Featured Hyundai IONIQ - Prius competitor?

Do note that that's because the DSGs used in all US-market VAG products (including all Audi S-tronic, Porsche PDK, and Bugatti DSG transmissions), except for the Jetta Hybrid, use wet clutches, that are bathed in the transmission fluid. This greatly enhances cooling, allowing the clutches to slip more without undue wear. The problem is that clutch wear materials end up in the transmission fluid, hence the frequent fluid and filter change.

Conversely, the Ioniq's DCT has dry clutches. These have lower scheduled maintenance - the lubrication requirements are identical to a manual gearbox, and those are essentially lifetime fluid nowadays - but they've tended to be problematic, especially in the US market, where 95+% of drivers are used to the creeping behavior of a torque converter automatic, and all automatics sold here have to emulate that. The problem is, when you repeatedly creep 2 feet at a time as many American drivers do (which has no real wear expense in a torque converter transmission), the clutch has to engage, slip for that 2 feet, then disengage, and that puts a lot of heat and wear into the odd gear clutch on a dry clutch DCT.

Now, the Ioniq does have one thing that helps it - it has a third clutch to disengage the engine from the driveline entirely, while leaving the electric motor engaged (this is the major conceptual difference between the Ioniq's system and something like the old Honda IMA system - IMA didn't care about what gearbox was behind the electric motor). So, creeping can be done with the odd gear clutch fully engaged, just using the electric motor to creep, just like how the Prius does it - then, when the ICE is needed, start it with the dedicated starter motor, rev match it, and engage the third clutch to connect the engine to the driveline. (And, during creeping, it's even possible that if they need the engine due to battery state of charge, but not power demand, they can run the Ioniq in a very low power serial hybrid mode, as the dedicated starter is also a generator.) That alone will help a lot.

This is why VW nowadays is using Aisin torque converter automatics instead of DSGs in most of their US lineup, now, outside of sporty models (where the DSG's sharper shifting behavior and reduced horsepower loss is preferred by the target market) - even wet clutch DSGs are harsh compared to a torque converter when you're used to a torque converter.

To be fair, that's because you're demanding that much power from the engine, and the eCVT is putting the engine where it can make that power. Put the same engine behind a DCT or a torque converter automatic, and it'll be revving around the same point, and possibly higher if there's not an optimal gear ratio. Put the same engine behind a manual, and the shift indicator lights are going to keep telling you to downshift until you've got the engine RPMs at the same point or higher (and you might be decelerating until you do that, unless the hybrid system just hammers the battery to try to make up for the shortfall in power).

Basically, your complaint is about the engine needing to rev that high to make the power you're requesting, not the eCVT itself. There's no replacement for displacement, ultimately - more displacement means you can run lower revs for the same power. And, note that the Prius's engine is throwing a significant amount of its intake charge away - somewhere I've seen 8.0:1 for the effective compression ratio of the 2ZR-FXE, compared to 13.0:1 expansion - this means that even though it's ostensibly a 1.8 liter, it's got about 1.1 liters of air to work with per 2 revolutions. This helps efficiency a lot, due to the increased expansion relative to a 1.1 liter (this also means you get more power than an actual 1.1 liter), but you'd of course expect something like a 1.1 liter to be revving pretty high when climbing a hill (but it's got electric assistance to help out, too).

That said, Toyota's done work to try to reduce that on the Gen 4 by using more electric power initially to keep the engine RPM down.

 

Is "creep" required by some regulation?

Bob Wilson

 

Not as far as I'm aware - it's a market pressure thing (the market would reject an automated or single-speed car that was unable to creep, just like how the market is rejecting DCTs in non-sporty cars due to harshness), not a regulatory thing.

(Note that auto hold features are increasingly common, though, and those not only disable creep, but also hold the brakes, until the accelerator is depressed.)

 

Actually, even further back - the 1967 Jaguar/Bertone Piraña concept, and the 1968 Lamborghini Espada production car had it, too.

Also, the Hyundai Veloster is a current non-hybrid with a split rear window (although the top portion is much flatter than in anything else that has the split rear window layout except maybe the Espada). It's true that the Gen 1 Insight, and later, the Gen 2 Prius, associated the split rear window with hybrids, but it's certainly not exclusive to hybrids. (In fact, you can directly trace the lineage here, as far as I'm aware - Piraña, Espada was done by the same designer, CR-X was almost certainly inspired by the Espada, Insight was a spiritual successor to the CR-X HF, and then the Gen 2 Prius took the trope from the Insight. And, the CR-X connection also explains the Veloster, which has some signs of trying to evoke the CR-X Si.)

