GM Admits It Needs Hybrids Again: 'We're Not Tone Deaf'

Technology Connections video on hybrids opened my eyes to what they actually are.

I used to think they were a crappy 1/4-step toward EVs, that their main feature was regenerative braking, and that all their gas savings vanished in highway driving.

All of that is wrong.

What they are is a different tuning of internal combustion engine that gets much better gas mileage but has terrible acceleration. Hybrids augment that acceleration intelligently with an electric motor so it’s not so noticeable, removing the big complaint you’d otherwise have with one of those engines in your car. And the gas savings are actually most dramatic in highway driving.

I used to think hybrids must be more complex because they’re gas + EV. And more complex usually means less reliable.

I just learned very recently that that’s not the case — for Toyota, anyway. Their hybrids are actually generally considered more reliable than their traditional gas cars, these days.

They deleted the starter and alternator. And the transmission, an e-CVT (which is nothing like the shitty CVTs that many people are familiar with), is dead simple and more reliable than even a manual transmission.

Also, I find brake pedal very interesting, because it actually feels completely normal and UNinteresting.

My only experience with regenerative breaking before was when I drove someone’s Tesla. Letting my foot off the “gas” pedal felt like braking, and the brake pedal was only needed for hard, emergency braking.

In Toyota hybrids, the gas and brake pedals feel absolutely normal and familiar, despite most of the braking actually being regenerative 🤯.

There’s probably more cool engineering that I have yet to discover. I just bought my Toyota like 2 weeks ago 🙂

(Note: Many manufacturers make hybrids differently, and there are plenty of shitty ones. Also, plug-in hybrids are pretty different, and generally less reliable.)