Honda Accord Hybrid: 50 MPG City - clone Toyota

clone Toyota

The usual nonsense. Toyota uses a traditional planetary gearset that has been in automatic cars for 50 years, whereas the Accord hybrid uses no transmission. It uses a direct drive from the electric motor to the wheels, like an EV, and also a direct drive between the engine & wheels (above 40 mph). No trans..... not a clone of Toyota.

 

That's not how HSD works. Its design has MG2 driving the wheels too, directly. The PSD is on the other side and does not work anything like a traditional gearing system.

 

Ah geez..... I didn't say the Prius "works" like a traditional trans. Furthermore that wasn't even my main point: Accord Hybrid has no transmission... so it isn't cloning the PSD (which is a transmission).

 

It has a clutch and a fixed ratio gearmesh set.
Saying it has no transmission is quite a guess...

Toyota PSD has only a fixed ratio gearmesh set. No clutch.

 

I would not be surprised to see a clutch appear in the next Prius.

 

Seems majority of Camry buyers don't listen to a lot of things including crash results as current Camry got Poor rating on IIHS small overlap test and is currently Not Recommended by Consumer Reports.

 

spot on. we know what we like, and don't suffer fools gladly. unlike those who read all the journals and live thier lives by what the 'experts' tell them.

 

I don't necessarily know what "we" like ... but seeing this post is approaching 14,000 views ... someone sure likes something about it. Yet it seems by production numbers/sales ... the folk that like it the least, are Honda. With Toyota and Honda trying to push the hydrogen hoax so religiously - I'm guessing the reason both their plugin sales are tepid - is because they've seen to it that CARB will give 3x the green credit value to hydrogen as they do towards hybrids / plugins. That's the only way IMO it makes sense.
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you would know, if you were fortunate enough to own a hycam.

 

It's amazing that tens of millions of Toyota owners have done so well over the years. Imagine not having to go to the dealer for various warranty and repairs. Imagine Ford owners having to put out engine fires, then later claiming Toyotas has floor mat problems. Imagine the money it took to BS all this time, leading to articles testing hybrids where fuel economy doesn't matter much really. Imagine having a car company with dozens of major recalls and the press rarely reports on them, regardless of severity.

Imagine being a troll who thinks that the BS PR extends to the Internet. It does, as has been evident for the past several years. A world where grey is white, Fords are patriotic, and facts have become the proprietary BS spewed forth by marketing departments.

 

SteveVee, just to point out this is a honda accord thread. Toyota was the one that said they had problems with floor mats, but covered up illegally problems with accelerator pedals, and unethically lobbied the NHTSA against putting an accelorator brake interlock into vehicles. Toyota was fined for the accelorator cover up, and bragged about saving money by hoodwinking the NHTSA.

I think ford, toyota, and honda all have pushed hybrids, so I am not sure who spent the money you are alluding to being spent?

I am not sure which car company this is. The press has reported recalls from toyota, ford, and honda.

Again I don't understand why you hate ford, or why it matters in a honda versus toyota thread.

On the meat of the thread, honda has not cloned the hsd system at all, but put in place an entirely new system in the accord. The system seems to have reviewed quite well, and is a welcome addition to hybrid cars.

The accord hybrid appears to be a competitor to the camry, fusion, sonata, and optima hybrid mid sized sedans. These only slightly compete with the hatchback and wagon prius liftback and v. It is doubtful that anyone would choose a camry over an accord then decide they like the honda hybrid system better and get an accord hybrid. This mainly will keep those that choose the accord and want a hybrid from going to a camry hybrid or fusion hybrid. Its a stop the bleeding type car. They may also get some upgrades from accords to accord hybrids. Honda appeared to have handled vary poorly the civic hybrid battery problems, and that may hurt this car.

 

if fuelly eventually shows that hyacc gets 15-20% better real world economy, and honda builds uses the system to build a worthy competitor to the prius, i would agree with you. if and until then, i wonder how far astray from thier time proven technology toyota will be willing to go?

 

Toyota Camry Recommended | Car Safety - Consumer Reports News
Last updated: December 19, 2013 03:00 PM

 

I don't think it would be going far astray at all.
The promotion of fewer moving parts being good for longevity is mostly marketing spin in order the assuage the potential customer of the unknowns in hybrid maintenance during the early days of the Prius and hybrids. While it has some truth too it, we were past the days of the typical automatic step transmission of only lasting 60k back then.

These clutches are a time proven technology them selves. There just wasn't an incentive to include them in earlier generations of HSD when part of the priority was reducing costs. Most of the efficiency improvements in the gen3 came on the ICE side. Some of them will be there for the gen4, but it will get tougher to keep up the improvement rate between generations. So the clutches may appear. They may be more important to have for the plug in. Decoupling the ICE maybe needed for better range.

 

Full truth or partial truth?
Back in the 90's I had a problem with a motorcycle, it seized because small clutch debris fouled oil filter (shares fluid engine oil). 1500usd equivalent to repair is full truth to me. And gearbox ball bearings slacking showed me more costs to insight, on a newer bike.

ICE decoupling needed for better range?! At highway speeds there is no "better range" definition...

 

it's just my opinion, toyota is so conservative, i don't see them stepping outside the box until forced to by competition. and i don't even see the competition beginning yet, much less proving itself in sales and longevity.

 

These aren't the clutches used in a manual transmission. These are the ones in an automatic with electronic control for rpm matching. The transmission in cars also tend to be more robust than on a motorcycle. Engine and tranny don't share fluid for one thing.

How often do transmissions failed in cars build in the last 20 years? The only one I know of needing expensive repairs among friends and family was my brother's Accord. A 2000 V6, a year that had a transmission improperly designed for the engine. The car had also been through two floods.

Unless Toyota is going to stay with the more blended design of the current Prius plug in for the next one, decoupling the ICE can improve high speed EV efficiency, and thus range.

 

Just to throw some more light on the subject of "Honda" and "transmissions":

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/honda-transmission-problems-seem-to-persist/?_r=0

It wasnt just the 2000 Honda Accord V6, as your comment seems to suggest. It was all Honda V6 transmissions from 1999-2004, covering about 1.1 million Honda vehicles.

Our 2003 Pilot was the subject of the recall back in 2006 or so. We had about 70k miles on it at the time. Honda's remedy at the time, assuming you had no issues, was to add an additional oil injector (I'm no mechanical engineer, but sounds like there wasnt enough lubrication? sounds like a rookie mistake.. only Honda had many years to figure it out but apparently didnt). Unfortunately for me, our trannie started showing signs of failure at 130k.

So to answer your question, how many transmissions failed in the last 20 years? I don't know.. but I will say with some certainty that most of them were probably from Honda.

 

This review compares it to similar midsize hybrids. MPG was not much better than fusion or jetta hybrids. Better than camry though. Why camry lags so much?
We have to wait and see how battery is going to do in this one.
Hybrid Sedan Comparison Test on Edmunds.com