G. David Felt
Staff Writer Alternative Energy - CheersandGears.com

Racing Hybrid or Not?

The question of the day would make one wonder if I was nuts. Can hybrids be the new Racing formula? We have plenty of new hybrids on the market to show that nothing is off limits, but does it really make sense and in AWD form to boot?

Toyota is prepped, locked and loaded to show off at the Frankfurt motor show the Yaris Hybrid-R. This three door Yaris comes packed with a 1.6L turbo four-cylinder driving the front wheels and a 60hp electric motor on the rear wheels. Yet the engineers did not stop there as they added a third electric motor between the six-speed transmission and engine. This allows it to act as an advanced traction control that shifts power to the rear wheels when the front wheels cannot handle any more. The total system peaks at 414hp.

One new aspect to hybrid is the lack of a traditional battery. In the place of the battery according to Toyota information it is using a SuperCapacitor. This allows for faster discharge of the power to the rear electric motors including a burst mode for five second boosts of full energy.

While Toyota is a popular car company, they have not been known as a muscle car or performance car company and it would appear that this Yaris Hybrid-R is an attempt to change the youth and performance driven drivers.

So with this concept car, the Question to be asked is, Hybrid Sports cars the future or not?

Source - Toyota web site and multiple news outlets. Images from Bing search.

414hp on that egg would surely be interesting

I think we are going to be in interesting times over the next 10yrs as auto companies roll out a new generation of hybrid performance auto's.

I think we will see a whole new industry around performance electric motors, Performance electric batter packs, performance electric enhancements period. Who ever has the time and money to invest now will rule this market as it continues to mature.

Performance step up converters, performance capacitors, etc........

It's impressive for sure and I'm glad Toyota is showing us something an enthusiast can appreciate. It's just a shame they wouldn't actually put something like this into production.

I'm not a big fan of electric cars. But I was pretty much convinced they are the future after watching "Revenge of the Electric Car". Once the issues of infrastructure (more accessible charging stations) and cost are addressed they will take off.

I voted yes. This will be the way the industry will be going imo. Like it or not. Is it sexy? I have a hard time calling a sub compact sexy but 414 hp is cool. As much as I'm not a fan of the Yaris, I would love to take that for a spin on a track to see what it can do.

James

It is sexy, but not for the traditional reasons.

I think that the supercapacitor will end up being the next big step in hybrid technology. We already have gasoline engines that will do 45+ miles per gallon.... but what kills fuel economy is acceleration.

That's where the supercapacitor comes in. You only really need to add boost for short bursts and then recover it in equally short bursts. Don't need a big, expensive, heavy battery to do that.

414hp on that egg would surely be interesting

Agreed