With one eye on a future hybrid jazz I have been looking at the specs of the new CR-V hybrid and also the new Toyota RAV-4 hybrid. As a physicist immune to PR claims, I am puzzled by where any significant environmental benefit comes from. Both these cars incorporate quite large petrol engines to recharge the battery and drive the electric motor (Honda is 2 litre and Toyota 2.5 litre). All the energy comes from the petrol as it would in a pure petrol-engined vehicle, so any fuel-saving can only come from running these engines more efficiently together with regenerative braking. Am I missing something?
I drive a 2016 Toyota RAV4 with the 2.5l petrol engine and am also trained as a physicist. You are not missing anything of course. In real life, you are getting a large 4x4 with the economy of a smaller car. That's it. The engine hardly ever directly drives the wheels, it just runs when it needs to, as efficiently as it can, charging up the, not very large, battery and supplementing the electric drive. I think next time I will look at a plug-in hybrid but I will not be buying any more, just leasing, as the pace of technology is going to massively hit car resale values over the next few years I think.
I never pay too much attention to the published MPG figures, but I did notice the overall MPG of the car I test drove was 44.5mpg. I asked about the car and it belonged to the Service Manager at the dealership who commuted in it from somewhere in Derbyshire to Huddersfield. The car I bought was a 12 month old Toyota pool car with a similar overall MPG. Looking at the Sat Nav history, it seems it spent its 12,000 mile life on a small number of motorway journeys going from Toyota HQ to various distant dealerships.
Going purely off the car's own readings, I get around 35mpg pootling around my exceptionally hilly town, but closer to 45mpg when doing legal motorway speeds heading off to North Yorkshire to visit the Mother in Law. I have achieved well over 50mpg when really trying on long A Road and motorway style trips.
However, if you feel the need and decide to engage sport mode and floor it away from the lights, when both electric motors kick in alongside the 2.5l petrol engine, it is perfectly possible to achieve consumption in the low teens!