Crunching Corolla hybrid numbers
You can have Prius power in your Corolla for an extra $3000. But the breakeven point is a long way away, Paul Owen argues.
Have hybrids had their day? I couldn’t help pondering this prospect while driving the $38,490 Toyota Corolla hybrid.
It’s a nice enough little jigger that costs $3000 more than an even better five-door Corolla – the $35,490 GLX, powered by a more conventional powertrain.
By my calculations it’ll take at least five years of ownership to recoup the extra purchase premium of the hybrid via the promised fuel use savings of consuming two less litres of fuel than the GLX over every 100km travelled.
Move to the country, where open road use will see those savings virtually evaporate, and it may be a decade before the Corolla hybrid’s petrol-electric technology pays for itself.
This got me thinking about a brief encounter I once had with a Japanese-American woman on the subway in Tokyo.
I had broken the protocol of Japanese commuters, who usually focus silently on their device screens rather than on the people they share trains with, and had begun chatting to her.
I was encouraged to do this because she, like me, seemed more interested in her surroundings than her umbilical electronic world. Turns out it was her job to be an observer of things, for her occupation was one that I’d never encountered before – trend spotter.
‘‘I work for a consultancy based in LA,’’ she told me, ‘‘and constantly travel between there and London and Tokyo.
‘‘They’re the three cities where global trends first emerge, especially LA.’’
What’s this got to do with hybrid powertrains? Well, it was Los Angeles that first rolled out the welcome mat to the pioneering Toyota Prius some 16 years ago.
It quickly added lanes to its freeways that were for the exclusive use of hybrid vehicles, and the state of California even subsidised the prices of the petrolelectric Toyota.
High-profile residents like Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney quickly became fan-boys for the Prius (possibly with the help of some incentives to become so from Toyota).
The Prius that donated its dualengine powertrain to this Corolla remains the world’s most popular hybrid car, and California’s roads are absolutely chock full of podlike Toyotas being driven by would-be Earth Mothers and Fathers.
Toyota has made more than eight million Prius vehicles since 2000, a remarkable figure given that the car was meant only to be a stop-gap measure to protect car sales from that late 20th century bogey – Peak Oil.
These days, even the CEO of Toyota North America, Jim Lentz, realises that Peak Oil ‘‘has been delayed to some indeterminate time’’ by the ensuing advances in oil exploration and extraction technologies according to recent statements given to that most laconic of interviewers, Charlie Rose.
This would appear to make hybrid vehicles rather pointless given that they were intended to push the peak in oil production further into the future while more effective alternative automotive energy technologies could be developed and rolled out.
According to Lentz, Toyota began working on hybrid vehicles and hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles at the same time back in 1992. The former technology was to isolate Toyota sales from oil price shocks while the harder work was being completed on the hydrogen front.
Which brings us back to what’s happening in Los Angeles today. Hydrogen refuelling stations are popping up all over the place, driven by a desire to serve the needs of all the new fuel cellpowered vehicles from Toyota, Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and GM that are now on sale there.
The city now has a network of fifty H-stations, and it’ll be expanded to 70 by the end of 2017 as energy providers take advantage of a multi-million-dollar state subsidy dedicated to fostering a hydrogen-based economy.
And as Lentz says ‘‘there are plenty of sources, and currently it’s easy enough to simply strip hydrogen away from natural gas; soon, we’ll have green hydrogen.’’
Of course it may take some years before New Zealand really picks up on the growing trend towards hydrogen-fuelled electricallydriven vehicles that take minutes to recharge with energy and have more effective method of storing that energy that entirely soothes any range anxiety.
Until then, the Corolla Hybrid is a valid vehicle for the way it officially reduces fuel use over cityhighway driving simulations from the 6.1 litres/100km of the GLX to 4.1.
Even when stropping it around rural back roads, the Corolla Hybrid was still recording fuel use figures in the mid-sevens. And it wasn’t a bad drive despite the lowgrip eco-tyres and a CVT gearbox that appears determined to confine acceleration.
Ride quality was impressive, helped by the new independent rear suspension that’s unique to the hybrid Corolla model.
But this car represents hybrid technology in its infancy due to the old-school nickel-metal-hydride battery and the lack of ability to travel any significant distance using just the 60kW/270Nm electric motor alone. So the 75kW/ 142Nm 1.8 petrol four has to constantly help it along.
There are far better hybrids available, including the plug-in second-hand Prius models Toyota NZ imports from Japan as part of the Signature Class range. They’d make a far more efficient way to drive into the sunset years of hybrid vehicle technology.