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Lexus stretching the "self charging" BS and livechats/sales blatantly lying to clients saying plugin hybrids dont "charge themselves"

6K views 81 replies 29 participants last post by  richardglover 
#1 ·
now they not only saying their cars charge themselves, but Lexus even says their bog-standard hyb... I mean... "self charging" hybrid cars are powered from 2 SOURCES, fuel and electricity on their adverts.

Certainly can't do that either?
When will this "self-charging" bs end?

Even on LiveChat with toyota/lexus they push on the BS basically saying that the difference between a plug-in hybrid and a "self-charging" one is that the "self-charging" one DOESNT NEED to be plugged in, which is incorrect because the plugin hybrid DOESNT NEED it to be plugged in either. (The correct answer should be that you ARE ABLE TO PLUG the plugin, Not that the plugin MUST be plugged).

One live chat assistant, when challenged, even gone as far as saying the plugin one "doesnt self-charge" and if not plugged in runs on PETROL ONLY, while the "self-charging" will ALWAYS RUN ON ELECTRICITY AND PETROL without pluggin in. Basically denying that the plugin hybrids have any ability to regen/"charge themselves"

I think i should log these conversations and report them to the motor Ombudsman. Discuss?
 
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#3 ·
If they can paint the "self charging" is because it regens.. I can accept that.
But then you cant say that a self charging hybrid runs on electricity and petrol, and a plugin hybrids only runs on petrol if you dont plug it. This is wrong. If you apply regen as an excuse to call the "non plugin" as "self charging" and "runs on both electricity and petrol", then the plugin hybrid that never plugs in also has to be described as self charging and "runs on electricity and petrol" too.

You cant say that a nonplugin runs on electricity and that a plugin that never gets plugged "runs on petrol only" in the same sentence
 
#4 ·
I'm pretty sure the advertising I've seen that they have in dealerships alongside the Prius PHEV actually explains how it's got all the benefits of the self charging traditional hybrids but then the bonus of maximising your electric only range by plugging in.
 
#5 ·
im talking about talking to salesmen via livechat or phone. They lie to you basically denying that PHEVs are able to "regen/self charge" and only charge if you plug them in, while a self charging one drives on electricity because "it charges itself". That's the kinda phrase/comparison many use that its misleading at best.
 
#7 ·
The Kia niro (not the EV, nor the PHEV) is a "self charging hybrid" - it has a 2kwh battery, that is indeed charged by the car, and then can be driven solely on electric through town at slow speeds. There is no BS about this. I don't know the specs of the Lexus, but if it can do the same, then it is as well a "self charging hybrid". Why are people still getting upset about this ?
 
#11 ·
Ignore them all. Lexus/Toyota and their customers.

Any consumer who is adequately persuaded by this doesn't really want to know.

Surely every sensible buyer ask of themselves and the supplier of any product 'what do I need to put into this to keep it going, how much of that stuff do I need, and how much does it cost'.

If they don't do that, they are dumb. Can't fix dumb.

If they do do that, but not with electric cars then they really don't want an electric car, and would argue a reason for themselves not to have one even if you took the initiative and presented them the option. ("How much is the petrol?" ..."No petrol".. "What, none?"... "No engine, no petrol" .... I still routinely have conversations with people that seem dumbstrick that an EV doesn't need an engine in it")

If they do ask, do it with electric cars too, recognise that they are paying more for petrol and nothing for electricity, and still think that is better than a BEV, then maybe it is for them.

ASA have already received complaints and ruled in favour of Toyota. They say consumers understand what this means. Maybe most of them do.
 
#37 · (Edited)
ASA have already received complaints and ruled in favour of Toyota. They say consumers understand what this means. Maybe most of them do.
The ASA would more accurately be called the advertiser club to prevent regulation by pretending there already is regulation. The more you spend on adverts the more you contribute so more likely to be cleared. If they find against a member they are asked to stop the ads. By this time the campaign is over anyway

What a shame that Toyota having lead the way with the Prius are now resorting to this BS.
 