Ultimately, it's a practicality thing, to enable adequate rear visibility with the high, truncated rear ends of modern Kammback designs. Compare to something like the Gen 2 Volt, where there's no actual window under the spoiler (but a blacked out section meant to evoke the split rear window)... if I want to see behind me at all, I have to bring up the rear view camera! And, that's a distressingly common thing in modern sedan and liftback designs, rear visibility that's 1970s supercar bad. The split window helps a lot.

Edit: I also forgot the new Civic hatchback, which also has a split window.

That'll be because the 10th generation Civic is a world car, and the 8th and 9th generation European Civics had a split rear window as well (although I'd argue that it wasn't practical on those cars - it was a spoiler splitting what could've been a single piece of glass). However, they were almost certainly calling back to the CR-X with that, too, on those Civics.

 

hmmm... where did i go wrong. no tesla, 37" television.

 

Add the 1992 to 1998 Mazda MX-3 sports coupe to that list. I had one of these Kammback tailed cars, and I can assure you that the split rear tail window design was extremely useful when backing up, or spotting vehicles close behind you. Unsurprisingly, being used to that kind of split tail end window design, I felt right at home when I bought a Gen 2 Prius. I've never had any bother seeing out of the rear window.

SM-G900F ?

 

Not sure if we're at cross purposes, but this just confirms my point, which is that the 'clutch' in most non DSG car auto transmissions, has no clutch friction plates, it has a fluid coupling.

The DSG is completely different and more like an automated manual transmission in that it does have friction clutch plates but more of them for its multi clutch gear change arrangement.

DSG and standard car auto transmissions are therefore so different as to be not comparable, as I said.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Well... a conventional automatic gets moving using a torque converter instead of a slipping clutch. However, shifting in a conventional automatic is usually done by disengaging one or more clutches, and/or engaging one or more clutches, inside the transmission, and those are often multi-plate wet clutch disks, very similar to what you'd find in a DSG's bellhousing. (The other possibility is that they're band brakes, which stop an element of the transmission, instead of connecting it to another element. Same sort of friction material, though.)

Also, the torque converter on a modern conventional automatic (past 25-30 years or so) has a clutch that's engaged to bypass the torque converter, for improved efficiency in higher gears (and some newer designs just keep it locked once the car's rolling).

 

Yes, an automatic does not have a clutch like a manual or DCT for the engine to transmission connection, but it does have clutches within it for performing the gear changes. Though these clutches are technically wear parts, they are considered lifetime because their operation is controlled by electronics, mechanics, and/or hydraulics that minimize the wear.

When talking about the wear and maintenance of the clutches in a DCT, they are comparable to those clutches within an automatic for the same reason. The car is the one controlling them, and does so to minimize the wear that such parts experience. Clutches wear out on manual/standard transmissions, because humans do a poor job of rev matching the engine to the transmission when re-engaging the clutch. Then there are the drivers learning the stick, just lazy, or stupid that add to that wear.

 

I worked with a lady who had an small sized 4-cyl Pontiac with 400K+ miles on it. Original engine with no internal work, original clutch and brakes. Her husband was a mechanic and did the fluids religiously. Her driving was mostly interstate with 50 miles to get to work and 2 stop lights. She obviously knew how to drive too. And was lucky.

 

A hypothesis put forward on another board a while back put forward that past American(mostly GM and Ford) cars of the late '80s and '90s were actually reliable rides. The reputation gained from the previous products had people expecting them to be crap. So they treated them like crap, and may have ignored basic maintenance because of it. Which eventually resulted in things breaking.

Saw a Cavalier just yesterday that looked new of the dealer lot.

 

Ioniq doesn't have to creep at all,if not desired.
It has an "Automatic Hold Button" just as the C-HR has .

 

that's a nice feature, all three models?

 

I had an '81 Olds Omega that I put 300,000 mi. on before I gave it to my brother. He put another 50,000 mi. on it before he gave it to his son. I put just under 200,000 mi. on a '85 Buick Century, before I sold it.

 

I've also heard the idea that "GM cars (from the late Malaise era and into the 1990s) run badly, longer than other cars run"...

 

I remember our neighbors' late 70's Cutlass diesel. It froze up just after its puny warranty expired. Never mind it's smoke belching particulate capability. And the late 70's versions were not alone. Year after year, GM put minimal effort into sedan diesel improvements. 'Too little too late' should have been GM's motto. The miracle was how long it took them to go bankrupt. Never mind the smoke belching particulate they'd throw.

 

In 2009 my 82 diesel suburban went running to the junkyard with 438,000 miles

 

I would say go look for yourself at the rear headroom as things like this are subjective, real world mpg is more difficult to assess, over on the dark side we have a member in texas getting 58mpg, first US member to check in with real world mpg

the more I look at youtube / online reviews of cars I take them with a pinch of salt

 

I would say "we don't need another hybrid" but instead "we need many more hybrid regardless of manufacturer" it is the best way to develop and improve the technologies and drive trains even further