Wondering what I discovered on my 2nd and 3rd dates with the 2015 Toyota Auris? I didn’t think so, but I’m going to tell you anyway, and I do have some good and “interesting” surprises.
One very cool thing I discovered when I got into the car and started fooling around was that there was an “EV Mode.” I asked the guy, what’s that do? I knew this wasn’t one of the plug-in hybrid models on the market, so I was intrigued what exactly driving in EV Mode would feel like, and what was going on under the hood. The guy was more mystified than me, and after kindly but unsuccessfully searching through the handbook for awhile, he just suggested that I look it up on the web when I got online.
Toyota Auris “EV Mode”
It has been surprisingly hard to figure out anything about EV Mode on the web, and Toyota doesn’t mention it on the Toyota Auris website I found, which makes me think Toyota isn’t too proud of it. And I’ve concluded that’s probably because it’s fake as hell — or maybe not fake, but as close to “not real” as it could get without being illegal.
The Auris does let you drive on the battery up to about 30 mph (50 km/h), which means no emissions and a silent drive, and regenerative braking recharges the battery. But you get kicked out of EV Mode before you even get started. Aside from the speed limit, the battery in the Auris is so small that you can only drive for ~1.25 miles (2 kilometers) in EV Mode. Accelerating quickly also kicks you out of EV Mode. Comparing the Auris to the many true electric vehicles I’ve driven (and before I read about EV Mode online), I couldn’t tell if I was actually driving on electricity for moments at a time or if it was a trick. For sure, there wasn’t the exhilaration of stepping on the pedal in a true electric vehicle, nor the clearly superior driving experience, since I kept getting kicked out of the bed EV Mode. There’s also this statement on a Toyota Auris webpage, “Driving in EV Mode is not necessarily the best choice for fuel economy – the battery will deplete and will need to be recharge by the petrol engine.”
Needless to say, I was disappointed, and the cynic in me thinks it’s another attempt for Toyota to spread FUD about electric driving.
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