Using BYD battery technology. 2100 km is about 1300 miles.
It is hard to tell exactly what is in this car. At most they would have about a 50 miles all electric range. And it says the engine is about a 5% improvement.
So does that just mean they have a large gas tank?
2024 Corolla hybrid…about 55 mpg and tank size of ~11 and 13 (range of 605 to 715)
To get to 1250 miles (1300 minus 50 electric) means they put in about 9 more gallons).
Who needs this? (other than the marketing dept?)
Mike
The marketing department drives a lot of this sort of advertising. 80 years ago, Nash introduced a model called the “600”, because, supposedly, that was the range on a tank of gas. The car had a 20 gallon gas tank, and a 75hp engine, in a 2600lb car.
These days, VW, which has a reputation for expensive service, is now bragging about how little maintenance the cars require. How did they do it? One thing I have noticed, is they have doubled the mileage interval for changing transmission fluid, vs a few years ago. As long as the first owner trades the car in at 50-60k miles, they will get away with it. It will be the second owner who pays the price.
Steve
Toyota promises new EVs coming in 2026 with nearly 500 miles of range
https://electrek.co/2023/09/14/toyota-promises-new-evs-2026-500-mi-range/
DB2
This is a separate thing and refers to a BEV. The discussion earlier was about a PHEV. Two different things.
BEVs have big batteries and only electric motors, most of the weight for items used to create motion is in the batteries. This will still be true for the new Toyota batteries.
PHEVS have smaller batteries and both an electric motor and a gasoline engine. The weight for items that create motion is mostly in the batteries, in the gasoline engine, and in the gasoline.
So while a BEV might get 300 miles (today) or 500 miles (tomorrow) from battery power alone, a PHEV might get 50 miles from battery power alone, and then get the rest of its range from its engine that burns gasoline to create additional electricity (series PHEV). Some PHEVs also drive the wheels using both the electric motor and the gasoline engine via a transmission (parallel PHEV).
Why couldn’t they put a 500-mile battery in a plug-in hybrid?
DB2
Because of space and weight and cost. You would need a heavy expensive battery AND a heavy engine AND a transmission AND a tank of gasoline. It’s just not practical for the vast majority of transport applications.
If anything, they would put a regular size battery (like a BEV), a tiny engine used solely as a generator to charge the battery, and no transmission, and a medium sized fuel tank. But even this isn’t particularly practical. There is a RAM truck model that does this I think (or will be a RAM model that does it).
Edit: It’s called the RAMCharger.
Sort of the same reason you wouldn’t put a propeller on a jet engine.
It doesn’t make any sense.
With a 500 mile battery how often would you use the gas engine…almost never. So you’d just be driving around most days of the year carrying the extra weight of a gas engine and a gas tank and doing maintenance on something you don’t use very often.
Mike
You can’t do that for a few reasons. One, the engine needs to run periodically to keep it lubricated and in good shape. Two, gasoline goes bad relatively quickly (6 months or so), so you need to use up the old gas periodically. In fact, existing PHEVs (with very small batteries), if plugged in too regularly, even if not necessary for energy to move, will force the engine to run every so often to avoid these issues.