14 Things You Might Not Know about Toyota Hybrids

With that in mind, here are 12 more facts about Toyota hybrids you may or may not know:

Toyota Hybrids are easy to understand

The word “hybrid” means a combination of two things, in case of Toyota’s, meaning the combination of two power sources - gasoline and electricity. Its hybrids seamlessly switch between the two so you always get the best miles per gallon. Clever technical design made sure that the hybrid technology doesn’t take passenger and luggage space, while also having the possibility to recover the vehicle’s wasted energy during braking and transform it into electricity.

Toyota Hybrids are silent and less stressful to drive

While most gearheads would recognize they want a massive V8 under the hood to growl all day long, this might get annoying quickly in the city traffic after a hard day of work. Hybrid Toyota’s use small silent efficient gasoline engines aided by electric motors. But in the crawling city traffic, the electric motor will be used mostly, all being left to hear is the tires slowly rolling on the asphalt.

Toyota has a 210 mph Hybrid racing car

The Toyota Racing TS030 racecar scored a second place at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, the world’s toughest endurance race. Of course, it’s not functioning like a Prius but its two electric motors are powered by a super capacitor on certain portions of the track to aid the gasoline engine and accelerate faster when coming out of a corner for example.

Toyota Hybrids can save you money on the congestion charge

If you live near or in a city like London, where a congestion charge is applied if you want to drive your car in the middle of the city, the Prius Plug-in is the best hybrid to have there. With only 49 g/km CO2 emissions, the Plug-in Prius is the only car that qualified for free entry into London’s Congestion Charge Zone. Moreover, if your town has enough charging points, you can drive only in electricity for your daily business.

Toyota Hybrids drive just like regular automatic cars

For those of you who never drove a hybrid, they are as easy to use as a normal automatic car. Step in, press the start button, put it in drive and you can go. The transition between gasoline and electric power is so smooth that if you have your stereo on, you won’t hear when you are only on electric. Of course, if you love challenges, you can turn everything off and concentrate on keeping the car in EV mode as much as you can by accelerating gently and analyze the traffic ahead constantly to avoid sudden accelerations or braking.

Toyota Hybrids will cut your fuel costs in half

Averaging over 50 mpg in fuel consumption, which is double than an average small-engined gasoline car, means that you will stop twice as less at a gas station than other drivers.

The Toyota Prius Plug-in can be charged at home

The Prius Pug-in is unique in the whole Toyota hybrid range, working just as a normal one, but offering you the possibility to charge its battery while its parked, so you can then drive more than 15 miles only on electricity.

Some Toyota Hybrids have clocked 300,000 miles

Thanks to Toyota’s legendary reliability, its hybrid vehicles have collectively clocked over 124 billion miles of real-world driving. Southampton resident and Prius owner Bob Old for example, managed to drive more than 360,000 miles in his hybrid without replacing the original engine or batteries.

Toyota Hybrids do make an eco impact

More than three-quarters of your car’s total environmental impact comes from driving it, so by choosing a low-emissions, fuel-efficient hybrid you’re already making your daily drive greener. Toyota has been hard at work on the other 25 per cent too, using its Life Cycle Thinking to examine and improve every aspect of how your hybrid is built, what it’s made of and even how it will be recycled far into the future. Also with five million hybrids and counting, Toyota saved around 34 million tons of carbon dioxide and 12 billion liters of fuel.

Toyota Hybrids can save company car drivers money too

Company car users can add a serious tax reduction to the fuel cost and car-tax savings that all drivers enjoy with a Toyota Hybrid.

Two Toyota Hybrids are built in the UK

Both the Toyota Auris hatchback and Auris Touring Sports benefit from hybrid powertrains and are built in Britain at the Burnaston plant in Derbyshire, which is also the first plant in Europe to build a full hybrid car.

Toyota is the only automaker at the moment offering a hybrid estate

Speaking about the Toyota Auris Touring Sports, it is the only estate at the moment which you can get to come with a hybrid powertrain. Under its hood, you can have a 1.8-liter gasoline engine aided by an electric motor, totaling 136 PS.

Story refferance Toyota Magazine