The Electric Car Thread

Need to look into what’s involved in a yearly service..if it’s filters and pads, I can do that..

Pads will last years and years. And filters? What? You mean the cabin air filter?

Nice of Nissan to publish this, at least for South Africa (presumably). The only service items are the brake fluid and the cabin filter! Everything else is just inspection.

@andylc ... Checking zapmap it's actually 14p/kw...
Dunno why, but my neighbor reckons it's an odd subsidised bunch of chargers!

DrP

Can I join the club too? After about a 15 month wait my new Q4 Etron turns up next week! Roughly a 50 mile round commute from Glasgow to Prestwick, albeit over a hill with the usual 50 knot headwind. Hoping to get 4, maybe 5 round trips per ‘tank’.
I’m trying to get Octopus to change my tariff to Go, but as I’m currently on Outgoing Octopus (export 15p/kWh) apparently I’m not eligible. I’ll need to do the maths, but it’s significantly cheaper to charge at work so I’ll be doing that for the foreseeable. Anyone with Agile or Intelligent Octopus with an EV finding it beneficial?

Love the idea of an EV but how do you make the economics and practicalities stack up?

I tow regularly, a round trip of 100 to 250 miles typically to places with no charger facilities anywhere vaguely convenient and where going AWOL looking for a charge isn't acceptable/feasible. The general trend on EV range with a trailer from random stuff read is seemingly down c. 30-50% on claimed.

The trailer has the aero properties of a barn door with a couple of big holes in. Most places I stop on the motorway it would need unhitching and parking separately and then to drive the detached car to the charger. That means the trailer has to be parked in the caravan zone and needs adequately securing with a wheel clamp and/or hitch lock before going off to a charger with the car and coming back to reconnect.

Leaving all this aside I did some googling for sensible sized/modest tow cars. Picked up on this article from autumn 2022...

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/top-10-best-electric-cars-towing

I find the Kia EV6. Less capacious than any car I've had in the last decade but maybe we could work with a focus sized hatch so I have a quick crack at the builder tool...

£46000 with no extras (not even metallic paint or a floor mat) other than a tow bar. 15% down and it's over £700 a month. That's £700/month for a car that's going to want a range zapping roof box for every little weekend away (dog in boot) and add a sack load of extra planning and faff to regular / routine trips.

On a domestic plug charging times of 8hrs+ for a full charge (Kia's website isn't very clear on this but I've taken the lowest number of an 8-24 hour range of possibilities) and 3hrs+ on a fast AC public charger unless you've got a grunty DC charger to do the magic 20minute 10 to 80% charge using their 800V platform.

This is the kind of use case that pretty much any £10k mid sized or large ICE estate/MPV/SUV can manage without drama and a lot more convenience but which just doesn't seem to be covered in the EV market remotely adequately.

Genuine question but can someone tell me how on earth you could get this proposition to stack up if you weren't an EV evangelist? Am I missing something?

Not missing anything, for your use case an EV doesn't make a lot of sense. Your use case isn't really that common though.

Anyone with Agile or Intelligent Octopus with an EV finding it beneficial?

Yes, because it was only 7.5p/kWh. And you can use the overnight rate for other stuff like heating water or doing dishes too.

Genuine question but can someone tell me how on earth you could get this proposition to stack up if you weren’t an EV evangelist?

No. Personally I would tow with one, if I could afford a towing one, but I'm only going on holiday in a caravan so it's only a few times a year and, well, I'm on holiday. But for anything work related, it's not ideal.

On a domestic plug charging times of 8hrs+ for a full charge (Kia’s website isn’t very clear on this but I’ve taken the lowest number of an 8-24 hour range of possibilities) and 3hrs+ on a fast AC public charger unless you’ve got a grunty DC charger to do the magic 20minute 10 to 80% charge using their 800V platform.

Hold on. When you're out and about you're only going to be using the fast DC chargers. Ignore everything else. In an EV6 you can charge pretty quickly and on the motorway network your chances of finding a super fast charger are good. However it's not cheap at those rates.

What are you actually towing?

a sack load of extra planning and faff to regular / routine trips.

In what sense, when you aren't towing?

That’s £700/month for a car that’s going to want a range zapping roof box for every little weekend away (dog in boot)

How many of you are there?

I tow regularly

Just forget EVs. They don’t suit your use case yet.

And for people on both sides of the argument…. It’s ok that EVs don’t suit everyone. I don’t buy a two seater sports car because it can’t fit a family of four in. Same reasoning. It’s ok to buy a vehicle that suits what you do with it. I have a four door, long range EV, because it suits what I do with it. I don’t tow, I don’t hang millions of bikes off the back, I don’t have dogs screwing up the inside, I don’t drive to outer Mongolia and back on a daily basis. And if you do, that’s ok, there are plenty of ICE vehicles around that suit those jobs perfectly, and will continue to be around for as long as pretty much all of us here will be driving.

Not missing anything, for your use case an EV doesn’t make a lot of sense. Your use case isn’t really that common though.

I would guess the use case where somebody is towing a trailer to a place where there are absolutely no charge points is in the 0.0000n% so can be ignored. Just use your ICE until fuel is no longer available in 2040.
17 years is a long time and by then I would imagine there would be chargers on that same route...

