Hybrid Toyota - get it out of your head

The New Factory has recently adopted a new company car policy. Procurement experts and financial planners have been bending over backwards to improve the way car are used by an organisation I work at and have worked it out. This week I had a chance to try out a demo car, in an identical configuration as the vehicles due to replace our current fleet. I took a trip to a provincial town in Poland, some 150 kilometres from Warsaw with three passengers (and me) on board…

The New Factory wants to boast of the lowest carbon footprint on the market, therefore it has chosen to use hybrid cars only (they opted for Toyota only). Also for some reason employees of The New Factory tend to heavily press accelerator pedals in company cars and their employer has apparently resolved to crack down on it.

The revised policy has in my opinion two major flaws which disqualify it from being hailed as eco-friendly.

Firstly, the replacement periods – the cars will be leased for a period of 2 years or 60,000 kilometres, whatever comes first (and then replaced by brand-new ones). Durability and reliability of a properly-looked-after car should let it be used over 5 years or 150,000 kilometres. Someone who has negotiated the contract has presumably not learnt how much CO2 is produced during vehicle manufacturing – I have looked for several data, they are not fully consistent, but on average, CO2 emitted before a car leaves factory gates is the equivalent of driving 80,000 kilometres under current stringent norms for petrol-fuelled cars…

Secondly, engines. A 1.8-litre engine for a Corolla and a 2.5-litre engine for Camry in the era of far smaller engines (compact cars do well with engines below 1.5 litres, mid-class cars with engines below 2.0 litres) is a big misunderstanding since whatever is saved when an electric engine is in use will be wasted while a petrol-fuelled engine kicks in.

If you shape a fleet policy, you should ask yourself a question, what purpose the company cars should serve. I do believe employees ought to be encouraged not to use them for commuting to work nor to drive around town. They should travel longer distances where it is not practicable or cost-effective to use trains, planes or other forms of transports. My two trips last week (first behind the wheel of a hybrid Corolla, second in my private car), both to district towns in Poland where it would takes around two or even three times longer (door to door) to get otherwise than by car are the ideal examples when the fleet is necessary.

Coming to the point, i.e. to driving impressions – with silence at low speed and decent parameters of the electric engine, the hybrid car is ideal for around-town driving, an ideal car for a… taxi driver. While if I move about city, I use public transport or take a taxi, not a company car. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, a city car does not rank among desirable means of transport. Beyond town, on a dual carriageway, then on an expressway, driving was a misery… The CVT automatic gearbox does not let a driver feel control over how a car accelerates. Maybe I am overly accustomed to manual transmission, but I felt uncomfortable despite considering myself a rather seasoned driver. The very reaction of the car to pressing the accelerator pedal when one needs to change a lane quickly or to overtake has little to do with what I consider safe manoeuvre standards. I am used to pressing the accelerator pedal and making a car picking up speed rapidly (in 1.4 turbocharged engines of my private Megane, or company Passat). A hybrid Corolla at first does not react at all, then it chokes and just then accelerates reluctantly. I would fear overtaking a truck on a single carriageway… On top, the car is humming at higher speeds (above 130 kmph) and wobbles as if it signalled an imminent disintegration… I believe it was not the fault of the specific demo car (just above 4,000 kilometres on the clock) since many of my workmates have taken test drives with other vehicles and their impressions are similar. For the first time in my life I am happy not to be eligible for a company car.

A quick look at technical specs (especially the torque) of the hybrid engine is self-explaining. I wonder how they have measured the average fuel consumption, since on an expressway at around 140 kmph computer of the hybrid Corolla with 4 adults inside showed current consumption of 12 – 13 litres per 100 kilometres.

If I were a decision-maker of a car fleet policy, I would proscribe to:

- abandon a company car as a perk – the top-rank staff should just get paid enough to afford to buy a decent car,

- broaden the extent to which pool cars are used – an analysis of historical long-distance car journeys would be conducted and a sufficient number of cars per team or department would be allocated, individual cars would be granted to staff covering historically at least 20,000 kilometres in business (this would also reduce number of parking spaces rented),

- lengthen the replacement periods to at least 5 years or 150,000 kilometres, whatever comes first,

- impose penalties on employees who do not look after cars they use properly.

I actually considered switching to a hybrid car in some time, but having driven one, mindful of how little I drive around town and knowing how much carbon footprint the manufacturing process gives off, I am intent on keeping my current car going for as long as possible.