Toyota Hybrid Generations Explained : Toyota still king of Hybrids?

hello and welcome to the car cara channel in today's video we're going to be taking a look at the history of toyota hybrids how they started and how they got to where they are now we're going to take a look at all different generations and what changed in between them arriving at the current generation in the 2016 prius and up like the one behind me but before we get started if you're new to the channel welcome consider subscribing to the channel check out some other videos if you are eternal subscriber well thank you so much for watching another one of my videos without further ado let's get right into it to start the toyota hybrid journey or history lesson if you would we go back to the mid-90s where toyota was ready to come out of its comfort zone after the inception of fluxes and the thing about toyota is they're not exactly the kind of company that like to take risks and be first at something they were first at making a luxury car that is actually extremely reliable and very durable and very nice since the inception of fluxes but once more they were ready for another plunge where they would be first typically toyota doesn't like to be first in technology they like to perfect it that's why they're always almost last because they come out with the best version of the new technology but with hybrids they uh started development back when this guy was too busy doing some computer stuff and space stuff and when this company came out with this hideous thing they came out with the first generation prius and boy were they the laughing stock of the world back then let's look at this first generation previous laughing stock thing let's see how that started so the first generation prius when it came out everybody across the board just said one thing what is this thing it was not particularly the best looking car in the world it was not particularly the fastest car in the world it was actually more like the slowest car in the world back then in those days cars the car industry was in a different world you know people have already forgotten about the gasoline crisis back then and gas prices were low people are all happy they're big v8s gas guzzling things that giant six liter v v8 that makes 200 horsepower they were very happy with that and the automotive business were all booming and life was great however when toyota came out with the prius it just everybody looked at it like why do we need this thing but the best thing about toyota is they did not give up they just kept going with it because that's what toyota does they take one thing that is okay and they just continue working on it until it's perfection that's just how toyota works so starting with the hybrid system in the first generation which actually there were so many confusions on the numbering i guess they were also trying to figure that out toyota usually doesn't do very well with names and numbers and generations and all that they're all over the place because they're too worried about the development than the naming technically there was a version of the toyota prius first released in japan only that was the prius one and then when they started selling it elsewhere mainly the united states and other parts of the world they called it prius two but it was actually not really two because it was exactly the same the main thing about the toyota hybrid system that you need to know actually this is very interesting it operates exactly the same the basic function like the basic principle of how it operates is exactly the same from 2000 when the prius first came in the united states and goes back to 95 when the first prototype showed up all the way till 2021 we're almost at the end of 2021 the operating principle is exactly the same nothing have changed in that it just got so much better there is no way you can compare the latest generation previous with the first generation prayers so here is the first thing about the first generation priyas it was rudimentary it was so basic but at the same time it was so complicated while they had so many issues with the first generation prius one of them is what happens when the engine shuts off what happens to the air conditioning what happens to the heating what happens to all this stuff how are we going to do this they basically just went let's just do this see what happens so they put the first generation hybrid there's a high voltage battery supplies power there's an inverter which kind of sends the power all over the place there's two motors one of them drives one of them generates and starts the engine and okay well we put take that dc voltage out of the battery turn it to ac in the inverter and send it to the motor and life is great and when you press on the brake that motor that is connected to the road mg2 turns into a generator and then mg1 through the planetary gear set creates kind of a continuously variable ratio as you drive that's where you got the name ecvt has nothing to do with cbts that's completely different however as the first generation prius kind of went into market it was not great i'll flat admit it especially looking at the stuff we have today it was not great but it did one thing this could actually work it worked it was not terrible it got okay gas mileage compared to a similar sized car with a four cylinder engine and that made toyota look at it and be like hmm in the next generation we should actually fix a lot of the disasters that we have one of them is every time you turn the ac the engine runs because it's driven by the belt the second thing is it was hopelessly slow and to a point where it gets kind of inefficient because you only have this voltage you slam that