Finally, a Toyota Yaris worth lusting after. This, the 309kW (414hp) Yaris Hybrid-R concept, is just what space conscious city commuters have been asking for. Quite why it’s taken Toyota so long to come to the party we’re not sure!
Toyota starts with a 1.6 litre turbocharged petrol engine from TMG to drive the front whels, then whacks on a couple of 45kW electric motors at each rear wheel and there you have it, all that power and all-wheel drive to boot.
While they were stealing ideas from motorsport they’ve photocopied the plans for the supercapacitor on their TS030 LMP1 racer and rejigged it to suit the Yaris. Energy is harvested when braking and when the supercapacitor’s fully charged and you have it set to the saucy sounding race mode you can please yourself with an extra 88kW for up to five seconds. Enough to pass that pesky Porsche we suspect.
But there’s still more! To ensure the motors at the rear wheels can go about their business more efficiently there’s a third 45kW electric motor mounted between the engine and the 6-speed sequential ‘box. It acts as a generator and helps feed power into the supercapacitor when braking, and if front wheel traction is lost when accelerating then this motor will help boost the power sent to the rear wheels, acting as kind of traction control system.
The rear engines can also help to feed the power to each wheel individually acting as a torque vectoring system. Which pretty much means you can go around corners faster. And who doesn’t want to do that!
We look forward to seeing more of this Yaris Hybrid-R concept when the Frankfurt Motor Show rolls around.
