Toyota Yaris Hybrid R Concept

Somewhere, someone just lost a bet. Toyota took the perfectly banal Yaris and figured out a way to make it awesome. The Yaris Hybrid-R not to be confused with Nissan’s recent “R-Hybrid” trademark application is better than awesome, actually. Consider that its starting point was a subcompact so charmless that, other than the Mazda 2 and Toyota’s own Scions, it’s outsold by every other subcompact on the market. (Ironically, the next Yaris will be a Mazda 2 with a Toyota badge.) 

Frankly, this car should not even have the word hybrid attached. We get that this 420-hp, all-wheel-drive hatchback is part of Toyota’s efforts to make hybrids appeal to the kind of people who also want 420-hp hatchbacks. But this concept’s drive system is entirely unlike the Hybrid Synergy Drive setup in a Prius. In execution, it’s a lot more like the electronic four-wheel-drive systems that many Japanese automakers offer in their home-market cars. A gasoline engine powers the front wheels, and two electric motors power the rears. But where those cars have tiny electric motors just to add some traction, the Yaris Hybrid-R has a 60-hp motor—for each wheel. Oh, and the gasoline engine is a 300-hp, 1.6-liter turbocharged four developed as what’s basically a crate motor for FIA-sanctioned motorsports. It’s used in WRC and the World Touring Car Championship.

Toyota programmed the electric motors to drive the rear wheels when it detects that the gasoline engine is overpowering the front tires, and they also provide torque-vectoring capability. A six-speed sequential manual gearbox links the engine to an additional electric motor, the latter routing power to the back under hard acceleration. The brakes, suspension, and wheels, of course, have been upgraded. 

There are, unsurprisingly, tremendous physical modifications on the Hybrid-R concept, but as we’ve learned from Toyota’s own efforts at SEMA every year, they’re far less important than what’s happening underneath the sheetmetal. Of note, though, is that the fascia of this car is not entirely a fiction; it’s just a slightly more aggressive version of how the Yaris looks outside the U.S. 

Nobody thinks Toyota is going to put the Yaris Hybrid-R into production. But the Hybrid-R does show signs of life within the changing Toyota culture, especially with the company commenting that it shows “possible ideas for the development of hybrid technology for maximum performance and increased driving pleasure.” Make the loser of that bet double down and lose again, Toyota. Please.

source : caranddriver