Viewing 23 posts - 81 through 103 (of 103 total)
  • Half decent hybrid SUV?
  • bainbrge
    Full Member

    Don’t think you understand how petrol engines work. They are more efficient at wide throttle and low revs, not ‘overstressed’. And most parallel hybrids have 80-100bhp petrol engines when they only need 30bhp or so to power them along, so aren’t overstressed in the least. Even my now venerable Prius cruises at nice low revs on the motorway, but that’s cos of the wide range of effective gear ratios available from the HSD transmission you don’t appear to know much about.

    And the batteries need not be empty – the ones with a big enough battery, you can drive on petrol until you get to a town in the middle of your journey, then switch to electric as you sit in a traffic jam, then back to petrol. So pretty useful.

    Yes I used the wrong word in overstressed. My point was that the hypothetical Mitsubishi PHEV driver thinks he’s going to get 180mpg and save the planet. If he drives well within the capacity of the battery then happy days (like maybe Simon above). If he schleps it up and down the motorways for work – which I assume is common for many getting this car cheap on a company car scheme, then he’s probably driving a two tonne vehicle with a petrol engine, and getting 18mpg (I haven’t checked what car true mpg so may be wrong). A vehicle that would probably have been half a tonne lighter without the battery and hence burned less fuel.

    The Prius I have much more time for, maybe as it’s lighter? Seems to get truly good mpg.

    winston
    Free Member

    Molgrips,please don’t be so patronising.

    if you drive a BEV you tend to keep up with the forums that relate to them. I therefore am fully aware of how expensive various parts of these cars are to fix if they break, especially Renault Zoe which have a fantastically high failiure rate. Tesla are crazy prices as well. Even Leaf’s which are generally very reliable can break and typical HV repair cost is 2-3k.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Molgrips,please don’t be so patronising.

    I don’t mean to be. I just want to talk about cars. Don’t project a patronising tone of voice on me 🙂 I spent a lot of time on the Prius forums when I got mine – didn’t see many horror stories there, so it’s not universal. I was mainly talking about Jam who seemed to be talking about hybrids in general.

    Let’s not forget that a browse of diesel forums will also produce lots of £2k horror stories. Interested in the links though. Curious to see what fails.

    If he schleps it up and down the motorways for work – which I assume is common for many getting this car cheap on a company car scheme, then he’s probably driving a two tonne vehicle with a petrol engine, and getting 18mpg (I haven’t checked what car true mpg so may be wrong).

    They do about 30mpg on petrol only, with a mix of petrol and electricity they do 60 ish. According to my mate who has one.

    A vehicle that would probably have been half a tonne lighter

    Bout 230kg ish from what I can tell.

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    winston
    Free Member

    Ha sorry mol. But I do know exactly what is under the hood!

    Yes Toyota hybrids are VERY reliable, especially the 2nd gen Prius that was overengineered as it needed public acceptance and multiple failiures would have been catastrophic for the new HSD development.
    Same with the Ampera which is a genius car and almost never breaks despite being very complicated.

    Its a tradgedy we haven’t got the Chevvy Bolt over here as it would solve most people’s issue of range v cost. It costs 35k USD and does a real world 200 miles on one charge. It doesn’t look too bad either

    And it does 0-60 in 6 sec….

    molgrips
    Free Member

    But I do know exactly what is under the hood!

    Please excuse me, as most people don’t have a clue 🙂

    Its a tradgedy we haven’t got the Chevvy Bolt over here as it would solve most people’s issue of range v cost. It costs 35k USD and does a real world 200 miles on one charge.

    That does look good. If it turns profitable, then we I’m sure we’ll see it or similar. The American market can drive adoption elsewhere. I think the Prius was developed for that market because there were almost no diesels, and we only got it because why not.

    Comparable to BMW i3 though? Which seem to be popular here.

    winston
    Free Member

    Unfortunately the i3 BEV will only do 100 miles max and the REX is no real solution with a silly moped engine out back – not really the solution we are looking for. Plus its only a 4 seater and its looks are very devisive

    jonnyboi
    Full Member

    A mitusbishi phev will do around 28-30 miles max on electric, as long as you stay below sixty and avoid the hills.

    If you are doing any kind of distance run at speed, after the battery has expired you are looking at 30mpg ish or even less.

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    I’d contest there is no such thing as a decent SUV.

    Barring it’s appalling fuel consumption I really like the SUV I have (a petrol Mazda CX-7) to the extent that it’s not the easiest to replace as all the alternatives are either too slow, too small or too expensive.

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    Why do people with hybrids want to use the battery first? Why not let the car use it for what it’s best suited for?

    The people i work with who drive hybrids are getting (real) 50-60mpg by just sticking it in hybrid mode and driving.

