Thread: Hybrid cars what to look for.

Originally Posted by XR500

I wouldn't be looking at selling that one any time soon!

That's certainly how its looking

Apparently mild hybrid will be the only Hilux option coming sometime next year, auto only that will most likely use equal or slightly more fuel than my current one

The value of diesel Hiluxs is likely to go up

Hi,

I have a 2016 Toyota fielder/Corolla wagon 1.5 hybrid...

In real life driving mixed highway and round town (Wanaka/Queenstown) I average 5 Litres per hundred Kms, I have roof racks, often carry my mountain bike on the back etc etc. Best I've got was 4L per hundred, but that was in flat Christchurch!

I've been super happy with it, gets over the crown range, Ive put 60k on it in two years.

Its Def funny driving a small car around with all the big guzzling utes on the road ! Get a few looks pulling upto road ends and hunting out of it, when most are expecting me to have a 4x4 !

Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

That's certainly how its looking

Apparently mild hybrid will be the only Hilux option coming sometime next year, auto only that will most likely use equal or slightly more fuel than my current one

The value of diesel Hiluxs is likely to go up

Are they going to make the new hybrid hilux a petrol? That makes it a non-option on the industrial sites which have their own diesel fill stations. That's a monumental cluster fluck if so...

Originally Posted by No.3

Are they going to make the new hybrid hilux a petrol? That makes it a non-option on the industrial sites which have their own diesel fill stations. That's a monumental cluster fluck if so...

Hilux will be diesel only is my understanding as they are now

Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

Hilux will be diesel only is my understanding as they are now

That shows more common sense. I did hear about a trial of one setup that basically flogged the petrol engine and transmission out of a sedan, shagged about to go from east-west to north-south orientation and shoe-horned between the chassis rails of a 2wd ute - apart from a little gutless and somewhat tall gearing it seemed to pass the functional requirements.

Originally Posted by Happy Jack

The UK is heading towards RUC on all vehicles regardless of power source and yet currently they don't have any RUC, we will follow suit in due course as we do.

Provided they tax the tax of the pump price then I don't have an issue with all vehicles having RUCs.
If they start dicking around with the RUC cost's though and giving special exemptions prices to EVs and penalising the "dangerous" vehicle, then thats a different story.

We have a Toyota prius alpha which is the station wagon prius. It actually has 7 seats although the third row has pretty pathetic leg room. You can fit 7 adults in at a push though. The seats fold down completely flat so is pretty much a normal station wagon boot when folded down. Very happy with it, very reliable. The fact that every uber driver and taxi driver pretty much has one attests to the fact that they are one of the most economical vehicles on the road (combination of reliable, cheap to maintain and low fuel costs) at least if you are doing high ks. Being the station wagon it uses a bit more than the standard prius but can usually get about 4.8l/100 around town and highway driving is much the same. The boot is considerably bigger than the standard prius and more head room for the rear passengers. I think that the year to avoid in terms of prius was 2011 for some reason those engines tend to have problems.

If you are a city dweller like myself the hybrids are good but if you live rural with mostly open road driving I think a hybrid is a waste of time as you aren't doing much stop-starts and the electric motor pretty much doesn't kick in ever over about 60km/hr or so. I think the battery in the prius is about 2-3k to replace, so not too bad and you get a lot of kms out of the battery. Plenty of priuses out there with 400k + on them and still going strong.

The aqua is a good option if you don't need the room except that the Jap import ones have no immobiliser so very easy for teenagers to film themselves stealing it on tik tok. The NZ new version (I believe they are badged Prius C rather than Aqua) have immobilisers I think (push button start) so much much harder to steal. If you get an aqua, always run a steering lock or get an after market immobiliser I would say.

The other vehicle is a diesel Prado 120 series, but with an economy of 13lt/100km + diesel ks it barely gets used unless we have to haul a lot of stuff or need to go offroad. It is really painful to run cost-wise compared to the prius.

I think RUC on every vehicle may be the easiest option for them now. When the free ride ends for electric/hybrid vehicles how else will they manage it ?

diesel/elec plug in = tax on all km's via RUC
pure elec plug in = no tax or RUC

petrol/elec plug in = tax on fuel but free for the electric powered km's
Or more likely they'll dream up some half assed 60/40 or 80/20 split for RUC/fuel tax like they do when they charge us for waste water in our water bill, the hybrids that do most of their driving around town get subsidised by the others that end up using petrol as well.

Even if they do go the "simple" route of RUC for every vehicle by weight I doubt they'll remove the petrol tax or Auck fuel tax.

Originally Posted by spnz

Hi,

I have a 2016 Toyota fielder/Corolla wagon 1.5 hybrid...

In real life driving mixed highway and round town (Wanaka/Queenstown) I average 5 Litres per hundred Kms, I have roof racks, often carry my mountain bike on the back etc etc. Best I've got was 4L per hundred, but that was in flat Christchurch!

I've been super happy with it, gets over the crown range, Ive put 60k on it in two years.

Its Def funny driving a small car around with all the big guzzling utes on the road ! Get a few looks pulling upto road ends and hunting out of it, when most are expecting me to have a 4x4 !

Same boat here. 2016 fielder hybrid. 5L per 100km. Mostly highway around the NI to avoid putting lots of kms on the 4wd. Get 4L/100 if only in town. Very comfortable to drive, just a bit noisy, but it’s a low spec Toyota so never going to check all the boxes. Very happy with it.

Lots of people saying that the electric motor don’t do any work once on open road but that’s not been my experience, it’s constantly using the electric motor especially up hills.

Originally Posted by camenzie

Same boat here. 2016 fielder hybrid. 5L per 100km. Mostly highway around the NI to avoid putting lots of kms on the 4wd. Get 4L/100 if only in town. Very comfortable to drive, just a bit noisy, but it’s a low spec Toyota so never going to check all the boxes. Very happy with it.

Lots of people saying that the electric motor don’t do any work once on open road but that’s not been my experience, it’s constantly using the electric motor especially up hills.

Yep, goes onto 'dual power' mode and uses both systems with the (or any) excess energy sent back to the battery for recharging. It means that if you live out of town (especially uphill) there doesn't seem to be much benefit of plugging the vehicles into the mains for recharging, as once you head back out onto the open road you are using the onboard generator anyway which is recharging the battery.

In the end eschewed a hybrid due to the extra cost of them and most driving is open road living out of town. Picked up a nice cheap Civic hatch for the wife her pick of everything we looked at and tried and best of all no cambelt.

Will keep my diesel…

Knowing ford that range 45km of pure electric power was done down hill

Originally Posted by longrange308

Knowing ford that range 45km of pure electric power was done down hill

With the digger pushing it!

Mates' work wagon was a hybrid. Crank her up and it would quote the range available as 35 Km. Drive it enthusiastically and it was gone in 10.

V8 Y62 patrols are slowly getting cheaper second hand.