Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive, Activate!

Americans love hybrids. Let me rephrase that: Given the choice between hybrids and (shudder) diesels, we prefer partially electrified automobiles to oil-burners. How else can you explain the very existence of vehicles like the BMW 7 Series ActiveHybrid or the Porsche Panamera Hybrid? After all, both BMW and Porsche (and Mercedes-Benz, and Renault and Opel and Nissan and most of the world's automakers) offer perfectly good diesel passenger car engines. But, for a whole host of reasons (freaked out by GM's late '70s diesel misadventure, lack of diesel pumps, cost per gallon), we don't buy them. Those in the know (torque! range!) love driving diesel, and the collective phobia about sparkplug-less engines is lessening. But really, when it comes to highly efficient vehicles, Americans vote hybrid.

Not so in Europe. As I type, I'm sitting in bumper-to-bumper Parisian traffic on the A4 headed east towards Stuttgart. Just swiveling my head, I count 13 diesels. Numbers like these are fairly typical around the continent. Why? Fuel prices are on the "Ouch!" side of the pain equation, and emissions regulations are weak. Plus, mileage-wise, a comparably sized diesel goes about as far per tank as the hybrid equivalent. For now. Thing is, the EU might decide tomorrow to adopt hardcore California-style emissions standards (or it might crumble -- who knows?). And let's not forget that the king of the hybrids (Prius) gets an honest-to-goodness 72 mpg combined on the European cycle, or 50 mpg in the U.S. -- a bit better than any similarly sized diesel. And I've heard rumblings that the next-gen Prius will get at least 60 mpg when it shows up in around two years' time. Meaning that one day soon, hybrids will trump diesels outright in terms of mileage.

Knowing all this, Toyota is set on establishing a hybrid beachhead in Europe. To illustrate this point, Toyota invited me along on what it called a European Hybrid Safari. After six days running around northwestern Europe, I can tell you that from simple people movers to prototype Le Mans race cars, Toyota is much further along than I would have guessed.

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European Spec Prius

The first car we'll talk about is the Prius, us Yanks' favorite hybrid. Toyota moved more than 136,000 of the aerodynamic hatchbacks in the U.S. last year alone, down from a non-tsunami high of 141,000 in 2010. As you might expect, the European derivative is just like our Prius, but the suspension's been calibrated for European tastes. Furthermore, Toyota has decided to go full-on luxury with the Prius on the Continent. You get leather seats with seat heaters, high-end plastics, a head-up display that shows turn-by-turn navigation instructions in addition to vehicle speed, radar cruise control, keyless entry (the good kind where you just have to tug the handle once) -- you name it, this top-spec Prius has it. Our black test subject might as well have had a Lexus badge. Truthfully, the Prius makes the transition from earth-saving green car to luxury cruiser quite well. Case in point: On the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn, I learned that the 1.8-liter petrol engine coupled to the electric motor can push the car to a limited top speed of 194 kilometers per hour. That's 121 mph to you and me. On one stretch between Wurzberg and Frankfurt I was able to hold the Prius flat-out for 30 minutes, meaning we completed the 120-kilometer trek in half an hour.

I like the ride, too. Supposedly calibrated for European tastes, Euro-tuned suspension is just a marketing way of saying the car has a stiffer ride. As you may have guessed, I usually find myself preferring stiffer, sportier rides to soft and mushier ones. However, too stiff -- where the car doesn't even bother to lean when cornering -- is not my idea of a good car. The Euro-Prius rides firm and much better than our version. But I'm still convinced there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the car corners. This Prius, like all the others, just hates turning. The initial sensation you get is that the car is tripping, and that the back wheels are (somehow) going to hit the front ones. Toyota can increase the Prius' spring rate all it like, but if it's serious about moving metal in countries where people value handling, it's got to do better. Or just push the Auris.

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Toyota Auris Hybrid

While not sold in the U.S., you'd be pretty familiar with the Auris because it's built off the same E150 platform as the Corolla. In fact, a lengthened Auris is currently on sale in the U.S.: the Matrix. Long story short, in Europe the four-door car is the Corolla and the three- and five-door hatches are sold as Auris. The Auris is available with a wide range of engine choices, from gasoline to diesel to hybrid. Obviously, for the purposes of this trip, our Auris was a hybrid. Toyota doesn't bother with the Auris hybrid in the States because they don't think Americans want a car that slots in between the Prius and the Prius C. In Europe, however, Toyota sells the Prius, the Auris hybrid and a Yaris hybrid (the Prius C is essentially a Yaris). Why all three? Europeans see small cars the way Inuits see snow -- in many shades of gray. And also because eventually, almost every European Toyota will be a hybrid.

