Toyota is known for offering a variety of vehicles in its lineup—and that includes hybrid models. Options such as the Toyota Prius Prime and Toyota RAV4 Hybrid come with a variety of benefits.
While you may know that hybrid vehicles provide efficient performance, you’re probably curious exactly how they do so. To give you more insight into these fuel-saving vehicles, our Cox Toyota team explains how Toyota hybrids work. We highlight their unique aspects that help elevate your driving experience around Burlington, Greensboro, and Durham, North Carolina.
Hybrid vehicles combine an internal combustion engine that uses gasoline with one or more electric motors, which draw power from the battery system. This combination of energy sources gives the vehicle the power needed to accelerate, cruise along the highway, and reverse out of your driveway.
The electric motor is primarily there to assist the engine during acceleration and low-speed driving, reducing fuel consumption and emissions. The electric motor can also operate independently at times.
There are standard hybrid vehicles as well as plug-in hybrid models in the selection Toyota offers. Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) are a type of hybrid car that can be charged externally. This allows PHEVs to run on electric power for an even longer range.
Once the electric range is depleted, they function like regular hybrids, relying on the internal combustion engine for power and regenerative braking to recharge the batteries. Hybrids ultimately help make the transition into an electrified vehicle seamless and simple.
When it comes to traditional, gas-powered cars, we all know that when the fuel tank nears empty, it’s time to find a gas station and put more gasoline into the vehicle. What happens, though, when your hybrid starts to run low on electric power?
With a standard hybrid car, nothing changes for you! Since it continues to use a gas-powered engine at times, you’ll still need to fill up at the gas station. Luckily, this will likely need to be done less often, with your Toyota hybrid!
Then, when the vehicle decelerates or brakes, the electric motor switches into a generator, converting kinetic energy into electrical energy to recharge the battery pack. If you opt for a plug-in hybrid Toyota, you will simply charge up your vehicle at home or at a public charging station to boost the range and get back to saving fuel as you cruise around town.
There are added benefits to driving a Toyota hybrid vehicle that go beyond its smooth, efficient performance. Many hybrid and plug-in hybrid models from Toyota offer additional systems to elevate your driving experience. Some of those systems include:
- Electronic On-Demand All-Wheel Drive: With dedicated electric drive motors, Toyota hybrids equipped with this system can automatically provide power to the rear tires to prevent slipping and add traction in adverse weather conditions.
- Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive®: This technology chooses the power source at a given moment for a Toyota hybrid by determining your driving conditions while prioritizing efficiency.
- Driving modes: Many Toyota hybrid vehicles let you tune performance to match your specific needs. As an example, the Toyota Prius has an EV mode that lets you drive to the corner store solely using battery power
As you can see, Toyota hybrids give you smooth, efficient driving around Burlington, Greensboro, and Durham, NC, by intelligently switching between its power sources. With the range of hybrids that we offer here at Cox Toyota, you can start to enjoy a more fuel-efficient commute!
Learn more about Toyota hybrids by visiting us today. Whether you want a car for easy city driving or need an SUV that is big enough for the whole family, we can match you to the right Toyota hybrid.