#12 ·
I really don’t take to idea that people with only brief knowledge of another type of propulsion systems can be let’s just say “Persuaded” into purchasing a car that has been subject to a very clever marketing strategy.
A clever manipulation of certain facts that purposely rely on the lack of people’s full understand of how it works ( or not ).
Is it directly misleading or just stretching the fact and figures ?.
I will let you decide on that one.
Let’s be honest with ourselves folks, it’s not be the first time the British car buying public have been directed down the wrong path !.
A number of years ago, we where actively encouraged to purchase oil burning cars and pay a premium price for the privilege from the dealers.
The government also supported this and then massively increasing the tax on the fuel they needed to burn.
One of my closest neighbours bought a Toyota self charging hybrid last year, at that time I had a VW plugin hybrid.
When talking about his new purchase, he had this to say.
“See, I don’t have to plug my car into the wall like you do, it does all the charging on its own. The salesman said we have moved on from having to plug them in anymore”.
THAT is the very thing that I object to !.
I did not have the heart to explain the limitations of his brand new purchase.
I don’t like the idea of sales people praying on the limited knowledge of a lot of the general public.
They believe they are “Doing their bit” by trying to offer a “Token Gesture” by buy into a new technology, but come foul of good marketing strategy in the process.
Self charging hybrid falls into that black hole of facts that are border line not directly true or false I guess.
What my Mum use to call a “A Little White Lie”.
 
#14 ·
I know the Toyota/Lexus adverts are nauseating but I think they are selling their vehicles well simply because people are finding them attractive. Which is the way it usually is and why they are the highest volume manufacturer.
At some stage Toyota will have to switch to producing EVs and will probably do it with relative ease. They just don't seem under pressure to do so just yet.
 
#19 ·
These adverts are clearly misleading and it is not good enough to complain that people are being stupid for not understanding the difference. We don‘t (I hope) say people were stupid for buying financial products that didn’t suit them. Large parts of the population are confused about technology and there are several types of hybrid vehicles on offer.

What is needed are clearer categories and descriptions of hybrid vehicles and the manufacturing industry needs to standardise on proper descriptions. For example, how about “energy recovering” rather than “self generating”?
 
#20 ·
What is needed are clearer categories and descriptions of hybrid vehicles and the manufacturing industry needs to standardise on proper descriptions. For example, how about “energy recovering” rather than “self generating”?
But then you are defeating the marketing lie these people are trying to get across, that having to plug in ( = having the ability to) is somehow inferior to, and older technology than, hybrids that run on petrol alone.
 
#21 ·
my 2 cents
The ads are misleading as I have had people comment that they think the car will do eMode / EV driving ability for the same distance as a car that needs to be plugged in, "without needing to be plugged in".
Whilst not directly being said, that the inference that the mfgs are more than happy to let people think.

Conversely ... the forth coming Yaris model ( and I think it will drive train share with a Renault, a Twingo? )
up to 4 miles in cities without needing the petrol engine to assist.
If you drop the plugging in or not bit, "does the panel think" that they could refer to that car as a self charging hybrid ?

The problem really is too many types of hybrid
Mild, Self-charging, Full, Plugin.
The SC and the Full, they are the same thing but some people may think a Full Hybrid is somehow up a level from a self charging one ?
 
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#22 ·
my 2 cents
The ads are misleading as I have had people comment that they think the car will do eMode / EV driving ability for the same distance as a car that needs to be plugged in, "without needing to be plugged in".
Whilst not directly being said, that the inference that the mfgs are more than happy to let people think.

Conversely ... the forth coming Yaris model ( and I think it will drive train share with a Renault, a Twingo? )
up to 4 miles in cities without needing the petrol engine to assist.
If you drop the plugging in or not bit, "does the panel think" that they could refer to that car as a self charging hybrid ?

The problem really is too many types of hybrid
Mild, Self-charging, Full, Plugin.
The SC and the Full, they are the same thing but some people may think a Full Hybrid is somehow up a level from a self charging one ?
Agree, only speaking on a personal basis.
Unless the car is is of the “Plugin” hybrid type, I would not consider any of the alternatives and not recommend them to my friends.
Just saying :whistle:.
 
#23 ·
My father in law has just ordered a Toyota CR-V hybrid. He travels to Scotland a couple of times a month, so a full EV wouldn't suit, but he thinks that he's going to be able to bimble around in Scotland or at home using electricity only. When he was looking for a new car I suggested that with a PHEV he'd be able to do all the local driving on electricity and do the longer journeys on petrol - it seems that the Toyota salesperson has convinced him he'll be able to do that with the "self charging" hybrid too.
:rolleyes:
 
