1) You're collecting energy from regenerative braking which otherwise would be lost (in ICE-only mode). This occurs under most real world circumstances (there's no steady speed route I'm aware of for my morning commute). In your model, the efficiency factor of this reaction is effectively >1, given that you're yielding "free" potential energy (at whatever real efficiency) from a kinetic energy->heat reaction

2) There's no apparent way to prevent the HSD from attempting to charge the NiMH battery, meaning if we don't drive in a manner to utilize the energy that's being stored there, we're experiencing a less-than-optimal FE (unless you're suggesting that a Camry equipped only with the Atkinson ICE would be more efficient than one with HSD).

3) How would the Camry's Atkinson ICE function with the eCVT transmission? In short, it couldn't - you'd have to resort to a mechanical CVT (belts/cones/pulleys, etc...) which would most likely suffer worse efficiency due to increased mechanical interaction (and the corresponding loss one notices when comparing the input hp and output hp of the transmission).


(Note: I'm not mechanically inclined and my physics knowledge is fairly old, but these are a couple questions to test your proposition).