motor all this voltage that's it that's max power we have no more there's no variation there's this on or off you could not really do anything else so when they went to do the second generation things changed drastically to fix these disasters that they probably thought about but didn't have a solution back then when the first generation prius came out welcome to the second generation hybrid system actually toyota did call it the second generation they called toyota hybrid system 2 th s 2. but that's when the hybrid generations kind of got lost in the translation but let's start with the second generation prius it is a significant car because most people look at the second generation prius and they are like just another prius who cares but it's actually a significant car because this is the walk the walk of the prius models is how you have electric cars plug-in hybrids and all this technology it all went back to how the prius evolved over the generation into what it is today believe it or not that's how it is because everybody had the same problems of what happens when you do not have an engine that is running with heat generation with accessories that are driven by the belt how do you do that they just didn't believe it or not that's how the automotive business is they just well we can't really they didn't have electric motors and electric they were not that advanced yet so the biggest major thing about the second generation prius and most people drive it drive the first generation they're slow very slow let's put it this way but it made a significant change the first one is when it's the most significant change now you can up the voltage from the high voltage battery so say that battery is let's say around 250 volts usually they're they were up to 274 or somewhere around there in the first generations but take that voltage send it to the inverter in the first generation it just turned it from dc to ac to drive the motor and that's it but now we have a boost so now it can take that voltage from the battery and boost it up all the way to 650 volts so now you have less middle and more you have a variance in the power level that you can send to that motor this was significant folks this is like the stepping stone of how everything now that you look at that is electric in cars works this basic principle and it's great and it's brilliant but then the next thing that they went to which also solved a giant problem in the car industry for lack of a better word they took a refrigerator and gut it out and take the compressor out of it electric compressors are nothing new they're in every single refrigerator and a house ac unit that you have they run off ac nothing new so they took one and they designed it to be mobile and they jammed it in the car so now the second generation prius does not have a belt driven ac compressor this is a major advancement folks because that was a problem you're on the ac it's horrible performance when the engine shuts off because basically the compressor shuts off and then the engine is cycling on and off too much and there goes your efficiency so the major thing about the second generation prius is your engine off time was significantly increased that is the first major thing but then when they did that now yay we can run the hybrid system without the engine being on but now you're freezing in the winter and this is where things for the second generation prius hit a wall and we got into a problem we have no heat generation when the engine is off so here's what toyota did which i'm so glad we advance as humans and we think we found better solutions because they came up with potentially one of the world's most complicated cooling system for an engine so it took that coolant from the engine it stored it in a giant tank underneath the fender and that tank was such a heavy-duty heavily insulated tank that could keep that coolant at operating temperature at engine operating temperature for three days that way when you need heat instead of turning on the engine you could just cycle the coolant through that and now you have ready hot coolant but in order to make all that work there was a network of valves and hoses it was an absolute mess because you had to run the engine heat up the coolant and then when you shut off the car valves change the direction of coolant another little electric pump turns on which turns out later it was a disaster because it was recalled and that directs the coolant to this little container and now we store the hot coolant so when you start next time it wouldn't blast the engine on to warm it up it would stand that cool it was just a mess it was an absolute mess and you still had a mechanical water pump for the engine and you couldn't really recirculate and these pumps would go out and there was like three pumps and we're trying to do all this mess but the efficiency overall significantly improved because now you have the boost you can shut off your engine longer yeah the over complicated cooling system but things were better until we come to the third generation hybrid system welcome to the third generation hybrid system although not officially called the third generation hybrid system in the toyota text it is still ths2 just improved and streamlined if you would but it is actually a third generation hybrid system because everything changed significantly now at the end of the second generation hybrid system we arrived at a point where the hybrid system itself has been perfected enough but now they needed to find alternative ways to make this car better drive better smoother a little faster just to make it feel like a normal economy car with a four-cylinder engine because they were at this point underpowered toyota