This is one of our cars, a 1999 Toyota Prius. It is one of the original series of Toyota hybrids sold in Japan, and parallel imported into New Zealand in 2006. We purchased the car in May with 100,000km on the clock.

    The Toyota hybrids use a combination of petrol and electric motors controlled by sophisticated computer systems that control every function of the vehicle. Depending on the demand placed on the motor the car will operate solely on battery power, solely on petrol, or several combinations of the two.

    To maintain the charge in the main drive battery the car trickles charge into the battery at cruising speeds, and uses regeneration to charge the battery when coasting or braking. Regeneration uses the electric motors in reverse, converting the car’s movement into electrical energy. One effect of the regeneration under braking is that the physical brakes are rarely used at normal driving speeds resulting in exceptionally long life from the discs and brake pads.

    The main drive battery consists of 240 “D” cell NiMH batteries situated behind the back seat. These are maintained between 40% and 80% of maximum charge by the car’s control systems resulting in very long service life. It is not unusual for these batteries to still be operating after 10 years and more.

    The result of the application of this technology is a car that will seat 5 adults and their luggage in comfort, and has the fuel economy of a much smaller car. In daily commuting of 40km each way the car is averaging a fuel economy of 5.7l/100km . This is similar to the much smaller Honda Jazz or the recent turbo diesels coming out of Europe.