One of four Toyotas sold in Europe is a Yaris - please listen carefully - and more than a third of buyers opt for the hybrid drive, introduced in the previous generation. These sales have doubled from 2012 to 2013. While other manufacturers have to fight for individual buyers of electrifiable cars, these come at Toyota apparently by itself.

Of course, one offers still a basic model that will cost slightly increased about 12,000 euros. Who other hand, sees the base price of the hybrid of 17,300 euros, wonders how such a high market share comes about. Possible explanation: The Yaris is purchased, just because it has a hybrid drive.

By the way, the price is not exceptional and hardly comparable with the of other, hybridized vehicles. If you select namely approximately the same engine power of 73 kW (99 HP) without hybrid but with stepless, automatic transmission, one arrives at a similar price. That's just a difference to the three-cylinder with five-speed and two doors.

Instead, as usual, to refer on X-design (see Aygo) and once more reinforced body, we deal with the most innovative of the four drives, because as long as there is no message at least of direct injection, we remain skeptical about the revision of the engines. We want to trace the success of the hybrid drive and start from the data above.

No, not with the data of electric motor or battery, but the internal combustion engine. Compare it after all with the other petrol four-cylinder. Significant differences are to notice here. The significantly larger displacement leads to less performance, which we hope to have correctly determined by deducting the electrical from the system performance. Therefore, the rated speed is missing.

Toyota obviously ashamed to specify directly this so much lower performance compared to the other four-cylinder petrol engines. But then, the significantly higher compression should make you final suspicious, right? Even the torque remains behind. So now it is time to refer to our Atkinson pages, otherwise we start to explain everything twice in cartecc.com.

Here just so much that this principle goes along with a displacement and compression increase, but nevertheless causes that the engine seems then less powerful. The ultimate objective is a significant fuel saving, which is gained neither by downsizing with additional charging, nor by stratified charge with special exhaust aftertreatment.

The reward of this principle, you can of course not refer to low CO₂ emissions, because in there is the for each hybrid drive pleasant first free charge of electrical energy. In principle, Atkinson can be combined incidentally only with hybrid drive, so that the electric motor replaces the missing spontaneity of the gasoline engine.

In addition, yet nice soft changes arise between gasoline and electric drive. Toyota is just already arrived at more than three generation of hybrid cars. They advertise now with the fuel cell, even though the hint would actually be important that a so-designed hybrid drive saves on longer highway routes. Requirement is, not to force full power output. 07/14