Featured Toyota research claims Australians aren’t ready for PHEVs

I do it one better than using premium, I use only Top Tier premium.
Why Top Tier Gas | Top Tier Gas

 

Time between fills won't make a difference.

Most lawnmowers and other power equipment call for midgrade or premium gas. I have always used just regular without it leading to engine damage from knocking. The reason the manufacturer calls for higher octane is that gasoline stored in a typical gas can loses about one octane per month as the more volatile portions evaporate off and other compounds degrade from oxygen and water.

Not knowing if some owners would actually manage high ratios of EV use, and thus have the gas sit in their tanks, GM decided on premium gas on the chance that regular's octane might drop too far the engine to adjust for. The 91 octane used in California will provide at least a 4 month buffer over 87 regular before even accounting for the tank being better sealed than a gas can.

Since they were using premium, engineers could tune it to take all the advantage they could from the higher octane, except increase the actual compression of the engine. Though, it was one designed for European regular, so could make more of a higher octane. Remember, GM went with an off the shelf engine already available to reduce R&D costs and time.

My Sonic has the turbocharged version of the gen1 Volt's engine, and I have tested premium and midgrade in it after learning the engine was designed for higher than US regular octane. The fuel economy improves, and if the price difference was 10 cents more for midgrade, 20 cents for premium, the cost per mile would work out the same as regular, but the difference is twice that or more at the pump.

I am now blending my own midgrade at this moment in the car's tank. A 10:2 ratio of regular to premium will yield midgrade octane. This is what the blend pumps are mixing them at, or what the station does in their storage tank. Midgrade octane is not made nor delivered to the station.

In many markets, those Mazdas call for regular; we just have the lowest octane regular of the major markets*. It would be a benefit if the US switched to RON and increased the regular octane to match the others. The AKI number we go by is the average result of two different octane tests; the motor(MON) and research(RON) ones. AKI was chosen because carbs in cars was once a thing, but those remaining cars with them are no longer daily drivers, or they shouldn't be because of their high emissions. RON octane better reflects how the gasoline reacts in a fuel injected engine.

Raising our regular octane will reduce the amount of gasoline the fleet uses when engines designed for it, which already exist, come to market. It also means companies, like Mazda, won't have to spend resources adjusting their engines for our lower octane.

*India and China weren't major markets the last time I looked into this.

GM has determined you can save those pennies by running regular. The data collected from the gen1s on the road shows that using premium was being over protective, and why the gen2 only needs regular.

Top Tier gas could be using better detergents, or it could just being using more of what is in other brands. Which means less actual gasoline per gallon. Using fuel system cleaners will give the same benefit, and might be cheaper in the long run.

 

The 2000 Tundra pickup truck came out in May 1999. I have a 2000 Tundra with the V8 purchased in early 2000. It uses regular gas. In fact, only using regular gas was one thing we noted before buying it.

Perhaps the V6 required premium gas.

 

For the extra 0.000684150513 cents it cost me per mile to use the Tier One gas, I'll play it safe.

 

Not the V6 then, but 4L one that came out in 2005 did, or the manual recommended it for full performance. Which fits with what Wiki says. Toyota GR engine - Wikipedia

But we were truck shopping in 2000. I took a look in the 2000 manual, and it mentions 91RON in addition to the 87AKI. I'm guessing someone made a mistake on the label early on, and it was quickly fixed.

 

when everybody kept bugging Toyota to "just build a plugin already!!", they said nope ... nobody wanted one. Suddenly the market showed otherwise - even as Toyota was running negative plugins ads, & trying to push that hydrogen nonsense Fiasco. That said, does it really surprise anyone that toyota is now only telling ONE country that they don't want a plugin? ... even as Prime sales are going like hotcakes? .... especially considering so many other choices. Someone at Toyota needs to get their pink slip.
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They are too busy looking for their golden parachute.

 

If this is Toyota’s decision, then it’s market based. If this is a beauocratic decision, based on opinion then it’s wrong. Most of the time our legislators don’t understand the issue but only parrot and / or obey the ones above. True in the US, probably also true down under. The Govts job is too promote incentives and encourage the public to go forward and assist with clean air. To inhibit the market, the technologies is incredibly stupid. and the people, citizens suffer in many ways. every country and citizen should strife to understand newer technologies, like it or not. Reminds me when our current legislators decided that 32F windshield washer fluid protection was sufficient for the Sacramento area. One could not buy better protection, it was illegal ! Driving over the Sierra one Winter I saw several vehicles stopped as their windshields were frozen. The legislators promoted a dangerous situation thru their own ignorance.
I stocked up again with the better stuff ( zero F ) protection. Purchased in Nevada! An example of our leadership.

 

We usually get a couple of spells of really icy weather and snow at other times. Almost no vehicle here has snow tires because nobody stocks them. They are special order only with a long lead time.

 

That’s a mkt decision, unfortunately.

 

Toyota is the biggest car company in the world, they just may know a little more about the future then we do, but let CARB destroy it all.

 

I think I might have been rephrasing for others, honestly don't recall.

AKI is just the average of RON and MON, which are derived by different tests. The difference between the two is usually 8 to 10 points, but that isn't always so. Some compounds can have identical ratings for each, or they can vary by 15 or more.

The original article calling for the switch to RON I read might have been posted here, but I found this one instead.
Shifting up to higher octane | MIT News
"However, the MIT researchers deemed AKI — and more specifically, MON — to be an outdated measure of engine performance, originally designed to apply to older, carbureted engines rather than modern, fuel-injected engines. To bring the octane rating system up to date, the team considered doing away with MON, and basing engine performance solely on RON."

The saving fuel and money will only happen with also increasing the regular octane, and offering engines that can take advantage of it. Even without the money saving, the fuel saving could be worth it for reducing carbon emissions.

Regular in Europe seems to be 92 RON, which could be the same as 87 AKI, or slightly higher depending on the actual gasoline blend. Then it appears some European countries might only sell 95 RON as the lowest octane.

Going by that and some past articles getting some things wrong, I'm not going to put much faith in reports that Europeans are more willing to buy premium than Americans. Perhaps they do, the increased price is likely smaller in relation to their regular fuel prices, but they could still be as frugal to gas as Americans.

 

ain't it Grand when there's always another entity to blame? Blame is what the Auto industry did for every Improvement that they refused to implement volitionally because they were more worried about profits. Consider padded dashes, airbags, catalytic converters, crumple zones, seatbelt improvements, safety glass in windshields, steering wheel shafts that were not tantamount to a spear, that would get thrusted right through one's chest during a head on, etc .... you name it.
And now you'd blame carb for auto woes? Fact is, the auto industries' lobby - through legislatures, runs roughshod over CARB. That's some of the reasons how carb eventually shut down mandating plugin's way back during the ev1 & RAV4 EV gen1 days, in the 1990's.
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Not for the auto woes, but for the average citizens woes. CARB wants old cars off the roads. Well many old cars are owned by lesser financial secure persons who may not be able to buy that new shiny car or now in a few years EV car. What are they to do? And then you have the collector, let's see how they get shafted in 15 or 20 years.

 

The Prime would be perfect for down undah ....
120v overnight charge for inner city driving & over 50mpg crossing the vast expanse between the inner city.

it wouldn't quite have the get up & go of an Aussie interceptor ....

but i bet the range would surpass it

 

Don't forget the rest of the vintage cars there.

 

Revisiting the octane discussion, Toyota Europe calls for 95 RON in all the Yaris gas, I mean petrol, engines including the hybrid.
Toyota car configurator