decided with third generation prius and at this point before they came out the third generation prius they've started experimenting with the highlander and the camry now these are much bigger cars and they're heavier so they they couldn't just put the same hybrid system so what they changed actually is the engine they put a bigger engine in the highlander you had a v6 and the camera you had a 2.4 liter engine well things were successful because these are normal cars that just gutted the stuff under the hood and put the hybrid system in with a different engine just to compensate for the large size however they ran into a small problem see the prius was purpose built to be a hybrid but these other cars they were not purpose built to be a hybrid so they had a problem putting the hybrid battery the highlander for example the 2006-2007 it was a problem the battery was enormous it had a very strange shape and in the camry it just killed the trunk space because it was not purpose built for that they just put it and tried to work around it basically it killed the folding seats it just made it inconvenient because the batteries were enormous but this is where things started improving with the third generation prius the battery was significantly smaller the engine was bigger now we went from 1.5 to 1.8 and it's an all-new engine so they some development for the hybrid side went into it for the new engine as well they worked on the cooling system they no longer have that overly complicated cooling system to keep the heat up now they started finding alternative ways oh let's use that catalytic converter that heats up like that to cool heat the coolant that works we like that idea they started they took out the mechanical water pump and they put an electrical water pump in the engine to really fine-tune the coolant flow and now we can circulate coolant with the engine off if we needed to if we need to get the coolant circulating around the catalytic converter this is how they started to improve things because at this point they perfected the hybrid system itself you know the transmission was perfected the inverter part was perfected but now how do they squeeze more efficiency out of this thing so here's what happened with the third generation prius the basic operating principles remained the same but they started cutting down on weight because weight is the biggest enemy of efficiency so the inverter got cut in half the size literally went in half i mean i've removed the inverter out of the second generation prius the thing is heavy big and bulky but in the third generation prius it's tiny it's so compact it is amazing how they went from that ginormous thing in the second generation to this tiny little thing in the third generation and the battery as well so now when we moved into the following camry things were still a little cramped but better because the battery started getting better more efficient better built as we evolve into the third generation hybrid system but then we had some issues with the third generation hybrid system because of this compactness of things we have heat issues there is a component inside the inverter called the ipm intelligent power module that guy started to have some overheating issues and they started having some recall some issues to change the software to replace the ipm to keep the heat down so we did have some issues in the third generation prius and with the new engine there was issues with head gaskets and carbon buildup in the egr system because now they're in the races to keep this car as low emission rating as possible so all these complications kind of made things difficult but then they pulled another one in the fourth generation hybrid system which in my opinion folks is possibly the best one and i don't know how they're going to improve on it let's go check it out welcome to the fourth generation hybrid system although not officially called the fourth generation hybrid system but it is the fourth generation hybrid system because here's what they did to this one the engine got an update while it's not a major update but the main updates came to the egr system which was problematic in the previous generation now it is significantly improved but the main changes in this generation were really not much on the engine or stuff under the hood however the inverter even got smaller it is tiny now it is a such a small component that actually in some of these models they're able to finally put the 12-volt battery under the hood like the corolla hybrid like the prius some of the bigger cars because they have a bigger engine like camry avalon they still have it in the back now we have more space to put more stuff under the hood including the 12 volt battery which trust me if you've owned previous generation hybrids or you know someone that does this is a major thing to have the battery under the hood it just now we're moving toward making hybrids more normal cars because now they're so mainstream at this point you want to make them as normal as possible but the major improvement in the fourth generation hybrid system goes to the batteries folks until up to this point all the batteries have been big heavy they take a lot a lot of space until we came to this generation when they really kind of started designing the cars with hybrids in mind now the prius is always a hybrid but some of the other models like the camry like the highland they started designing these cars with the hybrid model in mind so this is the first year that we actually have a lithium ion battery not on all the trims in the prius but we have a lithium-ion battery now the lithium-ion battery has more power and is a lot lighter i mean a lot lighter and i know i'm going