Camry Hybrid- for Planet Clueless

As a car enthusiast, I subscribe to a few car magazines, and I watch several auto-themed websites to keep up with car news. I’m used to seeing all types of crazy ads promoting cars, but this one really got under my skin. It is titled “THE CAMRY HYBRID. FOR THE NICHE MARKET CALLED EARTH”

The first paragraph includes the phrase “Engineered to squeeze up to an unheard-of 500 miles from a single tank of gas- practically twice the mileage of a regular mid-sized sedan”. The next paragraph states “It’s a feat that some claim is still years away. And without Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive®, it would be.” Too bad that isn’t true.

My wife and I own a 2001 Saab 9-5 sedan, with 2.3 liter, four-cylinder LPT turbo engine and 5-speed manual transmission. On highway trips in the 9-5, we routinely get 30-32 MPG. We occasionally see results approaching 35 MPG. At just 32 MPG, we can travel almost 600 miles on an 18.5 gallon tank of gas. And that’s without the added complexity of a hybrid powertrain. So that feat of 500 miles- without the hybrid system- isn’t years away. It’s years ago, as in 8 years ago, when the 9-5 was introduced to the US market. Of course, the 9-5 isn’t a regular mid-sized sedan. It’s a phenomenally competent, stylish, comfortable, spacious car, with a well-designed driving environment, none of which really applies to the Camry.

The ad goes on to describe the Camry’s hybrid system, stating that “The technology combines a highly efficient, gasoline-powered engine with a self-charging electric motor.” Umm… what is a self-charging electric motor? I’ve been an electrical engineer for over 10 years now. Motors aren’t charged. They’re powered. Batteries and capacitors are charged. I think they tried to simplify the words used to describe the fact that the motor uses regeneration to charge the BATTERY. Whatever. We all know that the people who operate Camrys don’t have any sort of technical understanding of how vehicles actually work.

Finally, you can see a little drawing in the middle of the page, a line-drawing of the hybrid system within the car. The caption under the drawing reads “Despite its unique technology, the Camry Hybrid drives just like a regular car.” I know that to be untrue. No modern Camry drives like a regular car. It drives like a nine-year-old Buick with a 97 year-old deaf guy behind the wheel, at about 52 MPH in the left lane of I-5 with a dent in the back bumper and a scraped right-rear door.