So, thanks to my house-mate, I was able test drive a 2009 Toyota Camry Hybrid last night. Very fun! Here are a few pics of the car to start.On the right is the Hybrid Synergy Drive. This is the main component of the hybrid system. One part electric motor, one part computer, one part super-battery.
In this pic to the left, you can see the Synergy Drive on the front right, nestled between the pink fluid canister and the orange cables. The rest of the car's normal combustion engine is behind and to the left of the pink canister.What immediately struck me about this car is that it is in main respects, identical to my 1993 Camry that I still drive everyday.
So, after checking this vehicle out, I'm left with the idea that we are already in the beginning of a major transformation. The hybrids are here and before we know it, all vehicles will have this technology and in a few years, you may not be able to buy a typical vehicle without this system. For those of us who want even more efficiency, we might find versions with a few compromises in style or size, but overall, I'd expect that our average consumption of gasoline is about to go down dramatically.In the next segment, I'll show you some of the displays within the car and what it was like to drive.
3 comments:
Neat stuff. I drive a Toyota now and think a hybrid is probably going to be the next vehicle for me. A couple of concerns though: price (both short term and long term) and service/maintenance.
Thanks for your observations.
Cheers,
Steve
Hi! Fun blog - gave it a thumbs up on StumbleUpon today.
My husband and I were just discussing vehicle options. There's just no perfect solution out there. How does the Camry hybrid compare to the Prius? And what about how they are manufactured? I've heard the Toyota's line inefficiencies significantly add to the car's over-all footprint, but I'm not sure that that's accurate.
Sarah M.
http://greenpostcards.typepad.com
The engineer within me just can't be fooled into thinking a hybrid is much better than a gasoline car. It has less emissions in city driving (when you have to brake a fair amount). On highways though, there is almost no real savings. If you plan to do a lot of highway driving you may as well find a small gasoline car and go with it.
As a side note - pure electric cars are just scary. Sure using electricity is clean from the cars perspective, but how the electricity is created is ecologically wrong. Particularly when you live in Nova Scotia. They burn Bunker C fuel with an efficiency of ~ 40%. Which is extracted from crude oil which takes a lot of energy.. energy usually gotten from burning hydrocarbons. And so on and so forth :)
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