How was the Auris? Surprisingly good. Fun to drive, efficient, comfortable, and perhaps most important for certain sections of Europe, small. As in we found ourselves in Stavelot, Belgium, running around over tiny little cobblestone streets. The Auris proved to be the preferred car for darting in and out of alleys, as well as dodging obstacles. I believe is the proper marketing description is "right-sized." Unlike the Prius, the Auris doesn't feel like it wants to roll over and die every time you turn the wheel. And even though it has one less electric motor than the Prius (the Auris uses last-gen hybrid technology), it's faster. Remember how the Prius topped out at 194 km/h? We got the Auris up to 195 km/h. As Nigel Tufnel would note, that's one faster. Even though the Prius is bigger and more luxurious and gets better MPGs (the Prius is more aerodynamic), the Auris is the Toyota hybrid to get in Europe. Well, unless you have a lot of money.

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Lexus GS450h

If you are rich, might I direct you towards the Lexus GS 450h -- the "h" stands for hybrid. As you may be aware, the new GS has become something of a darling around our office. The F Sport version beat out the BMW 535i, the Audi A6, and the Infiniti M37 in a recent comparison. After that, the GS 450h (identical to the car I drove in Europe) beat the Porsche Panamera Hybrid as well as the Infinti M35h.Motor Trendlikes the GS. And driving one around Europe made me like the GS even more. I think it's the best Lexus product since the original LS back when the brand launched. While no longer the number-one luxury brand in the U.S. (the Germans have all been selling more metal lately), Lexus still sells around 250,000 cars per year. And while sales are up in Europe, they're still only moving about 50,000 vehicles per year in the old country. Aside from marketing, the key to selling more cars is give customers what they want. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz (and Jaguar) all have diesel engines widely available across the range. Lexus has no diesel and just three hybrids: the GS, the RX 450h, and the CT 200h. I'd also like to point out that when we were going flat-out on the Autobahn, the only cars that ever flew by us at ludicrous speeds were stations wagons. If Lexus is going to take a serious swing at Europe, they're going to need them some wagons. The GS would make a perfect candidate.

Speaking of wagons, our little hybrid caravan rolled through the diminutive country of Luxembourg while I was behind the wheel of the biggish Lexus. I mention this because Luxembourg is not only the wealthiest country in the world per capita, but based on what I saw down on the Luxembourgian street, it also has the world's highest concentration of station wagons. Nary an SUV was in sight. Proving once again that, in my mind at least, the station wagon is the ride of choice for the world's most affluent. Remember, the wealthiest customers Mercedes-Benz has are the people who buy the E63 AMG Wagon. Back to the hybrids: The Lexus GS 450h looked as good as any German midsize luxury cruiser whether in Luxembourg, Belgium, or Paris. And based on our comparison tests, it drives better, too.

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Lexus GS450h F Sport

I should tell you that there's one Lexus GS hybrid that drives even better still. Naturally, it's the one we don't get.

Meet the Lexus GS 450h F Sport. As the name indicates, it's got the hybrid powertrain from the GS 450h (a 3.5-liter, Atkinson-cycle V-6 and two electric motors conspire to produce 338 horsepower and 254 lb-ft of torque), and the functional suspension bits from the F Sport -- including the rear steering from the Lexus Dynamic Handling package. To show off just how sporting this not-coming-to-America sedan is, they brought me to Spa. That's Spa as in Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in the Ardennes region of Liege, Belgium. And they stuck Marc Duez in the car with me as a driving instructor. Yes, the same Messier Duez who has won the 24 Hours of Spa an impressive three times, as well as the 24 Hours of Nurburgring a more impressive four times. No pressure on my part.

The first thing I'll tell you is that the Lexus GS 450h F Sport's power output is underrated. No car that weighs north of two tons (the regular-flavor GS 450h weighs 4132 pounds) and "only" makes 254 lb-ft of torque is capable of moving as swiftly. After the famous Eau Rouge comes the Kemmel Straight. A good driver would have been able to attack Eau Rouge's famous uphill properly (it's a technique similar to turn 6 at Laguna Seca) and according to Mr. Duez, hit about 215 km/h (about 133 mph) by the time he hits Kemmel's braking zone. I did it rather poorly and still managed 195 km/h, or just over 120 mph. Point being, the GS 450h F Sport is fast.

The second thing I'll say is that Marc enjoyed whipping my right knee with the antenna of his walkie-talkie while shouting, "Faster, faster, faster!" Honestly, I remember almost nothing else about the fast hybrid luxury ship or how it performed on Spa. After another 9997 laps, I could probably come up with some sort of review. As it sits, I was too busy trying to figure out Spa (and Pouhan in particular) to notice much of anything. Still, based solely on the amount of fun I had getting abused by Marc while I poorly navigated all 20 of Spa's corners, Lexus should offer the GS 450h F Sport here in their biggest market. Besides, the Prius has almost single-handedly convinced people that the terms "hybrid" and "sport" don't belong together. Which is too bad, as evidenced by the GS 450h F Sport. As a result, Toyota and Lexus need to go out of their collective way to rectify that perception, since they will both one day be selling hybrid sports cars. Why else would they be spending so much money developing a Le Mans entry?