to give you an example the nickel metal hydride battery of a similar prius is going to weigh right around 86 pounds a similar model with the lithium-ion battery that has more power is 52 pounds that's a lot and i know it doesn't sound like a lot but it is actually a lot because every pound matters in hybrids for efficiency because the more weight you lug around the less efficient they are going to be but the biggest thing about the battery not just the weight and the more power is how compact they got so now to a point where the battery sits underneath the back seat literally robbing no space at all slightly elevated back seat in these hybrids with the with this battery sitting under the seat but that is huge you look at the new camry hybrid i mean it has a normal trunk it's exactly the same as a non-hybrid very small difference but compared to before where the battery was this giant lumbering thing in behind the seat that took all the space now you don't even know it's there it's just underneath the back seat back seats a little thinner a little higher and that's about it this is a major update to this and then another thing that they added and if you've watched one of my videos on things you should never do to hybrids i always told you don't put cardboard in front of the radiator to make the engine warm up faster and now you get better gas mileage they actually looked at them like hmm we can actually do that so now we have active shutters in the front that open and close if the engine is cold they're going to close so the engine will warm up faster you don't have that air blasting the radiators and then it'll open when you need cooling to keep things under control that is something that rolled with the 16 prius and now it's actually across all the models that have this new generation hybrid it is a fascinating generation because beside the you know the physical component change it's the programming that changed and now you drive one of these cars they're not jerky and not smooth everything is super smooth super refined and everything is just great this is more like a car a normal non-hybrid car but you know if you go back to the first generation even the second generation things were clunky every time you had a switch between like engine on engine off the whole car shook and you felt it it just felt not smooth with the third generation things got a lot better but they were still kind of clunky but with this generation the transition is so smooth you you can hardly feel it it is very not other than the sound you know when the engine comes on you're gonna hear it but the transition is so smooth the car drives so smooth and now these newer hybrids are riding on the new platform toyota develop tnga they actually drive nice and dare me say this but the fourth generation prius is actually pretty stable even at higher speeds i mean remember this is an eco-focused car that has skinny tires there are eco tires it's absolutely not meant for performance at all but it still rides very nice it's composed it's smooth that is a major improvement and i see this as a way to for toyota to not only make these mainstream but make them really exactly the same as non-hybrids just with a high efficiency and they're really doing a good job at that starting with this generation folks the prius remains the mother of all hybrids many people fault the prius oh it's an eco car nobody cares about it everybody makes fun of it but you know what the next time you get in your tesla the next time you get in your other high performance ev car remember the prius because this is the car that made electric cars seem normal this is the car that made that transition we had to transition from big lumbering v8s into hybrids into ev cars all this revolution happened because the prius was successful because toyota didn't listen to those that just bashed the thing said it was horrible and just shut down the project and moved on no they kept at it they were adamant we're gonna get this and we're gonna get it right and they did because hybrids today are mainstream people are buying them left to right they're very refined they're very nice they became normal and what is more fascinating about them is it is the same operating principle from that original prius there's not much things in cars that remained exactly the same everything changed to adapt to whatnot but the operating principle of hybrids remained the same and now everybody is trying all the other manufacturers are trying to catch up because they laughed the toyota back and now toyota is laughing at them because make no mistake when it comes to hybrids toyota is king because they essentially invented the thing because they are the ones that stuck it out all these years and boy are they laughing now i hope this video was helpful or informative i hope you learned something new if you like it consider giving it a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider subscribing to the channel check out some of my other videos until the next video folks may the lord bless you and keep you and you have yourself a wonderful day

Channel: The Car Care Nut

Views: 122,158

Keywords: toyota hybrid, toyota hybrid system, toyota hybrid 2021, toyota hybrid cars, toyota hybrid problems, how to take care of your toyota hybrid, toyota hybrid generations, toyota prius, lexus hybrid, hybrid vs ev, toyota vs tesla, toyota vs honda, toyota, lexus, how hybrids work, camry hybrid, rav4 hybrid, venza hybrid, corolla hybrid, the car care nut, scotty kilmer, toyota maintenance, car wizard, rav4 prime, history of toyota, toyota prime, plug in hybrid, tundra hybrid

Id: VMOzkJGQU1g

Length: 24min 14sec (1454 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021