Newsflash: technophobia in tech marketing

Three years ago, a future-thinking friend got one of the second style Toyota Priuses (Prii, for fellow Latin students). Given my old interest in electrics and hybrids (I was once President of the Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington; see: http://www.evadc.org/) I wanted to learn all about how advances in computers, magnets, traction batteries, motor design, motor control, and component interfacing had evolved in 25 years. Toyota has a good record for gently easing new tech into lower lines then migrating it upward as it is proven (see: http://www.billzilla.org/vvtvtec.htm), and now the reliable hybrid drivetrain is available on the Camry.

His '05 model does not reveal much on direct inspection- smooth grey covers under hood, and no clear indication of what, or even where, the main motive and transmission elements and battery sit. So, to the Owner's Manual! The specs page contained what I was sure had to be a typo; the compression ratio was listed as 13.1 : 1. That should require that we feed our baby DIESEL, not 89 octane. On to the web, where I confirmed that unusually high number on the Toyota website. (Regular gasoline, in a regular air mixture for internal combustion engines, in a warmed engine, will 'pre-ignite' or 'diesel' [sic] if compressed much past 9 : 1; the old Chrysler hemis famously required higher octane fuels to go with their higher compression and output, so that detonation of the charge prior to the piston hitting top-dead-center would not 'knock' and cut power output. High octane fuels can contain their excitement, so to speak, until the moment of controlled and timed spark ignition.)

Surely, Toyota knew the compression ratio of their enigmatic little three-banger in their hig-tech flagship, and I myself had actually put regular gas in it and seen the great result—50 mpg is just a 'so-so' mileage, and he has eclipsed 61mpg on more than one tank in 60k miles.

More web searching. Toyota had said something about an 'Atkinson cycle' engine.... see: http://www.keveney.com/ Atkinson.html Now, if a major manufacturer rendered a production line version of a never-made 1903 patent, in the time my generation was growing up underneath car hoods, there would have been lots of press and lots of talk. Toyota's marketing folks probably know exactly what they are doing in not even mentioning the way they accomplish several different 'miracles' inside their seamlessly sleek package, and in some ways I feel as if I am with Dorothy and Toto, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man, being told to "Ignore that man behind the curtain!!!" I find it sad and remarkable that innovations which would have fostered a year-long 'bragging rights' ad campaign to a receptive public a generation ago, go pretty much hidden from view, even from the moderately interested and motivated.

If you are still reading, you may be one of them. My last treat, explaining how the Toyota compression number given is sort of correct, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle

I would submit that they should refer to "13.1 : 1" as the EXPANSION ratio, but since no one has ever given separate compression and expansion numbers for an internal combustion engine before, they might have tipped their hand to many more than just me, by so doing. (Yes, it seems as if they really would rather NOT talk about it.)

I will try to get out from underneath automobile hoods soon, dear readers, soon.