One of my favorite things about my gen 4 is the quiet engine. It's night and day compared to the gen 2.
i wonder if prime is different, or i just got a lemon. i gunned the pip on the way home to compare, much quieter.
I have some experience and would suggest: Revise the standard body shapes so the traction battery can be an assembly under the body, outside the cabin (aka., BMW i3-REx style). Stronger or tunable lane keep assist: light for urban driving and stronger for highway. Then there is my standard Bob's list: tow package, option minimum 1.5kW, 120 VAC 60 Hz, inverter, option rear-wheel drive motors, option Bob Wilson
I think packaging the traction pack efficiently within this unibody would preclude the rear drive motor option - the way Volkswagen and I believe Hyundai do it is to put the fuel tank between the strut towers, where the rear motor would go in an E-Four. (Think where the battery and spare tire in the Gen 1 through 3 go.)
How about the traction battery in a center tunnel -- somewhat like the Volt? And, the cargo and body length demensions the same as the Gen 4?
I don't think a center tunnel is even necessary for the 8.8 kWh option to have as much cargo room as a Liftback with spare tire (obviously it won't have a spare with that packaging).
Nope, VW did it with independent suspension. Note the independent rear suspension (and Toyota largely copied that suspension design for the TNGA cars, too).
Hmm, maybe Toyota didn't want the fuel tank that far back. Also, it's cheaper if you can reuse as many parts as possible and not have to use different lengths of pipes and cables to rearrange items in the car.
Wish list: Larger cup holders - an iPhone 6s Plus doesn't fit Qi charger - again, an iPhone 6s Plus doesn't fit Modify the large display so users can create a set of left or right row of touch buttons to easily access functions instead of drilling down through menus Larger glove compartment
what is this, and how is it selling? i'm not sure that just because a completely different vehicle can pull it off, that toyota can too.
Volkswagen Golf GTE, which is the #2 best selling PHEV in the European market (at 10,004 units for 2016). Mind you, it's not a particularly efficient PHEV, but I'm thinking the problem with that is up front, not in the back. And, #3 is the Passat GTE (9907 units), which is basically the same thing in a bigger car and with a bigger battery (but the same packaging concept), and #7 is the Audi A3 e-tron (5695 units), which is just a Golf GTE with a nicer badge. For comparison, #1 is the Outlander PHEV at 18,928 units. So, the Golf GTE and A3 e-tron (the same car, remember) combined come close. Source: | EAFO Looks like 14,641,356 cars were sold in Europe overall for 2016: Passenger car registrations: +6.8% in 2016; +3.0% in December | ACEA - European Automobile Manufacturers' Association
i saw an a3 etron this morning. never heard of it. i looked it up, and starting at 40k it got rave reviews. but the mpg's were 28, is that correct?
EPA numbers for the A3 e-tron are: Charge depleting mode: 81 MPGe (42 kWh/100 mi) city, 86 MPGe (39 kWh/100 mi) highway, 83 MPGe (41 kWh/100 mi) combined, 16 miles range Charge sustaining mode: 33 MPG city, 36 MPG highway, 34 MPG combined It's definitely not an efficient vehicle in either mode. My interest here is only in Toyota adopting the (vastly superior) battery and fuel tank packaging, and using it as an example of that packaging actually working with a similar rear suspension design to what Toyota is using today.
understood. but i still don't think that just because vdub did it, it can necessarily be done in prime. i have no way of knowing though. it's possible that it would just cost more.
I have got say......this IS a nifty job packaging. Although, this looks like a trailing arm independent rear suspension... Trailing arm suspensions don't do very well in anti-dive and squat. The Gen 4's double wishbone rear suspension should do better at controlling body pitch.
