won’t lose many stoplight duels in this car. The dashboard indicator shows that the electric motor kicks in to provide greater acceleration. A 1.5 liter gasoline engine alone would not have the same grunt. Driving up to about 60 km/h, we see the fuel efficiency stay above 10 km/liter the whole time. The factory clocks 0-100 km/h in about 10 seconds.
That 180-cm video screen on the center console functions mainly as a drivetrain monitor. Observing the energy transfer from engine, motor, and batteries to the drive wheels and back, and keeping an eye on the fuel efficiency can provide as much entertainment as most video games. It also acts as a touch screen panel that controls different functions. Aircon and radio settings are adjusted with a push on the screen. It can also display the image from a back-up camera.
Speed and fuel are shown on a digital display strip tucked high up in the dashboard. Novel instrumentation aside, there’s little to differentiate the Prius from a modern, well-designed sedan. There are plenty of cubbyholes in the dashboard and center console, and the leather seats are comfortable. The steering wheel looks like it was mounted upside down, but the rim feels pleasant enough to grip. The steering effort is very light when parking but it remains stable at near-highway speeds. Its tight turning circle allows easy maneuvering and parking in tight spaces. These characteristics make the Prius an excellent city car.
When braking, the Prius’ motor acts as a generator to recharge the batteries. Gradual pressure on the brake pedal allows the regenerative-braking system to recapture most of the energy that in a conventional braking system would have been dissipated as heat.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rates the Prius at 25.5 km/liter city, 21.7 km/liter highway (23.4 km/liter combined). The seemingly reversed city/highway rating confirms that the Prius is most efficient in stop-and-go city driving, when it makes the most of use of the electric motor alone.
So what’s so great about 25.5 km/liter? Subcompacts equipped with small diesels can provide similar fuel efficiency. A Philippine fuel company demonstrated that a gasoline-powered 1.3-liter hatchback can travel about 31 km/liter. The differences are these: the Prius has much more passenger and luggage space that those cars. Its interior space is only slightly less that of a Camry, which would probably get about a third of the mileage. Five people in a subcompact will be tight, but the Prius’ large interior allows all passengers to stretch out and relax. As for those record-breaking attempts with a single tank of fuel, those tests were run mostly on highways and at night, when traffic is light. A Prius produces its best mileage driving to the corner supermarket. In rush-hour traffic.
The Prius other main benefit is to the environment: it produces over 70 percent fewer smog-forming emissions than the average new vehicle. (It’s probably a billion times cleaner than a smoke-belching bus.) California rates it as a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle.
One factor going against the Prius is initial cost. An unofficial estimate pegs the local price at about P2.2 million. That’s significantly higher than even the most lavishly-specified Camry. In the U.S., a well-equipped Prius retails for the equivalent of P1.16 million. That sum sounds reasonable, indeed, and that’s before government tax credits are figured in. With the credits, the price drops to P1 million. Toyota is lobbying for similar tax incentives for our market. In addition to a three-year vehicle warranty, the hybrid components are covered by an 8-year/160,000-km warranty.
The innovative engineering is only half of the Prius story. The other significant aspect of this car is its mainstream success. Critics contend that Toyota is losing money on each Prius it sells, but the company is undoubtedly taking the long view of the road. From a niche car, the Prius has, remarkably, become Toyota’s third best-selling vehicle in the USA, after the Camry and the Corolla. The first-generation Prius, introduced in 1997 sold about 12,000 units per year. The larger current-generation Prius debuted in 2004. By 2005, the Prius was selling 100,000 units per year. Toyota is considering building the Prius in the U.S., its primary market.
It’s best to think of the Prius as the ENIAC of the hyper-efficient, non-polluting automobile. Without that large room-sized computer and its hand-sized vacuum tubes, we would not be lugging around an iMac today. The long-term future is in electric power from a non-polluting power source, most likely a hydrogen fuel cell. Today, the Prius embodies some of the technologies that will be needed on fuel-cell cars, at a price that is not much higher than its conventional counterparts. That is amazing, considering that nearly everything about this car’s drivetrain is pushing the boundaries of technology. Someday, when your grandkids are off driving a motorized hairdryer, they’ll probably laugh at the idea of a Prius being futuristic. But their future began taking shape now, within the pyramid-like profile of the Prius. We hope this car will find its way to Toyota’s Philippine showrooms.
By Jason K. Ang | Photos by Jason K. Ang
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