This year, both at home and abroad, the growth rate of demand for BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) models has slowed down, and there has been an "inflection point" in a considerable number of national markets: the sales of battery vehicles have shown a year-on-year downward trend. After the lost carnival, more and more people recognize the essence of BEV battery cars, and also clarify the real demands in their hearts, ranging from paying high battery replacement expenses after a few years to saving a little money. As a result, more realistic hybrids are back on the stage, and this feels like the drama of the 1990s when hybrids first appeared. Just this past September 20, Toyota was pleased to announce that its HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle) model Prius (XW60) broke the Guinness Book of Records, setting the lowest fuel consumption value of its type.
Pictured: The car that set the Guinness record is the fifth-generation Prius with a front-wheel drive version of the 2.0L hybrid system, and it is partnered with the red-clad driver Wayne Gerdes (Wayne · Gerdes). While it's true that the car is a production car, it's not an easy record for anyone to set a record. The driver not only trained a golden right foot that accurately controls the throttle through years of driving experience, but also made detailed route planning before departure, and carried out strict itinerary management during the journey.
How low can the Prius achieve fuel consumption? This time, their record-breaking fuel consumption figure was 39.605km/L, which translates to 2.53L per 100km. They drove 4,500km from Los Angeles, a west coast city in the United States, to New York, an east coast city. How exaggerated this number is, it means that the Prius only needs three refuels to cross the entire United States. This challenge not only highlights the ultra-low energy consumption performance of the Toyota Prius, but also reflects the long-distance stability of the car to a certain extent.
Figure: The reason why Toyota set the test location in the United States is not only because of the huge automobile consumer market here, but also because there are smooth and vast intercontinental highways. If the test were to be placed on a Chinese road with a huge altitude difference and a lot of traffic jams from time to time, even if the driver's nerve endings go straight to the vehicle's ECU, he may not be able to make this result.
While this record challenge is somewhat commercially hype, it has brought the public eye back to the level of energy consumption of the powertrain. Perhaps our Chinese car companies should also face up to this problem again, whether a hybrid system is excellent or not, should not stay in the one-sided evaluation standard of "how far the cruising range is". In the Chinese mainland automobile market, car companies blindly "roll" the mileage, and the final situation created is the size of the battery capacity. HEV models do not have an advantage in terms of energy efficiency, so they have increased the number of batteries and added a charging mechanism to make them plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). But this approach is somewhat cover-up, because the premise of PHEV's low fuel consumption is that the owner charges it in advance, that is, it is just a different way to replenish energy. Once the battery is depleted, it will be no different from HEV, and even drag hundreds of kilograms more weight of the power battery, and the fuel consumption level will be higher. Therefore, when judging the energy consumption level of PHEV models, the more significant parameter should be the fuel consumption, which reflects the energy consumption level that can be achieved by the internal combustion engine alone in the absence of external energy supply.
Here is also a little knowledge for car blindness on the Internet: the technical basis of PHEV comes from HEV, the inventor of PHEV is the United States, and the world's first mass-produced PHEV is not BYD but Renault of France. Read more, don't always listen to the wind or rain, don't take it for granted that PHEV is "the invention of the Chinese".
Pictured: The fifth-generation Prius is a C-segment model with a wheelbase of 2,750 mm, a length of 4,600 mm, a width of 1,780 mm, a height of 1,420 mm, and a weight of only 1,350 kg. This generation of Prius is no longer sold in China and is not well known to the Chinese people. Its size, model grade, tonnage and the familiar Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic is on par, the HEV version of these models are well-known to domestic consumers because of the excellent level of energy saving, but the fuel consumption of 100 kilometers is more than 4L, which shows how amazing the fuel consumption figure of Prius 2.53L is 100 kilometers.
Pictured: The low energy consumption of the fifth-generation Prius is also inextricably linked to the improvement of the exterior design, and the unique design allows it to effectively reduce the frontal area. Interestingly, however, the optimized exterior streamlining has increased the Prius' drag coefficient to 0.27, which also shows that a single drag coefficient does not absolutely affect the vehicle's energy consumption or performance. In addition to bringing resistance to the vehicle during the process of traveling, the body flow line will also bring a certain amount of downforce, and the traction of the vehicle is very dependent on the tire friction caused by the downforce, how to balance the resistance and downforce is the essence of vehicle aerodynamic development.
Pictured: The secret of the fifth-generation Prius's low energy consumption is Toyota's latest fifth-generation HSD hybrid system technology. The Prius was the first mass-produced hybrid series, and Toyota's hybrid system has evolved along with the lineup. The fifth-generation HSD hybrid system features an optimized internal transmission and transmission structure, as well as an improved electric motor that is lighter, more compact, and more powerful.
With the impact of the global economic downturn and the decline in oil prices brought about by the situation in the Middle East, it is believed that in the future, automobile consumers will pay more attention to the energy consumption performance of vehicles. I hope that the record challenge of Toyota Prius can give the majority of Chinese car companies a blow to the head, others are already rolling some substantial technological breakthroughs, are we not focusing on the volume configuration, volume battery size does not involve the core technology of the place? If China's auto industry wants to get ahead, it can't always think of opportunistic corners and overtaking. Think about it from another perspective, if a foreign brand does not have outstanding product advantages, how can it win the favor of local users? The same situation is true for our Chinese cars in overseas markets. After all, the car is still a means of transportation from point A to point B, refrigerators, color TVs, large sofas, these are added value after all.