Taxi Driver Online

Yes to most of those. I wouldn't risk running a road vehicle on red, the penalties are rather high as they assume you've done so for a long time.

The Toyota hybrid petrol engine drives a generator and an electric motor drives the wheels.

I suppose it would depend on the use it is being put to. i believe that the Prius is better on short stop/start runs than on distance jobs. Also with cars with proper engines, drivers tend to let them tick over whilst on the rank thus using fuel all the time whereas a Prius or similar does not run when stationary.

I think Wanna is saying that the fridge motor on a lorry is run from a seperate tank to the road engine so therfore it can use red diesel. The thinking now is that if the engine on these hybrids does not actually power the wheels then maybe that could run legally on red diesel. I don't think it would wash personally because the 2 power units are connected.

Correct. The road wheels are driven by an electric motor, so no conventional gearbox, just forward and reverse, a very smooth acceleration curve, 0-60 in about 9 seconds because you have the power of the batteries and the power of the genny!

Regenerative braking charges the battery every time you brake or take your foot off the gas too. It is possible for the hybrid to go about 4 miles without the petrol engine cutting in.

so the engine RPM is constant?

I think you will find that most of the time the engine isn't running at all.

Did I achieve 70mpg? Or was I following the Ben Barry school of hybrid-unfriendly driving? I left the car in Eco mode, switched off the air-conditioning apart from occasional screen demist duties and kept up with traffic on a mixture of suburban roads, dual carriageways and motorways.

In the end I managed to coax an indicated average 52.3mpg out of the Auris. Your results may indeed vary, and perhaps a hyper-miling enthusiast can get close to Toyota's headline claims. But I fancy that for the average driver a turbodiesel hatchback would offer a greater sense of effortlessness for similar real-world economy in mixed use.
Verdict

You really need to want a hybrid to choose the Auris over its conventionally-powered stablemates or rivals. If your driving is mainly around town you can enjoy the EV mode's silent acceleration from rest and have a much better chance of getting close to that magical 70mpg. But every time you embark on a weekend roadtrip or an intercity commute you'll be confronted with the CVT whine and an average consumption indicator charting the loss of all your hard-won eco points.

The Auris HSD Hybrid isn't a bad car. But it's debatable whether it represents a better way of achieving economical motoring versus its conventionally-powered rivals.

Just to go back to you fitting new tyres to the front, you should always fit new tyres to the rear of your vehicle (and fit the back to the front) irrespective of whether the vehicle is front or rear wheel drive. The reason being, if your front tyres have more grip, when you brake suddenly your front will grip better than the rear and inertia could cause you to spin. (And don't expect ABS or traction control to help you out because it can't defy the laws of physics)