Man, what a machine!

Welcome to the conversation here at PriusChat!

 

Not many people talk about the Hybrid Synergy Drive. You are correct, it is amazing. When I talk about how this transmission will drive for a long time to other people, they don't get it. When other people ask me, "Why didn't you get the Volt, or some other Hybrid,? Why a Prius?" I try to explain the Synergy Drive. Their eyes glaze over and they think I'm blowing smoke. 200,000 miles from now, they will have gone through 2 tranny repairs in their cars. Not mine.

 

Your imagery is fascinating!! I would suggest if you don't want to use your voice, to get someone who is good at voice over's. Or possibly someone who is a theater major and is good at reading commercials. It looks like you are on to something big!!

 

i think dan radcliffe would be fine.

 

Can't wait to see the final cut! Looks like you're coming up something awesome

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1. I think you do an excellent voice over. you're a natural. You could get paid for it.

2. Superb aviation and video. Amazing!

3. Is it being absurdly picky to say that although you are right of course that the petrol engine is ordinary, you could add that it is also not ordinary in the sense that it is Atkinson Cycle, which has greater efficiency and lower low speed torque than a standard Otto Cycle engine that other cars use, which makes it a great partner for high torque electric motors. I think I got that right but others may correct me. The main point is it's also a bit special.

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You should ask Mike Tyson to do it............

 

I had no idea that the patent on the engine was so old. Very informative and I get how my car works now!! Thanks!! Great voice as well!!

 

As I still have a Gen2, I was not aware that the Gen3 has a more complex transmission. But I had heard that it is more noisy than the Gen2. I wonder whether that is the reason, if true.

I know that the Gen4 simplified the transmission again. See the following quote from Wikipedia. Does this make it a bit more like the Gen2 in operation?

"The Motor Speed Reduction Device (a second planetary gear set found only in the Third Generation P410 and P510 transaxles), and which connects the traction motor directly to the Power Split Device, and thereafter to the wheels, has been replaced with parallel gears on the Fourth Generation P610 transaxle."

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Gen 4 no longer stacks both MGs and the PSD in one line with the engine crankshaft. There are four shafts now, the two MGs are side by side instead of inline, and MG1 is outboard of the PSD, so now, both MGs are accessible via the outboard cover, and the whole thing is flatter and needs a lot less width in the engine compartment. From the New Car Features Manual, where *a, *b, *c, and *d are the four shaft axes:



-Chap

 

The Great Font of All Toyota Technical Knowledge would be toyota-tech.eu in your part of the world (it's techinfo.toyota.com in mine). After signing in, choose TIS in the top row of tabs. Choose Library in the next row of tabs. Choose Service Information in the next row of tabs. Enter the model and year you want, click Search, then choose NCF (the New Car Features Manual) from the, umm, NEXT set of tabs.

You should see something like this:


Here it is throwing you back 415 documents, which happen to be all the sections of the New Car Features Manual, blorted out to you as a flat list in some algorithmic search result order. That's well and good, but not a very comfortable way to read a manual, so the key thing to know is, it doesn't really matter which one of those you click next. Pick any one and it will open a new window that has the sections in a proper table of contents (in order!) on the left, and the content of whatever section you select shown on the right:



Caution: depending on how much you feel like learning about this interesting machine, the New Car Features Manual can keep you happily occupied for a considerable time.

Here in the US, the shortest available subscription period on techinfo is two days for $15, but on toyota-tech.eu I think you even have hourly options. (If it's your first time looking at the NCF, I'm betting an hourly signup won't satisfy you.)

It may go without saying, but your signup also entitles you (if you have time left!) to browse all the stuff under those other tabs you didn't click, too.

-Chap

 

I too would be happy if it were available under some other model, but I suspect getting there would require adjustments all around their business model. What's the best way for them to pay their technical writers, editors, and translators? Even skilled, precise, Japanese-to-English/French/Spanish technical translators I'm sure don't come cheap. Should something just be rolled into the price everyone pays for the car, even people who care nothing to look at a manual?

I, too, think the New Car Features Manual could be re-envisioned as advertising ... but I'm a geek. And since 2011 when they stopped making dead-tree versions, unconstrained by the size of a paper volume, it has become pretty big. It is really best regarded as the overall theory-of-operation, how-is-everything-supposed-to-work-when-it's-not-broken, Volume Zero of the repair manual.

-Chap