Anyone got one?

My current car is several years old and I start a job at the end of the month which means I will be travelling 100 miles per day a few times per week. I normally buy and keep my cars for around 5 years so in 6 months I will be looking to renew. The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV looks a good deal and on the face of it would significantly reduce my traveling costs.

Thoughts??

Seem to remember reading somewhere that the Mitsubishi wasn’t that cheap in the real world to run. If it’s only a commuter car why not go for a small frugal petrol/diesel car initial outlay costs are much less too!

couple of work colleagues have the Mitsubishi. Makes great sense as a company car due low tax, I think they get mid 40’s mpg in real world, and a grant funded plug in point installed at home. Also free parking in designated bays in Glasgow, which are currently hardly used.

I would just stick to a diesel or a moden small petrol turbo most give better MPG in the real world then the hybrids.
If your keeping it for 5 years then most will be out of warranty and the battery packs are not cheap when they fail and just because there’s more in hybrids there more to go wrong and you local garage may struggle with them.

One of my neighbours has the Mitsu. Plugs it in overnight, drives to work on a sniff of petrol. The trip computer averages early 100’s mpg.

Not so good on a long trip, but horses for courses. He also can turn the heater on with his phone so it’s all nicley defrosted in the cold mornings.

Compared to a Prius it’s a generation apart.

And as mentioned above, the Co car tax saving is huge, but without the hairshirt. Good in the snow, too. I like it.

Thanks for the replies. I am leaving a company car scheme so wont get that benefit and I am interested in the “real world” figures which are often significantly different!

So who pays for the electricity to charge the car ?

The person charging it usually. But it’s buttons compared to the cost of fuel.

I have an older Prius. Stated figures are 56/61/65. I can get 56 in town and 62 ish on the open road, in the summertime. New models are better of course. A small modern diesel might come close, but a Prius is not a small car, and has a decent amount of power. The big win is in town, where the mpg doesn’t drop anything like as much as in a normal car. 60 for me is a decent day, 52 is shocking.

It’s a good car to drive to – very easy indeed. No matter how clumsy the driver is with the pedals it’s always smooth. I’ll definitely be getting another hybrid. I’d have two if they were rated for towing. I might downsize the smaller car to an Auris or even Yaris, if there’s enough of an economy benefit.

I’ve no idea about the Outlander or the Ampera though – the Ampera seems very expensive for what it is. You could also look at the BMW i3 if you want an electric car with a generator. The Outlander seems a bit stupid – create a really economical powertrain and stick it in a car with the aerodynamics of a building. Smart move.

Thanks Molly. I have an estate at the moment so the Outlander would be a replacement and with 2 teenage kids plus camping/biking/dogs its useful to have the extra space so it would be our main family car.
The i3 looks great but as a replacement it is too small.

the VW GTE range (golf and passat) look interesting.
as a company car its almost a no brainer but as a private purchase I’m not so sure.

the new Koenezigger or whatever they are called looks like good hybrid

the Ampera seems very expensive for what it is.

colleague that was about to buy a new car too was trying to convince me to get one.
an Astra loaded with most gadgets, plus 10 years supply of 98 octane still came out cheaper than an Ampera.
that’s ignoring the fact that I can’t plug a car in anywhere, and assumed a total cost of €0.00 for 10 years worth of electrons.
funnily enough, even living just up the road from the Opel factory and an Opel test track in the forest, the only Amperas I’ve ever seen are clearly Opel test cars and a few dealer demo cars.

that colleague bought a brand new Octavia 😉

All the customers that we sell to are to take advantage of tax rules that means they can have a hybrid 2.0 turbo diesel top of the range for the same level of to as a bog standard smaller engine.
The idea is great but battery tech needs to move on for a private buyer to feel any benefit. People’s perseption of how far a car will drive on battery’s alone is WAY WAY lower then they want. And the extra weight and loss of space and increase in repair costs is a factor too.
I’m a huge fan of diesel but the new turbo petrol engines are going to kill diesel/hybrid for the short term future.
1.2 three cylender petrol turbo and 150 BHP from an engine the size of a go kart is impressive. And in most cases huge savings on the purchase price and no difference on economy unless your a 60k per year driver…

I have to take issue with the “there’s more stuff on a hybrid to go wrong” idea.
Hybrids are actually considerably less complex than a modern diesel. They generally use a simple petrol engine so no turbo, dmf, dpf, egr etc to go wrong. The electric parts are very simple and virtually maintenance free. Despite all the scare stories the batteries are very long lasting, both Toyota and Nissan (the biggest sellers of electric and hybrid cars) report extremely low failure rates.
If you want reliability, I would trust hybrid over diesel any day of the week.

The idea is great but battery tech needs to move on for a private buyer to feel any benefit

Don’t think so. An electric range of 30-40 mile is enough for most people’s daily use. That means no petrol at all until you take a trip somewhere. That seems a pretty big change to me.

“1.2 three cylender petrol turbo and 150 BHP from an engine the size of a go kart is impressive”

Yeh and what, 45mpg real world?

