Real life PHEV mileage (not Mercedes)

[chic0821]

Not Mercedes actually Range Rover Fifty P400E. I normally let the car decide whether its petrol or leccy, but in the interests of "science" (nothing better to do) I decided to see what the Leccy range was. Range Rover only says it does 30 miles on a full charge, which is ok for the mileage I'm doing. 50 miles would be the sweet spot for me but its ok. Anyway, charged it up last night on the granny charger. It was at 13 miles so fully charged this morning, it said 30 miles & according to my smart meter it cost about 60 pence. Pressed the leccy button & off we went. According to the journey app, I did 8.9 miles in total & 8.1 miles of it was on leccy. The car is now showing 10 miles of range left, not 21.9 it should have been with simple arithmetic, but cost wise compared to petrol its pretty good

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

They fib

Regardless of manufacturer

 

[WilliamMaldivess211]

Not Mercedes actually Range Rover Fifty P400E. I normally let the car decide whether its petrol or leccy, but in the interests of "science" (nothing better to do) I decided to see what the Leccy range was. Range Rover only says it does 30 miles on a full charge, which is ok for the mileage I'm doing. 50 miles would be the sweet spot for me but its ok. Anyway, charged it up last night on the granny charger. It was at 13 miles so fully charged this morning, it said 30 miles & according to my smart meter it cost about 60 pence. Pressed the leccy button & off we went. According to the journey app, I did 8.9 miles in total & 8.1 miles of it was on leccy. The car is now showing 10 miles of range left, not 21.9 it should have been with simple arithmetic, but cost wise compared to petrol its pretty good

How old is it?

 

[chic0821]

How old is it?

2021, mileage 10000

 

[WilliamMaldivess211]

2021, mileage 10000

It seems to be that most manufacturers quote their range under optimal conditions - no aircon etc… also the older the car the worse the range they seem to do.

I asked about the age because my godfather has a 2018 BMW 330e that was supposed to do 14 miles fully electric - fine for his commute to work. First few years this was fine he would just use the electric and charge to 100% overnight, but 7 years and about 60k miles it runs on the petrol engine at all times and the battery can’t seem to hold any charge.

 

[WilliamMaldivess211]

Whenever I head Range Rover and hybrid I think of this video

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[chic0821]

Not Mercedes actually Range Rover Fifty P400E. I normally let the car decide whether its petrol or leccy, but in the interests of "science" (nothing better to do) I decided to see what the Leccy range was. Range Rover only says it does 30 miles on a full charge, which is ok for the mileage I'm doing. 50 miles would be the sweet spot for me but its ok. Anyway, charged it up last night on the granny charger. It was at 13 miles so fully charged this morning, it said 30 miles & according to my smart meter it cost about 60 pence. Pressed the leccy button & off we went. According to the journey app, I did 8.9 miles in total & 8.1 miles of it was on leccy. The car is now showing 10 miles of range left, not 21.9 it should have been with simple arithmetic, but cost wise compared to petrol its pretty good

Apologies, chaps, the above is a lot of guff I should not be allowed out on my own I forgot about the return journeys
As an update the total mileage was 18.9 miles & the EV part of it was 15 miles so going by the fully charged 30 miles, there should have been 15 miles left but its showing 10 miles. A lot better but pretty economical, about 53pence for 15 miles in EV, for a big heavy car. Saying that, I would never buy a fully EV thing, but a Range Rover is a great place to be in. Mine has every extra available apart from a tow bar which would never be used anyway.
Sorry again

 

[FiveAlive]

The worry with using a PHEV for short journeys, electric every time, is that the battery goes through a heavy charge-discharge cycle every day, likely from 100% to, say, 10%. That will wear it out quite quickly, with 1000 full charges in less than five years. The post about a 7-year-old car having worn out its battery sounds highly plausible.

In contrast, a full EV doing 15 miles per day will only need charging once per week, and the battery can be kept in the less stressful 80% to 20% range, so would last much, much longer.

 

[BIGDOG]

Does there come a time where the extra BHP added by the battery ceases to exist?

That would piss me off no end.