#30 ·
My close neighbour was sold on the same concept.
I told him to buy a plugin hybrid but it was to late, he had already been brain washed by the hype !.
Sold on the idea that he had a ( part ) electric car, with out the need to ever plug in the car, or having to buy a charging unit for that matter !.
I did not want to shatter his dream or spoil the joy of his new CR-V hybrid sitting on the drive.
Until the point when he started mocking what he called my “Old School” PHEV.
So, before I said my good bye’s I just asked him :-
“Where do you think the power comes from to charge the HV battery in your car then”.
He had a puzzled look on his face.
“It is generated by power from the engine / fuel in the tank, that will be great for your fuel consumption figures”.
I could almost hear the cogs in his head spinning around.
As I left, he was reaching into his pocket for his mobile phone.
Probably ringing the sales person to ask him the very same question !.
He has never mentioned his car after this meeting and he has never asked me about my fairly recent purchase of My BEV.
Another victim of the “Hype” I am sorry to say.
 
#38 ·
I have put a complaint in to ASA on this very point. Having owned a RAV4 hybrid (which I really liked) it is not capable of more than a few miles on full electric and no where near the claimed 50% plus. I also pointed out that to gain the kinetic energy to charge the battery via braking you need to drive the car on petrol first. Otherwise Toyota/Lexus would have invented the perpetual motion engine.
 
#25 ·
I know the term "self charging" is mischievous but what is dishonest is to claim a percentage of the time the vehicle is running on just electric. The parallel hybrid system was developed and has become popular to reduce petrol consumption and therefor in it's non plug-in form is always just running 100% on petrol.
Adding the ability to charge the battery from an external source would allow you to produce evidence of what percentage of time you were on average driving on petrol and what on electricity, only don't ask me to do the sums. Anyway you then would have an honest figure.
 
#26 ·
The really sad part of all of this is that the Toyota/Lexus hybrids are actually REALLY good at what they do.

We have a 2015 Lexus GS450h and a Tesla Model 3. The Lexus returns an average of 37mpg (calculation from fill-ups, not on board computer figure). That is absolutely extraordinary for a 350bhp petrol luxury saloon car, and in fact only 1mpg less than the diesel 2011 Volvo V70 we had before it, which was much less powerful and a diesel. That 37mpg REAL WORLD return from the lexus is way better than any other equivalent petrol car (eg BMW 535i (~26mpg), Mercedes E350 (~28mpg) (Figures from fuelly.com, 2015 model year, UK units)). It's really extraordinary. Jewel (Lexus GS450h) | Fuelly

But the nonsense advertising really does put a black mark on it. It's an absolute shame because the technology is very good indeed.

There is a lot of misunderstanding of how the toyota/aisin hybrid system works, and it took me a long time to get my head around it. The "eCVT" is closely related to a rear diff more than a transmission and is incredibly mechanically simple, providing a variable gear system with very few moving parts, no clutches, bands or chains (quick version - where a rear diff has a single input shaft and 2 output shafts that can rotate at different speeds, the toyota HSD has two input shafts and the output shaft turns at a summed speed of the two inputs. With an electric motor on each input shaft then the differential speed of the two inputs (where one could even reverse direction) gives the output. The combustion engine is coupled to one of the input sides). This allows other tweaks like using a lower power-density atkinson (faux atkinson as the mechanical stroke doesn't change, but valves stay open later on compression stroke so that the expansion stroke can expand the volume more than the compression stroke compressed it) cycle, eliminating engine idling (the engine is never idle - if it's running while the car is stationary because it needs to warm up or whatever, then it is used to charge the battery rather than just "idle" - getting something is better than nothing) and stop/start that works without lag and no "cough-cough-cough Vrooom" starting - listen to a Lexus hybrid engine start sometime and you'll hear that it doesn't turn over like a normal car; it instantly starts running at stable idle speed with no over-shoot. The eCVT means that when the engine does run it is kept much more on the areas of the load/rpm map that are better for thermal efficiency, and the huge gearing range means that the GS can cruise at 90-100mph at 1000rpm (autobahn, of course). This is quite a contrast to how many other hybrids work, where they stick an electric motor onto the transmission of a normal otto-cycle engine and 6 speed transmission.

The thing about plug-in hybrids is that they get magic (fantasy) WLTP figures without going to all this trouble to maximise every last bit of ICE efficiency, so you have people driving around in Volvo XC90 T8s that get in the 20s mpg while patting themselves on the back for their low BIK. Adding plug-in capability to the Toyota/Lexus hybrids means adding more battery and then only getting as good as everyone else's WLTP cheating figures.