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Toyota TS030 Hybrid

"What do you think of TMG?" A Toyota USA employee asked me this question after we 'd received a multi-hour tour of Toyota's European racing facility. "Kinda sad," I replied. Sad because for the past decade TMG had been home to 800 highly specialized employees and Toyota's F1 effort. Say what you will about the bad players in Formula 1 -- it is the leading edge of motor sports. And when Toyota decided to get out of F1 in 2009, TMG lost most of its talent. Specifically, the engine and aerodynamics people, who quickly and easily found employment elsewhere. These days TMG has about 150 full-time employees and is struggling to make itself relevant. Its three primary functions are providing wind tunnel and other testing services to "8 or 9" F1 teams, working up fully electric cars like the Radical chassis Pikes Peak hill climb car, and by fielding a 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP1 car, the mighty TS030. Instead of batteries, Toyota's entry uses capacitors to capture half a megajoule of energy. While not good for long-term storage, capacitors are smaller and cheaper than batteries, and just might be perfectly suited for sporting hybrid applications. Like maybe the next Supra.

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Above I say "mighty" because I got to see the TS030 Hybrid, as well as the Audi R18 e-tron Quattro, the kooky Nissan Deltawing "Batmobile," and the bright yellow thunder god, the Corvette C6.R, running around Circuit de la Sarthe on June 3 during the open testing session. Most of the other cars that make up the field were also present and running (each driver had to complete a minimum of 10 laps, if possible), but after spending 9 hours watching the cars go round and round, only the ones mentioned above matter. The Corvettes sound so good it's hard to even care about what the other cars on track are doing. Even when getting passed by some LMP2 car, you still want to cheer and chant "USA! USA!" each time they bellow by. Go, big booming V-8, go. On the other extreme you have the Audis with their almost silent turbo-charged diesel engines. They're like sharks or U-boats -- quietly, decisively, and ruthlessly picking off everything in front of them. Then there was the nifty, much-smaller-in-person-than-I-thought-it-would-be Nissan Deltawing. I have to say that while it looked cool standing still, the just-over-1000-pounds black car got passed pretty often. Cars that look that sinister just shouldn't get passed.

But it was the Toyota that blew my mind. I'm pretty sure I witnessed the future of racing. I was standing in Toyota's garage, watching the pit crew change the massive wheels and tires on both of the white and blue liveried TS030s. Lunch time caused the track to go cold for an hour, and just as the 1 p.m. start time rolled around, it started raining. Off came the slicks, and out came the 15-inch wide tires with tread. Wheels on, the first car was pushed into position and the air jacks were retracted, and it silently took off down the pit lane. Silently, because it was running under full electric power. Unlike the Audi R18 e-tron, which uses its hybrid set up to power the front wheels, the Toyotas are RWD only and can move under full electric power. And because electric motors have all their torque available at 0 rpm, the TS030 was able to hit the 60 km/h pit speed in about half a second.

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I'd been watching the GT1 and GT2 cars and even some of the LMP2 entries struggle with their racing clutches to get out of the pits. Toyota figures this method is good for two seconds a pit stop. Not to oversell it, but in racing terms that's a humungous advantage. Then, when the TS030 got to the end of pit lane, the 3.4-liter V-8 fired and she was off. While watching the second TS030 leave the pit, I knew I was looking at a revolution in racing, similar to when Bentley figured out a quick-folding top during the 1920s. (In the early days of Le Mans you had to run 8 laps with the top up, then stop and lower it.) I bet that leaving the pits under full electric power is the new Le Mans start. Everyone's going to have to do it.

Do the Toyota TS030s have a shot at defeating the dominant Audis? Most likely not this year. With only five months of development time, the TS030s are still a little raw. And as fast as they ran, they were always one second slower than the silent R18s. Sure, Toyota was probably sandbagging the car's full capabilities, like a Do Not Show run on a dragstrip. But so then (probably) was Audi. When I asked a Toyota engineer if this year's smaller displacement engines will be able to beat last year's best lap, he smiled and said it would be pretty embarrassing if the new cars weren't faster than the old cars. The TS030's fastest lap was 3:27.204, about a second and a half off the pace of the fastest Audi. But remember, this isn't the engine TMG wants. The hybrid 3.4-liter V-8 was actually designed and built in Japan. The 2013 Toyota Le Mans effort will feature an all-new capacitive hybrid engine, designed and built in Germany at TMG. Because you'd better believe Toyota will be continuing its European hybrid onslaught.

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