    General public seem to get 10-15mpg less, by sticking it in electric mode until it runs out, then driving round with the fuel engine running until the battery recharges.

    If you are commuting any distance, or at any speed, the plug in charge really doesn’t give enough range/performance to offset the terrible fuel consumption you get once the battery is empty.

    jonnyboi
    Full Member

    It depends how the car lets you do it. In the Mitsubishi it will prioritise electricity usage unless you hit the ‘save’ button. So you can keep your charge until you hit city traffic and use the engine on the motorway or A road.

    But if you are doing 100 miles, whatever happens 70-75 miles of that will be mostly petrol.

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    I’ll have to go out and have another play in it. Last time i drove it it certainly wasn’t prioritizing electric mode. It was switching between them based on load/speed.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    If you are doing any kind of distance run at speed, after the battery has expired you are looking at 30mpg ish or even less.

    Yes but you can control how the battery gets used, as I said above.

    But if you are doing 100 miles, whatever happens 70-75 miles of that will be mostly petrol.

    But that could make a huge boost to economy if the remaining 25-30 miles is a series of huge traffic jams. That could get you across London.

    If you share the OP’s usage profile, you will be using vastly less petrol per year in one of these things, even if the petrol you are using is at 30mpg.

    Kryton57
    Full Member

    Decision made, we’ve found the perfect car. SUV, Haldex 4WD for those difficult bike-race-car-park-in-a-field moments, 44mpg, diesel. Cost = £400

    What is it? Why its our current Kuga, with the £400 used for an after market tow bar and Thule rack for Mrs K to be able to manage the kids bikes.

    Job done cheaply. Perhaps not the E-school run vehicle we wanted, but an experiment this morning results in a tick in the box that our youngest 4yo is now capable of riding to school when she starts in September so it won’t get used much for that.

    Things like a 1.4 3008/Tiguan might do but I’m not spending 30k on one for 5000 miles a year max in town so we’ll wait a year and see what crops up second hand.

    aP
    Free Member

    Another recursive K57 thread….

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I think you’re getting it, Kryton.

    Rockape63
    Free Member

    Another recursive K57 thread….

    I had to look up ‘recursive’! 😕

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    A mitusbishi phev will do around 28-30 miles max on electric, as long as you stay below sixty and avoid the hills.

    Colleague at work gets max 20 miles electric on his Mitsubishi, and roughly 30mpg overall.

    My avergae in my 3 series PHEV is now up to 55mpg (above the old 320d I had). Averages about 15 miles on electric. Motorway journeys are some where between 40/45mg @ 80ish. 8 year battery warranty.

    Listened to an interesting Radio 4 article about battery powered cars, and they said they are not more eco than petrol/diesel as they require precious metals for the batteries.

    fifeandy
    Free Member

    And for those that missed it, the precious metals for the batteries are acquired like this:
    http://news.sky.com/story/meet-dorsen-8-who-mines-cobalt-to-make-your-smartphone-work-10784120

    Nico
    Free Member

    Listened to an interesting Radio 4 article about battery powered cars, and they said they are not more eco than petrol/diesel as they require precious metals for the batteries.

    Unfortunately, words like “green” and “eco” are too vague, hence the mass confusion of diesel car owners who feel under attack for their pollution levels.

    Apart from the NOx “kill the kids down the road” vs greenhouse gasses “kill the planet for the kids down the road” dichotomy, there’s also the problem with buying a Prius from Japan and shipping it over vs. running your old gas-guzzler. A lot of cars are trying to save weight by using aluminium but that is very energy intensive (https://recyclenation.com/2010/11/aluminum-extraction-recycling-environment/) and so it goes. Best buy a bike I reckon. It makes you happy, too.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I had to look up ‘recursive’!

    Google recursion.

    It says ‘did you mean recursion?

    molgrips
    Free Member

    there’s also the problem with buying a Prius from Japan and shipping it over vs. running your old gas-guzzler

    Yes but as you point out it’s increasingly complex because the Prius factory in Japan (at least the old one – there’s now one in the US) has loads of solar panels and purifies the water it uses and so on – and the car has loads of recycled and recyclable stuff in it.

    And re aluminium – a lot of smelting is done next to hydroelectric dams because it’s cheaper – but also clean. But a lot probably isn’t too.

    aP
    Free Member

    Bugger – so my C220 which has an aluminium body, a diesel engine and is averaging over 55mpg is bad then? Annoyingly my little discrete magnetic GB sticker won’t stick to the back of it.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Annoyingly my little discrete magnetic GB sticker won’t stick to the back of it.

    Glue piece of steel on the other side of the boot lid 🙂

Viewing 23 posts - 81 through 103 (of 103 total)

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