Again, I am NOT defending their borderline fraudulent advertising. I'm defending the talented people that thought the actual tech up and made it work so incredibly well.

As much as the toyota hybrid is perhaps the best combustion engine setup there (in terms of low NOx, low CO2, thermal efficiency, etc), it is simply the case that combustion engines have had their day. Sadly the first Toyota EV in europe will be deeply disappointing (Lexus UX300e - poor ride, very cramped, 50kW charging (in 2020? wtf?)), and self-benchmarking will convince many dealers etc that, combined with the "self charging" nonsense that EVs aren't worth bothering with yet. This will hurt them badly in the long run.

The actual OP in this topic though is more about what Toyota CS are saying about plug-ins, and I suspect that has more to do with poor product training for their support staff than a concerted, centralised effort. It seems that the CS swallowed the "self charging" bs so hard that now they can't untangle themselves as to what plug-ins might be good for.
 
#29 ·
magic (fantasy) WLTP figures // everyone else's WLTP cheating figures.
The problem always has been, the official figures that the manufacturers state should be written

" the WLTP value for comparison purposes only, is X "

Phrases like " more realistic to real world driving" ... ok more realistic but still something 80%+ of the end users would be unlikely to achieve.

Clearly saying the number is just a consistent measured item so you can compare a Leaf to a Tesla, is how it should be taken. Trouble is the adds tout it as a carrot that you could have too .....

Having said that, yes of course I'll be trying to exceed my cars' WLTP ...........GAME ON
 
#27 ·
@i-s lovely post, it epitomises the legacy auto companies problem, the decades of devotion to the internal combustion engine's development. No wonder that there has to be reluctance and resentment at letting the ice be relegated to just generator duties. I honestly think they would rather put their finest work in a museum and walk away into retirement themselves. Let someone else fill the vehicles with electric motors and batteries.
Toyota could very easily have switched to series hybrids two decades ago and I can imagine a young engineer fresh out of uni proposing just that and being severely reprimanded for even thinking it.
Series hybrids would have spelt the demise of the ice quicker than Tesla are now doing.
 
#33 ·
The term "series hybrid" is used to differentiate it from a parallel hybrid which is what most people know simply as a hybrid.
The most common form of parallel hybrid uses an internal combustion engine as its main means of propulsion on one axle but has an electric motor on the other axle to give additional/alternative but weaker propulsion for the vehicle. The energy to run that electric motor comes from regenerating forces used to slow the vehicle down, braking and deceleration, that would otherwise be wasted.
A series hybrid uses an electric motor as its sole means of propulsion and gets some or all of its energy from an on board generator. It typically would get far more regenerative energy than the parallel system because of greater battery capacity.
Both types of hybrid come as non plug-in and plug-in.

In writing this I realise it must be possible to rate vehicles for their ability to "self charge" and I suspect a Tesla S or X would have the highest rating and probably one the Toyota models the lowest.
What do you think @donald ? nonsense or what.
 
#32 ·
My first foray into electrics was with a Toyota Yaris Hybrid, I really enjoyed the experience and went up and down the country, while the electric part was hopeless but using the electric motor with the ICE made for good fuel economy. Now more than happy with my BEV.
 
#34 ·
So, really a non plug-in series hybrid still gets all its energy from ICE. Regenerated energy from slowing only works when you slow down from speeds attained using ICE. Even if at some times the battery provides the propulsion, all its energy is provided by the ICE.
 
#43 ·
Porsche should have stopped all hybrids at this point: :devilish:



Surely the confusion is that people don't understand the differences between serial and parallel hybrids, and Toyota are adding to this to obscure that they have gone down a blind alley which is currently very profitable for them.
 
#44 ·
Porsche should have stopped all hybrids at this point: :devilish:



Surely the confusion is that people don't understand the differences between serial and parallel hybrids, and Toyota are adding to this to obscure that they have gone down a blind alley which is currently very profitable for them.
Toyota is neither.

A motor and an engine are both tied to either side of a differential epicyclic. The torque to the wheel is, arguably, the sum of the two, neither one nor the other nor both (as some torque from the engine might be driving the motor, rather than the motor driving the wheel ... sort of difficult to tell!!...)
 
#54 ·
Are you guys really getting so wound up over a few lies from some salesman - for christs sake, this is an industry that installs cheat devices in their software to actively defraud government specifications (I think they are anyway!) regarding emissions that kill people - get angry about something worthwhile !!
 
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