 

[chic0821]

I usually allow to car to decide when to use leccy or not. I just wanted to see what the actual mileage was using the EV button as opposed to what the car is saying, ie 30 miles. If I wanted to use electric all the time, I would have bought a full EV. Electric is fine for running around town in stop/start traffic. Pointless going on a run in EV, after 20 miles or so its depleted. There is a save button which stops EV being used, so you can go on a run on petrol, then when in a town switch to EV or let the car decide. You don't even know when the car is changing from EV to petrol, totally seamless.

 

[poormansporsche]

Does there come a time where the extra BHP added by the battery ceases to exist?

That would piss me off no end.

I should imagine so. Also on the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV the petrol fuel tank is half the size of the normal petrol tank to make room for the battery. No wonder the old ones are filling up the scrap yards ....

 

[Skd884]

Our i3 does circa 180 warm weather miles for circa £2.98

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Two further issues to consider.

Will you actually plug the thing in every night? It’s been long discussed for the BMW hybrids that most of their hybrid drivers don’t plug in at night and only use the hybrid bit as tax efficient company cars.

With an EV, you effectively only plug in once a week, or before a long journey. (Tbh my EV owning friends note that it’s a “blue job” only done by the husband.)

Secondly, if the ICE cuts in and out, is it warming up properly? And if the electric motor is doing all the work, are there issues in leaving the ICE, and its brakes unused, for long periods of time?

 

[chic0821]

Secondly, if the ICE cuts in and out, is it warming up properly? And if the electric motor is doing all the work, are there issues in leaving the ICE, and its brakes unused, for long periods of time?

It does warm up properly as it will mainly run on ICE until the car decides that it's warmed up even though you have pressed the EV button. I can only vouch for Range Rover here, but imagine all PHEV's are the same
As an example on my travels yesterday, even though I pressed EV at the start, the first part of my journey was 4.4 miles & EV distance was 1.9 miles. The last part of the journey was 4.5 miles & EV distance was 4.1 miles
Regarding the brakes, they work as a normal ICE car even in EV, unlike full EV vehicle, where the electric motor works like a brake when powering down
I plug it in usually when its down to around 8 miles range as my granny charger is on low cost between midnight & 5.0 am. It will fully charge in that time period. If I let it go lower, it probably charged to around 80% in that time. As I usually let the car decide when to use EV its only plugged in around twice a week. That is why I said 50 mile range would be my sweet spot as it would only be charging once a week.
Unlike the S63 that cannot pass a filling station without wanting to visit, The Range Rover can go for weeks without a visit

 

[190]

The worry with using a PHEV for short journeys, electric every time, is that the battery goes through a heavy charge-discharge cycle every day, likely from 100% to, say, 10%. That will wear it out quite quickly, with 1000 full charges in less than five years. The post about a 7-year-old car having worn out its battery sounds highly plausible.

In contrast, a full EV doing 15 miles per day will only need charging once per week, and the battery can be kept in the less stressful 80% to 20% range, so would last much, much longer.

I assume that software would actually prevent a 100% to 10% discharge cycle and keep it instead to a maximum of 80:20 but even then it's inevitably going to see many more cycles than a pure EV. So hats off to the likes of Toyota who seem to be able to make the battery last a long time under those arduous conditions.

The thing I would have against buying a PHEV is that with care you can get astonishing mpg out of a much cheaper, simpler and lighter ICE like my 1.5 Golf EVO with cylinder deactivation.

Last week I did one of my many regular trips across the M62 and up to York. There was a fairly strong tail wind blowing in just the right direction. The cumulative MPG display read 81 MPG for the trip. On the way back without the tailwind the cumulative display read 70mpg. I don't expect the readout is accurate but it still did a real 72.7 MPG average based on the last lot of fuel put in the tank and every refill of the tank so far has exceeded 60 MPG.