They generally use a simple petrol engine so no turbo, dmf, dpf, egr etc to go wrong.

Do they? Most of them seem to be turbo diesels.

The electric parts are very simple and virtually maintenance free.

And yet electrical issues form an ever bigger percentage of all car problems.

Most hybrid cars on the roads are Toyotas and therefore petrol yes. There aren’t many diesel hybrids around actually – I think Peugot, Volvo and now VW do them, and I’ve only ever seen one of those (a Peugot) on the road.

And yet electrical issues form an ever bigger percentage of all car problems.

The traction electrics of a hybrid are nothing like the sensors and ECUs of the normal engine side of things.

Surfer – probably too small for you but there’s an Auris estate hybrid. Oh yeah and for larger size and a much better attempt at aerodynamics there’s the Prius+ which is a sort of Touran type thing but I think a little bigger. I’d bet it has the same sized boot as that Outlander.

always makes me laugh when people argue about How amazing hybrids are quoting Prius and the like and the perceived benefits… Real world Economy is very low and imagine the Economy in our wet/cold country…
When I’ve had to explain to people why they are not getting good milage per charge (fully electric) or poor MPG and hybrid and they look at me in surprise when I explain that lights/heating/heated rear screen/heated seats etc all need to be powered from something and that any electrical load will drastically reduce mpg. Yes the same is true of “normal” cars but obviously much less of an issue in milder climates. Most decent systems use a parallel type I.e Diesel engine powers front wheels and battery powers rear wheels obviously 3 phase charging from an altanator and also charging from rear wheel motors on de acceleration. Believe me it’s much more complex and to make 2 power sources power one vehicle and make the auto gear box changes feel smooth and seamless isn’t “less complex”

Real world Economy is very low

Oh yeah? Imagine the economy? I don’t need to, I have done 100k miles in one.

Believe me it’s much more complex and to make 2 power sources power one vehicle and make the auto gear box changes feel smooth and seamless isn’t “less complex”

Something tells me you don’t actually know how a Prius works – I do. I can explain if you like?

Lexus “works” the way I explained above please correct me if I’m wrong buy a penus works by a small petrol engine running almost constantly to recharge the battery.

It depends enormously on where, and how, you drive.
In town, with lots of stop start driving, hybrids are very efficient.
Thrashing down a motorway – extremely inefficient.
As for diesel hybrids – as molgrips pointed out there are very few. They are also either pretty poor (Volvo and Peugeot – read the reviews) or large diesel cars with a small hybrid system purely to make co2 figures look better (Mercedes and land rover).

If I happened to be looking for a new hybrid, I’d be looking at the Lexus CT200h. Nice looking, nice spec sheet, not massive £££££’s

Not quite chrisdiesel.

“Toyota has pioneered what is called the ‘full’ hybrid system, which uses two separate powerplants – battery-powered electric motor and petrol-driven combustion engine. Each of these can power the car alone, or in combination. This is the world’s most popular hybrid system and has sold well over six million units since it was first launched in Japan in August 1997.”
Prius is 1.8 vvt

But I am sure lack of knowledge won’t stop you.

please correct me if I’m wrong

Lexus and Toyota system (also licensed to Ford afaik) is both a parallel and series hybrid or a combination of both. Petrol engine alone can drive the wheels, or electric, or both, or the petrol engine can recharge the battery and drive wheels. All done with a system of fixed gears.

There’s no actual gear shifting transmission either manual or automatic. It’s all done with the flow of electrical or kinetic energy. The heart of it is a planetary gear system with the sun in the middle attached to a motor/generator, the planet carrier attached to the engine and a ring gear around the outside attached to the wheels and a second motor generator. It’s absolute genius. There’s a demonstration on this page that shows how it works – play with the sliders to see what happens at different loads and speeds.

Thrashing down a motorway – extremely inefficient.

Not true. I get my best MPG on the motorway at 70mph – it’ll be 62mpg in the summertime, which is better than any petrol car of its size I’d bet. And my car’s a 12 year old design. The difference between it and a diesel disappears on the motorway, but that’s not ‘extremely inefficient’ by any stretch.

TAFKSTR – I gave a lift to one of those car delivery guys recently. Got to chatting about cars and of course he’d driven a lot of them. He reckoned the CT200h was awful – harsh ride, crap steering and not fast enough to be sporty despite the image. He thought the Prius was the best hybrid.

Tbh if I wanted a sporty hybrid I’d go for the Honda CR-Z – looks great fun.

Molgrips, genuine question, how do you get such good mpg on the motorway?
Surely, the only time that you’re actually ‘charging’ the battery is when you’re decelerating; if you’re doing, say, a constant 70mph, when does the battery charge?
Or is the motor using energy stored on previous runs?
I suppose my point is – if you’re running a hybrid at a constant speed, for long periods of time, where does the ‘free’ energy come from??

