While we're on hybrids...and not dissimilar to the OPs requirements
Does anyone make a mid sized hybrid estate that can reliably do a real world 30 miles mixed driving on battery and tow a 750kg trailer with a 90kg nose weight? That's family friendly money?
If I could get 40 mpg on a long run with the trailer, a 20mile mixed driving commute on battery (with a few miles to spare for future degradation of batteries) and 55+mpg on a long journey with no bike and roof racks I could be really tempted.
Anything with any kind of towing capacity seems to be some fugly SUV based thing or posh marque mega bucks SUV BEV or more commonly both.
At the moment ICE (and probably diesel at that) is still looking to my non expert eyes the best solution if your driving includes a number of longer heavily loaded trips. Anyone want to disabuse me? 100k Tesla's and Jags don't tick my "family friendly pricing" box
Can the BMW 330e ?
Does anyone make a mid sized hybrid estate that can reliably do a real world 30 miles mixed driving on battery and tow a 750kg trailer with a 90kg nose weight?
I have considered a Passat GTE for towing purposes. It might not complete that entire journey on battery but you could just run the engine for part of it as my colleague does, and you'd still save a battery's worth of petrol.
I would also sell the car and buy the cheapest Diesel you can find. If your last few miles is in traffic, park up and ride in. It doesn’t sound like the PHEV is worth the investment.
It might not complete that entire journey on battery but you could just run the engine for part of it as my colleague does
It only has a battery range of 45 ish miles in perfect conditions. I’d reckon 20 ish max with a caravan on the back. That won’t get you far on your holiday
Now this is a really interesting thread...
I'm in the process of moving about 24k away from where I currently live/work/schools....
I can ride that on my own, fine..
But i'll be ferrying kids back and forth etc etc...
At present I'm driving a 14 year old 2L TDI octavia... I love it... If i take the roof racks off, can get about 44-46mpg in it (not great, i know)..
I really fancy a leccy car for the commute (as at present i don't use the car at all really...i only live a few KM from work/school so we cycle).
However, I KNOW that i'd get pennies for my car (which still works fine), and would have to drop many ££ on a new leccy/hybrid... I jsut really DON'T think the finances would add up...
DrP
The finances dont add up at the moment, new Eve are extremely expensive, the second hand markets non existent (and who would want to trust a 1st gen battery). The saving in running costs does not outweigh the pirchase price, yet. That point will come, maybe in another 3 years time, lots of EVs are lease vehicles so many bought in the last 18 months will hit the second hand market, fuel and cost of driving ICE vehicles will only increase. If you can charge at home, the economics will start to stack up. For the other 50% of the population driving is going to get real expensive using ICE vehicles, using public chargers will always be more expensive than charging at home and I can't see EV prices getting below 10k for a long time.
Hydrogen fuel cells are the long term answer blended with EVs, I think we're still 10 years off hydrogen hitting the street commercially but it coming.
Hydrogen fuel cells are the long term answer blended with EVs, I think we’re still 10 years off hydrogen hitting the street commercially but it coming.
Producing hydrogen from electricity and burning it in a fuel cell is a lot less efficient than charging and discharging a battery. The best that can be achieved with hot hydrolysis is 79% and the reality is usually much lower. Cold hydrolysis is much worse. Then there's the inefficiency of the fuel cell and motor:
According to the US Department of Energy Hydrogen Program, a standard fuel car with a combustion engine runs at around 20 per cent efficiency, whereas vehicles that run using hydrogen fuel cells are around 40 to 60 per cent efficient.
Then you have to transport and store stuff thats leaks through metal. That requires specific infrastructure.
BEVs beat hydrogen vehicles hands down on efficiency.
According to the US Department of Energy Hydrogen Program, a standard fuel car with a combustion engine runs at around 20 per cent efficiency
With traditional tech, maybe, but there's a lot more fancy stuff available now. Toyota have a petrol engine with nearly 40%, then there's stuff like Mazda Skyactiv and the Fiat twin-air. And diesels can be higher still of course.
BEVs far higher efficiency than ICE though of course.
Hydrogen fuel cells are the long term answer blended with EVs
I don't think so. We'd need a whole new infrastructure, with a load of problems, but the BEV infrastructure is already there in most cases. Figuring out on-street charging is going to be a far far easier and cheaper task than creating a national hydrogen fuelling network.
Checked the cost of my first charge on new rates this am, 36Kw was just under £7.49 so I was right guessing £15 for a full charge. I’ll get a minimum of 120 miles with that a max of about 180 and easily 150. It’s due a software update which supposedly as 10% range but we’ll see.
Hydrogen fuel cells are the long term answer blended with EVs, I think we’re still 10 years off hydrogen hitting the street commercially but it coming.
Nope never going to happen. From electricity generation to wheel fuel cell is only about 30% efficient whereas BEV is 80-85% efficient generation to wheel. Plus you have the complexity of the hydrogen supply chain with cryogenic and high pressure tanks and pumps.
There are much more valuable things to do with any green hydrogen such as steel and fertiliser manufacture rather than waste it in cars
So I have a golf GTE and had it for nearly two years now.
I bought it as my commute is 12 miles the idea is drive to work on petrol (using combustion engine by product of heat in mornings) and home on electric.
Night time charged to 90% in the morning says 22 mile range.
In the winter I can't get home on a charge combination of cold batteries and heater eats into the charge.
For the last week though been getting home with +10 miles range left.
For me it works my fuel bill dropped by a half and electric bill barley increased.
The combustion engine is good but my god it likes petrol. For example went to Silverstone a few weeks ago had to rush there managed 35mpg, came back at 60-70mph managed 57mpg.
Think of it as an inverse diesel good on small journeys not so hot on motorways.
On motorways have it fully charged and use hybrid mode, you’ll get high 60s low 70s.
It's not about the efficiency of hydrogen or the green credentials (although if it's created through purely renewables which is the hypothesis with EVs efficiency it isn't such an issue), its about the grid infrastructure in the UK at local level. Actually putting in Hydrogen filling stations will be a lot easier than sorting the aging cable network buried in the streets. This wasn't my opinion by the way, it came from a commercial company who put in new commercial power feeds into properties. The cost and complexity of putting the supplies into lots of normal car parks is immense.
Actually putting in Hydrogen filling stations will be a lot easier than sorting the aging cable network buried in the streets.
Hmm opinions do seem to vary on that, I have seen the opposite being expressed.
There was a white paper from someone (VW boss??) that I cannot find now, it pointed out the energy losses from simply compressing the hydrogen to ship it around in tankers is pretty big. And that's on top of the other issues with handling it.
Even if you can compress hydrogen to 800 bar which takes a lot of energy and is going to be hard to transport, it's still a third the energy density of petrol so would need 3x the fuel tankers on the roads.
Good thread, this as currently have a large engined diesel, which is great for long drives but not so, for the 12mile commute.
Thinking PHEV is the way to go but boy are they expensive and you’re restricted to SUV’s for any decent battery range, ie Rav4, mazda etc.
Good thread, this as currently have a large engined diesel, which is great for long drives but not so, for the 12mile commute.
Why not?
And what's "large"?
3l 300hp diesel, takes ages to warm up, so it’s quite inefficient on a short 12mile commute.