Toyota do Brazil has donated two Prius HEVs for the project, initiated within BEST. The other Prius HEV is owned by the Brazil national oil company Petrobras.
The vehicles will run 40,000 km in 10 months on three driving routes that include urban and highway traffic. Two of the routes are in São Paulo and one in Rio de Janeiro.
A dedicated training course for drivers was organised by Toyota do Brazil and provided advice to drivers from Petrobras and the Brazilian Reference Centre on Biomass (CENBIO) / The Biomass Users Network of Brazil (BUN).
– The drivers of the HEVs are fully satisfied with the vehicles’ performance and comfort. They notice no differences to regular petrol driven HEVs, says Anton Hofer (WIP-Munich), member of the BEST São Paulo site coordination team.
The evaluation of pollutant emissions and fuel consumption is part of the overall HEV demonstration activities in São Paulo.
First test results show that the E25 fuelled HEVs fully comply with upcoming pollutant emission standards in Brazil, USA and Europe (Euro 5) with a satisfactory fuel consumption of about 14.3 km/l.
