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A few years ago, my wife and I stopped in Tokyo. One particular day we took a trip to the Odaiba area which is in South East Tokyo by the bay. We got to stop at the Toyota Megaweb Showcase.

They had a cool exhibit there to help people understand exactly how hybrid technology works. We sat in these Go-Karts that sat much higher than you'd think, almost like a riding lawnmower. First they made us go down the track by ourselves. When I say Hybrid, I mean, there was no gas engine, you had to pedal these beasts. There was actually a hill on the course that was hard as hell to get up with just the pedals. On the second lap, they activated the electric system which you could implement by the push of a button. With either system by itself, you didn't go very fast but when you put the two together, you could really zip around the course. It helped me understand how the electric assist benefits the gas engine, aka your legs and how it would effect fuel economy.

Just sharing my little story. There's a picture of it here on the front page in the kids zone.

http://www.megaweb.gr.jp/English/Showcase/

Yet another thing you would never see in North America. Sounds like fun, but I'm guessing they were PHEVs, you didn't have to charge the batteries up by peddling, did you? :D

Kirk

What a great place.
We need a theme park like that.

kmactavi, I don't know, they basically just handed me a very rudimentary description of the ride in english. I can get around in Japan but my Japanese isn't good enough to understand hybrid technobabble. It seemed pretty basic from what I could see.


ericbecky, I agree, I think we do need something like that in the States. People would understand hybrid technologies more.

They also had this ride where we got into an unmanned 2 man electric car that drove itself around the facility, giving you a tour. No rails or anything, it was wild. Steering wheel turned itself. My wife looked at me and said. "Its like we're in the future". I couldn't agree more.