I've just ordered a Tesla Y as a company car. I went with a Y because it's availability is Feb/Mar, the rear seats fold down nicely, I can get my DH or ebike in comfortably and public charging is strong.

It's the cheapest RWD but range is fine and I don't need a blistering 0-60 as a 45 year old dad of two.

It's 100 miles to my office and we're getting some chargers fitted. When in the office I commute 15 miles from family/friends each way. Business trips will only be to Heathrow/Bristol/Bham airport so I'll just give myself sufficient time.

Obvs BIK is a huge benefit too.

We've got an 11 year old petrol Merc C-class estate for family stuff and an old Transporter T4.

I'm with Ovo Energy at home and to access their smart cheap tariff I need one of their recommended chargers which is a bit poor, but hey-ho.

My fixed rate is up in June.

Any suggestions on next supplier or anyone got a Y and care to share their thoughts?

Cheers

17 years is a long time and by then I would imagine there would be chargers on that same route…

TBH the caravans will have batteries fitted as range extenders by then 🙂

Any suggestions on next supplier or anyone got a Y and care to share their thoughts?

We test drove a Model Y a couple of weeks ago. Got back to the showroom exclaiming "Elon, take our money!" and blagged one that's currently on a ship from Giga Shanghai en route to Blightly, delivery in 3 weeks so excitement mounting. Like you we went for rear wheel drive. 0-60 in 6.5 secs seems pretty blistering to me.

Re electricity supply. We have a Tesla Powerwall and 2 EVs in the household so for us Octopus Go is a no-brainer. Even if you don't have home battery storage if your EV mileage is high enough and you can load shift stuff like washing and dishwasher to nightime Octopus Go might make sense for you.

Thanks I am not being stupid then but do have an awkward subset of requirements. I really like the idea of an EV when the old SMax expires but I think I may still be one more ICE car away from it. By then we should be less constrained by children and their space needs and probably work as well so that would eliminate a lot of issues.

The other main concern for me is trips to family and for work where we are going to be reliant on fast charging at increased prices on the motorway/major road network, which I'm gathering from this thread are pretty expensive. I know this should change in time so it's sit and wait I guess. That and £700 a month 🫣

Love how my ev car drives as well as my current running costs. It is the most relaxing car I've ever driven. Driven 17,000 miles in it's first year with no issues.

Things I've learnt though....

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

Having a loaded car with 4 folk and four bikes on the roof needs to be driven slow and gentle to get anymore than 2 miles per kW.

If you're going to have to charge the car on route then allow at least an hour per charge. Even the rapid chargers rarely operate as quickly as they advertise.

Chargers are getting more expensive and although there are more being installed they don't seem to be keeping up with ev adoption.

You can use an ev as your sole family car but it can be a real pain with all the extra planning and additional charge time required.

I would guess the use case where somebody is towing a trailer to a place where there are absolutely no charge points is in the 0.0000n% so can be ignored.

I don't think it's that low, but I get your point. There are still very few charge points in most of Wales, for example, so anyone towing anything (horse box, caravan, trailer etc) more than 80 miles or so will be concerned. That said, it probably only applies to caravanners since you probably aren't ferrying sheep that far.

But for that there's certainly an advantage to keeping an older diesel running. We do all our local miles in the EV and the diesel estate only comes out for holidays or certain other long trips when it's needed.

Things I’ve learnt though….

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

That's shocking, ours drops nowhere near that. We lose about 30 miles off our max range best to worst case. That would be with four people, but nothing on the roof.

Motorway speed with passengers seems pretty efficient in a Tesla Model 3. Got from Bristol to Liverpool starting at 90%, with 80 miles left, 3 people plus luggage, from memory this would have been a total range of about 300 miles in winter, quoted max range is 348. Didn’t speed but mostly 70-75mph.

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

It's all in the preconditioning.
Plug in overnight, even if you're not going to charge, then get the car ready to go for journey start time. Warm battery, warm cabin.
Then, as long as you're not stupid with the AC, range should be within about 15%. Depending on the car.
TBH, if it's very cold it can improve range to precondition even when you aren't plugged in.

Source:- I, and several others, spent months driving EVs all over the place checking this.

Genuine question but can someone tell me how on earth you could get this proposition to stack up if you weren’t an EV evangelist?

You can't, get a hybrid. Or a diesel.

Speaking of home chargers...
Anyone know anyhting about these:
https://vorsprungofficial.com/products/evwallboxsocket?variant=43288403280099

£299 for a t2 charger seems pretty good... Can get a sparky to fit, and seems much better value than the £900 whatever boxes...
Can use the car to set charging times etc if needed...

DrP

I have to say preconditioning doesn't make a lot of difference in my car that I have noticed. The message is - buy a Hyundai. Or Kia. If you can deal with the bongs and bings.

Didn’t speed but mostly 70-75mph.

Umm, don't want to start a driving argument but 75mph IS speeding...

Can get a sparky to fit, and seems much better value than the £900 whatever boxes…

Well, an Ohme charger lets you use Intelligent Octopus for cheap charging at any time (if you don't have one of their supported cars). Other deals may not be as cheap for the leccy. So it may not be cheaper depending on what tariff you can get.

so life's complicated eh!!