I’m on my second hybrid, first one I had for 4 years with nothing going wrong with it and I averaged 43mpg during that time, I will add it was a 340bhp beastie so I didn’t (couldn’t) hold back on it and drive it too gently. On the second one now which is a lot more sensible 220bhp and best MPG I get is on rolling twisty A/B roads, getting 58mpg on one trip Shrewsbury to Gloucester. On long motorway journeys it averages about 49mpg, it’s just a case of setting the cruise control and relaxing, if you look at the energy display it is constantly either adding a bit of battery power to geartrain or getting a bit of a charge from the engine and/or wheels when the incline dips a bit. As well as cheap car tax brake pads last absolutely ages, got just over 40000 miles out of a set on the first car.

Molgrips, genuine question, how do you get such good mpg on the motorway?

Set cruise to 70, leave it there. Traffic notwithstanding, obv.

Surely, the only time that you’re actually ‘charging’ the battery is when you’re decelerating; if you’re doing, say, a constant 70mph, when does the battery charge?

A petrol engine has to be throttled back to stop it running too fast – this is normally done by closing the throttle valve to restrict air coming in. This is very inefficient as it creates turbulence. The Prius can open the throttle more and divert some of that energy that would be wasted to charging the battery. All without shifting any gears or doing anything mechanical. I did say it was bloody clever 🙂

Also – the engine itself is very efficient, being a pseudo-atkinson cycle meaning that the expansion stroke is longer than the compression stroke. So less hot air comes out of the exhaust and gets wasted.

Another thing is that the effective gear ratio is determined by the ratio of energy being generated by one electric motor and powering the other. So again without changing anything mechanical the gear ratio can be varied through a huge range, much greater than a normal gearbox. So it’s effectively like having a massive top gear that can instantly shift to any other. All with no extra weight. Did I say it was clever 🙂 Cruising on the flat at 70 the engine is probably only doing about 1800 rpm.

It’s a lot more than just a motor bolted onto a petrol engine. Well – the Toyota system is anyway. The Honda system is just that – a motor bolted onto a petrol engine. I know I waffle about it but it’s one of the most brilliant innovations in motoring for many decades, and petrol heads who supposedly like automotive engineering despise the thing.

This is what you need, a Tesla Model S p85d, sadly I was only test driving it but they are awesome and not a drop of petrol!

Have to agree about the gearbox love the CVT couldn’t go back to a normal auto box now.

Cruising on the flat at 70 the engine is probably only doing about 1800 rpm.

So does mine

Erm, it’s a 2.5 tonne, 3 litre V6 housebrick with a 7sp box though 😉

Mind you don’t spill your Costa on the iPad 🙂

If you are travelling 100miles per day, then your average speed much be fairly high (or you are driving ALL day otherwise). As such, that means you are not doing 100miles across town for example. So you want a car that is “low drag” as a priority, because most of the fuel you use will be being used to just push 100miles worth of air out of the way!

I would suggest the smallest turbo diesel that suits your needs!

“hybrids” improve fuel economy by “load leveling” that is they use some sort of electric machine to move the car when the road load is low (ie low speeds), and only use the internal combustion engine when the loads are higher (ie high speeds, due to increasing aero drag).

So, if you only drive mainly at higher speeds, the “hybrid” bit is pointless!

I spent the past 12 months with a Prius as a second car. I loved in through town where you really notice the mpg difference and in stop start traffic on the motorway (althought that’s probably mostly because it’s an auto). Nowhere near as nice to drive as my other car though – also a Toyota. Although I never tired of watching whether the engine was charging the battery, or charging the wheels or the battery was transferring power to the wheels etc. 🙂

When you think that’s a 12 year old car, I’m surprised that the technology doesn’t seemed to have moved on all that much.

So you want a car that is “low drag” as a priority

Guess what the most aerodynamic car on the market is..? (or was when I bought mine!)

So, if you only drive mainly at higher speeds, the “hybrid” bit is pointless!

Yes, but then there’s all the other energy efficient stuff in something like a Prius.

Also you may or may not give a shit about the environment, but making diesel actually creates quite a lot of CO2, so diesels are simply relocating some CO2.

I’m surprised that the technology doesn’t seemed to have moved on all that much.

They sunk a lot of money into the R&D, they are probably still recouperating that. First one was basically a proof of concept, the second was the first mass market, and the third model a stab at a decent car after the technology had been verified and made mainstream. I reckon all their effort now goes on the other hybrid cars.

i for one didnt know that prius’s were that clever. That is good. Why did they make them so butt ugly? I kind of want one now…. kind of

I quite like the fact that they look unlike most other cars.

Why did they make them so butt ugly?

Cos they designed in a lab, not a design studio 🙂

When I change it (not that it needs changing after 100k miles mind) I’ll test drive a hybrid Auris and a Yaris – that can be our short range car then, and we’ll keep a diesel for long distances and towing. Or maybe a turbo petrol.. or if someone brings out a hybrid that can tow and isn’t an SUV.

+1 for the Tesla.

This is what you need, a Tesla Model S p85d, sadly I was only test driving it but they are awesome and not a drop of petrol!

right… where can I plug one in?