The Toyota Prius, equipped with the fifth-generation hybrid technology, recently set a new world record.
Earlier this month, Wayne Gerders, a veteran participant in the US Hypermiling Challenge, drove a Toyota Prius with fifth-generation hybrid technology eastward from Los Angeles City Hall on the west coast of the United States, embarking on a journey across the North American continent.
The total itinerary of this trip has reached 5168.73km. During this period, the Prius has been on highways more than 2000 meters above sea level, and has also entered areas with high temperatures above 40 ℃.
Wayne Gerders and his Prius, the number on the driver’s door, is the maximum mileage per gallon of fuel-refreshed and decreasing all the time, and the purpose of this trip, as in the nature of Hypermiling, is to explore the limits of the lowest fuel consumption of ordinary production cars.
Wayne and his Prius prove it, too, because by the time they arrive at their destination, the average fuel consumption has been reduced to 94.
993 miles per gallon-the equivalent of 39.
605km per liter, or 2.
52 litres per 100km.
The result broke the best performance in the FuelEfficiency (fuel efficiency) item in the Guinness Book of World Records system, and made Wayne Gerders and his Prius the new Guinness World record maker.
, figure | this Guinness fuel saving record is well deserved, because it requires not only an efficient power system and a well-matched car body, but also the driver’s excellent skills in energy conservation, so how amazing is this figure? To put it in a more vivid way, according to the latest national standard oil price, gasoline No.
92, which is converted to 7.
33 yuan per liter, the fuel cost per kilometer of Wayne’s entire journey is equivalent to only 0.
185 yuan, less than 20 cents.
And this reminds the author of a problem– like the Prius, the use of HybridElectricVehicl (HEV), compared with its “relatives” with a large capacity battery, plug-in hybrid (Plug-inhybridelectricvehicle, referred to as PHEV) can hang a “green card” treatment, but can only hang a blue card in the domestic category of “oil truck”.
This is a pity for the “green card” policy, which has been implemented for nearly eight years since 2016, and is intended to promote energy conservation and emission reduction policies to support the development of the new energy vehicle industry.
The “green card” policy is a problem left over from history.
So far, the domestic automobile new energy policy has been generally successful.
However, like all large and lasting industrial policies, there are still many details that are open to question.
A typical example is to put the HEV out of the circle on the definition of new energy models.
This has directly led to the fact that HEV, which is in line with policy advocacy in terms of energy conservation and emission reduction, has been included in the category of fuel vehicles across the board, which has nothing to do with the “green card”.
A typical example is the common “oil to electricity” plug-in model at that time, which not only has a lot of water for pure electric life, but also the fuel consumption of the system in the state of power supply is obviously higher than that of the same class and the same displacement fuel vehicles.
Well, times have changed.
At this stage, the state and local governments are increasing car replacement subsidies in an attempt to accelerate the elimination of old, energy-intensive cars before the third year of junior high school, as well as those early new energy vehicles whose technologies are not mature enough.
So, in this critical period of innovation, should we also consider reclassifying HEV? To be fair, for many old city dwellers who are restricted by conditions that cannot install private piles, choosing HEV is a relatively sensible compromise.
Unfortunately, the Catalog does not support it.
Ten years ago, the policy shut out HEV in order to protect and support its own brands.
However, today, with the overall rise of independent brands, it is open to question whether this measure, which is not helpful to the “dual-carbon” national strategy, is still necessary to adhere to.
Of course, it is also emphasized here that the value of HEV technology to the current Chinese automobile market is far more than the situation listed above.
In fact, for a country like China with a complex geographical environment and huge north-south latitudes, there is also a great advantage of “global use”.
The real global hybrid technology, “Housheng, I said, why are you so tricky? this is’ want, want, and want’?” The person who said this was a taxi driver in Wulanchabu City, Inner Mongolia, and the direct cause of this remark was that during the chat, the author asked, “according to the temperature conditions on your side, is there a better power than natural gas? it is not like the tram that is afraid of low temperatures and can save money.
” Because of my work, the author needs to travel to other provinces and cities frequently.
It is basically normal to go to Guangxi and Inner Mongolia and go to Heihe to test drive on the ice at the end of the year and the beginning of the year.
And this also makes the author have the opportunity to get in touch with drivers in various places and various industries to witness the different environment of using cars in different places.
The annual average temperature is only 4.
3 ℃ and lasts only 7-8 months in summer, and the average temperature does not exceed 20 ℃.
In addition, the average temperature of more than 130 days is lower than 0 ℃, and the average number of severe cold days below-20 ℃ is 47-75 days.
Driving an all-electric car in such an area means a 40% discount for at least half of the days of the year, which is purely an abstract act of adding traffic to your own traffic.
Once it is cooled to-20 ℃, it is possible to get a 60 per cent discount or even a 70 per cent discount on battery life.
As for all kinds of interruption and extension, it is basically equivalent to a tanker with a dead weight of more than 200 kilograms.
Driving a tram on the edge of the Inner Mongolia prairie in winter is a very abstract behavior, because in the most extreme cases, the battery with 450km driving range can be reduced to the full mileage of an electric bike with a large capacity battery.
However, the above does not mean that hybrid cars will not be able to drive in such a local environment.
In fact, after complaining about the author’s “want, want, and want”, the driver’s next move is to open his mouth to the side of the road, “unaffected by temperature, powerful and fuel-efficient-a taxi is.