With economy like that why would I want the complexity of a PHEV or a diesel.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

It does warm up properly as it will mainly run on ICE until the car decides that it's warmed up even though you have pressed the EV button. I can only vouch for Range Rover here, but imagine all PHEV's are the same
As an example on my travels yesterday, even though I pressed EV at the start, the first part of my journey was 4.4 miles & EV distance was 1.9 miles. The last part of the journey was 4.5 miles & EV distance was 4.1 miles
Regarding the brakes, they work as a normal ICE car even in EV, unlike full EV vehicle, where the electric motor works like a brake when powering down
I plug it in usually when its down to around 8 miles range as my granny charger is on low cost between midnight & 5.0 am. It will fully charge in that time period. If I let it go lower, it probably charged to around 80% in that time. As I usually let the car decide when to use EV its only plugged in around twice a week. That is why I said 50 mile range would be my sweet spot as it would only be charging once a week.
Unlike the S63 that cannot pass a filling station without wanting to visit, The Range Rover can go for weeks without a visit

That's interesting. I believe that both the Mercedes and BMW hybrid systems allow the car to be driven in electric mode until a high speed is reached, or battery drain becomes significant.

Again with both Mercedes and BMW hybrids, slowing down is achieved by recycling energy into the battery, which means less use of the brakes. it can be varied, according to taste, but "good hybrid driving style" means less braking via brake pads and more braking via the electric motor.

It's great that you plug your hybrid every time you get back from a trip. That's certainly not what happens to most of the EV's who live round my way. And that's why the Government removed the hybrid company car tax break once they realised that most company car drivers weren't actually charging every night.

Doesn't the S63 have a 350 mile petrol tank range? If you're filling it every time you pass a filling station, you must be living somewhere very rural.

Autocar reckoned that the Range Rover's 70 litre petrol tank gave it a 430 mile real world range. As you say, if you're plugging it in once a week, that must give you an extra 40 miles a week to play with. Call it a visit to the petrol station once a month, after 590 miles, which is fine if you're only doing 7,000 miles a year. With an EV, you'd easily be able to charge the EV once a week and never visit a petrol station, or even a commercial charger away from home.

Autocar got 27mpg from the Range Rover over its 15,000 mile use, 25 pence / mile which is very impressive from a 3 litre engine. (Excluding the electricity cost, of course) But is it really that efficient?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I assume that software would actually prevent a 100% to 10% discharge cycle and keep it instead to a maximum of 80:20 but even then it's inevitably going to see many more cycles than a pure EV. So hats off to the likes of Toyota who seem to be able to make the battery last a long time under those arduous conditions.

The thing I would have against buying a PHEV is that with care you can get astonishing mpg out of a much cheaper, simpler and lighter ICE like my 1.5 Golf EVO with cylinder deactivation.

Last week I did one of my many regular trips across the M62 and up to York. There was a fairly strong tail wind blowing in just the right direction. The cumulative MPG display read 81 MPG for the trip. On the way back without the tailwind the cumulative display read 70mpg. I don't expect the readout is accurate but it still did a real 72.7 MPG average based on the last lot of fuel put in the tank and every refill of the tank so far has exceeded 60 MPG.

With economy like that why would I want the complexity of a PHEV or a diesel.

I think you miss the point here. A Golf will always be more fuel efficient. It doesn't look like a brick, and it's not designed to go through rivers and up cliffs.

The economy issue is why not have a 3.0 litre diesel Range Rover doing 38mpg, rather than a petrol hybrid which has a tenuous 27mpg plus the cost of electricity?

(Leave aside for a moment the horrendous depreciation on these £130k motors)

 

[chic0821]

Doesn't the S63 have a 350 mile petrol tank range? If you're filling it every time you pass a filling station, you must be living somewhere very rural.

Figure of speech Just seems like the fuel gauge goes down at the same rate the rev counter goes up
It does regenerate back to the battery when on the overrun or braking, but its pretty negligible, only notice it on the instrument cluster, never on battery capacity. Compared to my previous normal Range Rover when going down a hill off throttle, there is a slight difference in the freewheeling effect, the PHEV is slightly slower (battery regen) shows on instrument cluster, but not a lot. Certainly would never slow down like a full EV to the point of not needing the brakes. Drives as a normal ICE

 

[BTB 500]

I assume that software would actually prevent a 100% to 10% discharge cycle and keep it instead to a maximum of 80:20 but even then it's inevitably going to see many more cycles than a pure EV. So hats off to the likes of Toyota who seem to be able to make the battery last a long time under those arduous conditions.

That's because they (Toyota/Lexus) have largely stuck with 'old tech' (but more robust) NiMH cells for the (relatively small) batteries in their hybrids.