Hybrid or not

Honestly this is the main reason I like my RAV4 over a gas only. Instant smooth torque at any speed and instant acceleration with no lag like happens with conventional transmission gas engine.

The hybrid just plain performs and drives better.

 

Often but not always.

At some point in time air drag takes over and the battery gets drained. Once the battery is drained the hybrid is very similar to a conventional transmission gas vehicle. It can still buffer if there are hills, but on flat highway a conventional transmission may actually be slightly more efficient.

Mine gets 41-43 mpg when doing 65mph. At 75 it gets 34-36 mpg.

If all you do is 70+ mph highway driving get a conventional transmission gas vehicle.

 

My posts were only about vehicle engines in particular and the technology of petroleum vs electric. I have extreme sympathy and my heart goes out to everyone affected by hurricane Helene. No harm or negative ever intended.

 

another thing: adding a battery system to an ICE (a hybrid) is adding more things that could break and less shops that will work on it.......and .....here come the experts to disagree

 

You are correct on one part. There are (currently) less shops that will work on hybrids.

Again in a RAV4 the transmission, alternator, starter, are all eliminated and replaced with two brushless electric motors a tiny battery and a single planetary gearset.

There is nothing to disagree about those are simple facts that anyone can verify themselves. Hybrids aren't more complicated, they are a different design one that less people are familiar with.

 

Here's a video from NC showing how an EV can be an asset. The massive battery can power a typical house for a few days if you make no change to your habits, or probably for over a week if you just use it for the essentials. He's lucky to get electricity back at the end of the video, and that means unlimited fuel without waiting in line. Of course not everyone will get power back anytime soon.

https://youtu.be/31IGdeIY3PQ?t=145
(EV featured at 2:24)

In the next video in the series he's spending all his time driving around helping people. That would be harder to do if he were relying on scarce gasoline.

https://youtu.be/BN-AyYMtlRc

And if you have solar, that's another way to get free fuel regardless of the power grid. It's usually a small premium to build a solar system that can work off grid (as opposed to grid tie only which is cheapest way to do solar), but it's well worth it in my opinion to be able to be self sufficient.

 

Yeah, there are definitely parts under the hood (and under tha car) that I wouldn't mess with personally, some high voltage shit. (Fortunately all of the dangerous electrical stuff is bright orange). If I lived somewhere remote (like nowhere near a dealer), I probably wouldn't buy one as my only car.

More complex dors usually correspond with less reliable, but it doesn't always mean unreliable. These Toyota systems are pretty good, and have been in service for 20 years now. I think of it like an automatic vs. manual transmission: there are more failure points, but there are also a ton of ATs on the road without issues.

You do get unique problems with the hybrid, though: the Rav4 Hybrid actually had a recall for the connector to the rear motor. In snowy climates, the dust cover for the plug gets filled with road grime, salt, and slush and corrodes the connector (and the only fix is an expensive replacement of the entire module). They added some drain holes as a fix on the newer models...

I wouldn't buy one if I lived in Ontario for that reason, but everyone needs to weigh the pros and cons for their use case. In fact, some of my pros are specific to the hot weather down here (cold AC when stopped, without the motor running). The heat in the 4Runner is much better, though.

 

Nobody in their right mind would ask for this unless they hadn't looked at the retail cost of a kg of hydrogen.

 

The hybrid battery is something around 1 kWh capacity. An EV battery will be 60x that or more. If your goal is to support oil and gas, buying a hybrid is probably the best way to do it. Straight up ICE light duty vehicles are starting to get bad: belt and pulley CVTs, start/stop, and overly complex turbo engines in non-performance cars are all problems that don't exist in Toyota hybrids using the Synergy system.

 

My sister has a 21 rav4 hybrid. The thing is great to drive and ride in. The switch from electric to gas is butter smooth. You can barely tell when it turns the engine on. I vote hybrid!

Although my favorite rav4 was my families 2011 with the v6. Wasnt super fast but still pretty fun.

 

Speaking of Start-Stop, I was surprised when I learned how much goes into making that work. A hybrid is a much more elegant solution.

https://youtu.be/TTBN8Ic57Gg

 

Fastest Toyota of its era, believe it or not. (Once they killed the Supra).

 

I have been using toyota hybrid since January

From my 15 years of owning hybrids, you most likely will deal with ICE , suspension components rather than battery/Inverter components.

 

but i can work on alot of stuff on my ICE, but not on a hybrid

 

Sounds like a you problem, not a hybrid problem.

 

no problem here, i dont need the 35 mile range on the battery.....less complicated is better in my book

 

Can you work on the transmission on your ICE?

That's really all thats different in a hybrid. The rest of the vehicle is the same as any other ICE. And the hybrid components are simpler and thus less likely to need work.

The hybrid system only needs an air filter cleaning and a transmission fluid exchange like an engine oil change. Both of which are no big deal for DIY.

 

are you a f'in salesman? i dont want one

 

Nope. Not a salesman and I don't care if you want one or not. That's the beauty of options we can all purchase what we want to purchase.

OP asked for pros and cons of hybrids. I used to believe much of the FUD surrounding hybrids claiming they are these complicated rupe goldberg machines. Then I did my own research instead of listening to "experts" online and found that hybrids are almost perfectly the opposite of what naysayers claim.

I am simply making sure that the cold hard facts are stated so OP or anyone on the fence can make their own informed decision. If I have said anything incorrect please prove me wrong. I love to learn new things.

 

i have learned you like to type