2012 Toyota Yaris Hybrid readers review - What Car?

We asked three readers to test drive the new Toyota Yaris Hybrid for a full week of real-world motoring. Find out what they thought about the car.

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[grahamschofield]

I love my Toyota Yaris Hybrid..best buy yet...so much fun to drive..same model and colour as in clip...

[MyRandomReviews]

Yep, let's get a bunch of people who already drive Toyota Hybrids to review it, that'll be nice and unbiased.

[conodigrom]

Yes and my grandma in a wheelchair does 80 mpg.And my friends mum got a prius, did 10 mpg, got rid of it, and now races in her hummer at 55 mpg.It's easy to win when you're faking numbers.

[HowkeyLL]

In your country - Italy you have 18 hydroelectric power plants and more than 100 fosil fuel plants. They produce about 2% of power only. They can only be made on big rivers with certain properties. The energy footprint of making a battery is actually bigger than footprint of all the energy you save from braking car. The only way to produce much power to move car with no pollution is currently hydrogen fuel cells. But that would mean the corporations couldnt sell the batteries they made recently.

[conodigrom]

Plus they're made by Panasonic, a world-class battery maker, with a very efficient process where energy saving it's their very own interest(they have to pay the factory's electricity bill!).
Plus the batteries are composed of 120 smaller batteries - they already make and sell thousands everyday! This allows for a huge economy of scale and the same energy footprint of your rechargeable AAs.

[arunadawda]

Bought a Toyota Hybrid Hybrid 8 days ago, noticed when it rained over the week end, rain water collected around the doors window rather then draining out side, when I opened the door water fell on to car seat much to my disbelief, asked the service manager to look at the problem, am told that is normal.All new models do that. How can a new car less than 10 days old do, can someone help.

[MyRandomReviews]

I said he was looking at an extra-urban figure, which is "Highway" to put it in layman's terms (just for you). And I referred to "your precious Prius" as it is something that had great value to you, you don't necessarily have to own one. If I was trying to imply that you owned one I'd have said something along those lines much earlier.
You *appear to be so competent at reading now. (as text doesn't make a sound)

[conodigrom]

Because engineering is progress and NUMBERS(a novel concept, but you'll get acquainted with it, one day)show they're more economical and environmentally friendly overall.And better torque.

[conodigrom]

Let's agree on terms, then.How do you call those big, many-lanes roads where you're allowed the maximum speed?He was looking at that figure.Don't worry, i am competent on this.

[messin]

Okay but i think car manufacturers need o start working on hydrogen cars or electric cars like Renault or diesel hybrids but like the Chevrolet volt/Vauxhall ampera. In which is an electric motor driving the wheels and a battery pack powering it. But it has a petrol or diesel engine that comes on when the battery's are low and charges them. the volt and ampera does around 218mpg and pollute around 12-47g of co2. But these are very expensive more than a Prius.

[conodigrom]

You surely own something really exciting, James Bond.

[messin]

Well the foam for the battery comes from japan and has to use a big oil guzzling ship to get to the factory that assembles the battery pack. I don't know the whole process but before it has even been driven it has already polluted as much as a small family hatchback 1.4 doing 120 miles so if they could make a diesel hybrid version the total environmental damage would be less. I just think like with the Prius most hybrids are just a fashion accessory and bear no huge environmental differences.

[messin]

Many a yaris hybrid is what starting from £15000 - £18000 a Volkswagen polo is from £10000-£19000 (which is for the gt) A polo is bigger more practical and the bluemotion model which does 91 mpg if were going by the manufacturers claims and the Toyota 89mpg. the polo bluemotion 3dr cost £15 265 and the 5dr £15885. the normal yaris starts at £9995 and the 1.0 does 59mpg the 1.33 does 53mpg but the diesel does 72mpg and cost £11000. A ford fiesta econetic pollutes 87g co2 and does 84mpg £14455.

[DreadnCircuses]

"I think it's the swishest car I've ever seen" - She should get out more

[HowkeyLL]

No distribution? There are fuel stations that have choice of hydrogen as long as fossil fuel. Storing hydrogen is no harder than storing LPG. Because oil is harder and harder to get from ground, we crossed the point in 2002 when getting hydrogen is more efficient and since its the most basic element, it will never run out and will be the same to get all the time not like fossil fuel. water dumps take a lot of ground same as wind electricity that will be needed to grow food.

[HowkeyLL]

Yes but the AA is irreplaceable at this time because its small. Fuel cells that small arent made today. The process of making a battery itself is very pollution-like. The drastic ways to gain Lithium and other metals for the battery itself makes bigger footprint. The only problem is that we dont have a way to store energy better than batteries. But we have such ways to make electricity. The problem is that hybrids are praised because its metastep for companies to pay for the development.

[conodigrom]

Everything has an energy footprint.If there's a consumer item that can save many times its footprint -that is a rechargeable battery!
Yaris HSD uses 144*6.5VAh or 936 Wh, which is 3.35MJ energy storage, let's say 3MJ minus inefficiencies.During a 5 min trip you can use as much as 2-3 times its full capacity.Now multiply it everyday for the 5 years/100.000km minimum expected life, you're into billions of saved Joules.
Myth debunked.

[conodigrom]

What?They have 2 small electric motors which are notoriously(to engineers) much more reliable and manteinance free than combustion engines.And there's no gearbox, so the MTBF(mean time between failures="reliability") of the whole propulsion segment is actually higher(better) than a normal car.
You're NOT gonna save the world with a yaris hybrid, you're ruining it a bit less, and saving your pockets too.

[conodigrom]

The Yaris Hybrid can be taken home for £12000, taxes included, already richly equipped.
A Polo can make 91mpg as a max value, a Yaris hsd will do almost always 70-80mpg as an AVERAGE for everyone, there's a .
The Polo has less power, accelerates less and burns more fuel.
Same story for the Fiesta.For more money?ah ah

[conodigrom]

Early Priuses??15 years ago man come on!
That would be like "be wise and don't buy a mobile phone, because the early motorolas weighted 2 kilograms and had a poor screen!"
Hybrids take energy to build?Oh really?Just like any other car.
Has anyone bothered before?No never.I'm an engineer, the hybrids take the same amount of energy to build as every car of the same size.
Now it's the argument of the day, because petrol sellers are scared.