” Oh, that’s a Toyota HEV.
For a large country like China, which has a vast territory and complex terrain, the area with low temperatures throughout the year is far more than the aforementioned city of Wulanchabu.
In fact, the entire Inner Mongolia Autonomous region, as well as Gansu and Ningxia, as well as the three eastern provinces, Qinghai and TibetAnd Xinjiang, these frontier areas in the northeast and north, plus the plateau mountains in the west, and even the Heihe and Mohe areas, which are known as the “cold extreme” in China, are also broad fields for HEV to give full play to its strengths.
At the present stage, the development momentum of domestic new energy vehicles is overwhelming.
But as mentioned earlier, the technical limitations of lithium-ion power batteries have led to many restricted areas for their use in a huge country like China, which spans subtropics, temperate zones and cold zones.
If you want to develop the new energy automobile industry in an all-round way, you can’t just focus on the eastern coastal areas in the south.
The existing policy should untie HEV as soon as possible, because it is a perfect supplement to new energy models at this stage, including pure electricity and plug-in.
The detour we took ten years ago should not continue today.
At this point, I believe I can’t help but want to point out the problem– the previous article uses the defects of power batteries to launch pure electricity and plug in the shortcomings of new energy vehicles, but the actual HEV is also equipped with power battery modules.
Yes, after all, the kinetic energy recovered by the vehicle downhill and when braking is converted into electricity, which needs an energy storage medium for temporary storage.
Here we have to mention the Toyota hybrid, which is different from the new generation of plug-in cars with increasingly large batteries, usually with only a small capacity battery pack.
The temporary electrical energy will only be used in the acceleration of the vehicle and the auxiliary power output when driving.
In addition, the previous generation of Toyota hybrids used Ni-Cr and Ni-MH batteries that performed well at low temperatures, while the latest generation switched to ternary lithium batteries with only 3kWh capacity.
This means that even if the battery decays, the cost of replacement is acceptable, and there is absolutely no scary picture of changing the battery for 200000, equivalent to 60% of the price of the car.
In addition, at extremely low temperatures, even if the battery capacity is only 30%, the best consequence is that the temporary electrical energy stored in the system attenuates obviously, which actually does not hinder the normal use of the vehicle.
And these are the obvious advantages of Toyota hybrid.
In fact, as the domestic new energy competition enters the midfield stage, the market and consumer groups, which gradually calmed down from the pure electricity frenzy two years ago, have re-realized the diversity of new energy technology paths.
The fact that mixed-in models can become the new favorite of the market also represents the basic fact that all parties have realized that fuel engines will continue to exist for a long time in the future.
Similarly, the advantages of HEV are being re-recognized by the market and consumers, as well as by domestic authorities.
Not long ago there was good news from Guangzhou.
At the end of May this year, the Guangzhou Municipal Government issued the Circular of the General Office of Guangzhou Municipal people’s Government on issuing measures for the Regulation and Management of Guangzhou minibuses, which clearly defines the new policy that “energy-efficient vehicles” can be registered directly on Yue A Blue Brand without lottery.
, figure | the new policy of Guangzhou license plate: the new “energy-efficient license plate” is no different from the ordinary blue license plate in appearance, but it will be purchased locally and can be rolled up to 100% when it is included in the “index catalogue”.
According to the relevant regulations, HEV has been brought into the category of “energy-efficient vehicle” by the definition of “notice”.
This is obviously a big step forward.
However, I have to say here that the action is too slow and too few measures have been introduced.
Our top priority is to achieve “technological equality” as soon as possible.
What is meant by “technological equality”? Is to give more equal policy support to HEV and new energy.
In September last year, seven departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, jointly issued the work Plan for steady growth of the Automobile Industry (2023-2024).
Its significance is to encourage enterprises to be green and low-carbon-oriented, and actively explore hybrid, low-carbon fuel and other technological routes.
There is no doubt that the era of automotive new energy technology based on pure electricity is coming to an end.
After the initial breakthrough, the era of letting a hundred flowers blossom is coming.
It is clearly pointed out that after the period of rapid growth since 2018, China’s automobile industry has reached the stage of active adjustment.
The hybrid and low-carbon fuel mentioned in the above-mentioned “plan” is undoubtedly what Toyota, which contributes HEV to China’s automobile industry and the whole world, is good at.
Since the debut of the Prius in 1997, Toyota hybrid technology has been updated to the fifth generation of intelligent electric hybrid twin engines after 27 years of development.
There is no need to doubt the strength of Toyota in this respect, because so far Toyota HEV has sold well in more than 90 countries and regions around the world, with a total of more than 27 million sold.
Users around the world have “endorsed” Toyota with practical actions.
After more than a decade of striving forward, China’s new energy industry, including new energy vehicles, has become a world leader.
Now, for more long-term development, it is time to develop multi-technological routes and re-establish a solid foundation.
in this new era, the top priority is to consolidate the foundation of China’s new energy automobile industry and ensure more long-term “steady growth”.
It is obvious that the top priority is to adjust and make up for those outdated parts of the previous policy.
At this stage, the most important policy adjustment is to give hybrid and new energy the same policy support.
Only in this way can we promote China’s new energy vehicle industry to move steadily to the next stage of development.
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