THE FENCE REVOLUTION
Toyota’s genius gizmo in impressive C-HR hybrid works out your optimum mileage
MY husband was once obsessed with fencing.
Give him a small piece of grass and he would fence it. He spent hours – and rather a lot of money – on stobs and planks of wood.
Fortunately the kind of fencing Toyota have put in the C- HR plug- in hybrid has nothing to do with keeping errant animals in or out.
Ge o f e n c i n g is t he particularly clever function that is part of their Predictive Efficient Drive System that creates almost an ideal world for getting the greatest mpg from your vehicle.
Indeed Toyota say that if your daily commute is 41 miles or less you can achieve 353mpg. It works like this: the 13.6kW battery is mated to a 2.0-litre petrol engine.
Each evening you plug in and recharge giving you 41 electric miles for the next day.
Of course some days you may go over that threshold but as long as you charge up every night – and that takes only 2.5 hours – you can drive 353 miles before you need to top up the petrol engine.
Now here is where the geofencing comes in. It is a sort of management map of all the systems in the car keeping the driver one step ahead of whatever the journey may require. It analyses Road and traffic conditions as well as the driving style of the person behind the wheel.
It accepts and learns the most regularly driven routes and optimises the use of either full electric power or hybrid modes. It ‘reads’ the road and adapts the car’s technology automatically thereby giving you the best possible application of petrol and electricity.
Of course drivers can choose to select the mode they prefer – if they want to allow the car to choose for them or do it themselves.
The new Toyota C-HR will always default to EV to start off with but this can be saved if, for example, there is a ULEZ zone at the end of the journey.
On the way there are various options for regeneration too as well as a heat pump for heating or cooling the car without having to rely on the battery and affecting its eff iciency. I Good- looking with bi-tone paintwork in the Excel trim the C-HR SUV has a coupe rear and a bold nose with full LED lights and the model name on the rear taillights. Inside it is very quiet – something Toyota have worked on – for electrified cars throw up any road noise when running silently on battery-only power.
A 12.3ins infotainment system is matched to a 12.3ins instrument cluster and the version I was driving came with a head- up display, a feature I am more and more inclined to think should come standard on all new cars.
Like the blind spot techis really does contribute to safety levels. There is smartphone integration and wireless charging for two handsets just below the dash. The cabin is packed with safety systems. It is smooth, capable and comfortable.
The C- HR plug- in is yet another option in Toyota’s rapidly growing stable of alternatively fuelled vehicles.
They say their aim is to have an option for every customer no matter their preference from hybrid to pure electric, fuel cell to e-fuel and they are certainly making good on their pledge.