Octopus energy IS cheaper during the night..but 10p/kwh MORE at all other times (than my current utility warehouse)...

Night rate (23:30 - 05:30):

10p / kWh
Day rate (05:30 - 23:30):

43.4p / kWh
Standing charge:

41.13p / day

I'm currently paying 33p/kwh...
So all daytime activities will be 10p more, but charging the car will be £9 cheaper per time (£4ish vs £13ish!)... So I reckon i'll need to have a good look at our current tarrif and useage!
Will also need a fancy ohme charger...

Will do some research!

DrP

Umm, don’t want to start a driving argument but 75mph IS speeding…

Not if you use the 10% rule, but otherwise yes touché…

Octopus energy IS cheaper during the night..but 10p/kwh MORE at all other times

Yes that was the factor when I had to jump for a new energy deal - both wife and I work at home a lot and so I calculated the 4-5 hour low rate saving (admittedly my car charger's a slow old 3.2kw one) was no where near enough to offset day time use.

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

I find mine ( iX3) is near its most efficient , sat at around 67mph on the motorway, with brake regen switched off

Octopus energy IS cheaper during the night..but 10p/kwh MORE at all other times

It is, but we schedule our diswasher, washing machine and hot water overnight, which saves a fair bit and the savings on the driving pay for nearly our entire leccy bill.

I made a spreadsheet for it - you have to drive more than about 5-6k pa to break even I think but that's even without taking off the savings from scheduling washing etc.

Not if you use the 10% rule

There isn't a 10% rule.

🙂

Podpoint works with Octopus, ours is a bog standard podpoint unit and it 'talks' to intelligent octopus without any issue.

There's loads on ebay cheap if you wanted to go down that route. (Get a tethered one)

Safe to say that driving mostly at 70mph or just under I am one of the slower vehicles on the motorway. Which wasn’t your pint I know! Anyway…not sure about the preconditioning comment. For me this would involve spending money at normal tariff rate and I doubt the benefit would outweigh the increased cost compared to using the electricity at EV rate in the middle of the night.

andylc
Free Member
Motorway speed with passengers seems pretty efficient in a Tesla Model 3. Got from Bristol to Liverpool starting at 90%, with 80 miles left, 3 people plus luggage, from memory this would have been a total range of about 300 miles in winter, quoted max range is 348. Didn’t speed but mostly 70-75mph.

This is a topic close to my heart at the moment. My Megane has a WLTP measured range of 280 miles from it's 60KW battery - but the most miles remaining I've seen on a full charge according to the trip meter is 220 so far. I get that it might improve as it gets warmer and I've definitely seen an increase as I've changed my driving style - but the range remaining bit on the Megane seems to be a bit inaccurate too. It's only me driving it and I take the same route at the same time with similar traffic.

I charged up at work on Monday, the car showed 219mi remaining on 100%. The return trip is 40 miles, on Tues it showed 156mi remaining on 78%. Today it's 107 mi remaining on 54%. Question is, will I manage to get to Friday before charging again or will I have to top up on Thurs?

The nice thing about the Megane is rapid charging. The ones at work are 22kw but I have used a 150kw DC charger a couple of times - the Megane will take 130kwDC. I do plug it in at home occasionally to a 3 pin plug but that's only for emergencies as it's so slooooow.

You need a smarter car, charge up on low rate, precondition on the stored energy.

And yes, if you're doing shorter journeys, precondtioning will cost you. If you're going further, it will save you money, you have to work out where the break even is for you.

I have to say preconditioning doesn’t make a lot of difference in my car that I have noticed. The message is – buy a Hyundai. Or Kia. If you can deal with the bongs and bings.

Or live in South Wales where it gets really cold every winter /s

You'll need sustained sub zero temps, you know, actually *cold*, or to leave the car for an extended period, i know some cars actually have internal mechanisms to prevent the battery cooling, depending on how charged the battery is and if you're connected to power or not. Switch on the heater and pump the coolant round for some time. Almost like the frost setting on a radiator

There’s loads on ebay cheap if you wanted to go down that route. (Get a tethered one)

Cool..will look..

(DrP also considers ripping a fellow MTBers Podpoint off the wall too...!)

DrP

Not if you use the 10% rule

There isn’t a 10% rule.

indeed but if we are going to be pedantic indicated 70 isnt 70......

You need a smarter car, charge up on low rate, precondition on the stored energy.

On intelligent octopus all the energy that goes into the car is at the low rate even if it's during the day. Including preconditioning at 8am.

So I reckon i’ll need to have a good look at our current tarrif and useage!

I had the same dilemma and estimated that if we switched all our EV charging, DW and WM use to nights we could reduce our electric bill about 10%. But realistically we won’t quite manage to always do these things at night, so there wasn’t much in it either way for us.

Maybe if you charged the EV more often it would be a more attractive proposition.

Ok have a 2017 zoe and an evie charger at home. Set it to charge at 10pm to start charge at 2pm, cheap rate, constantly does not charge. It appears the trickle charge drops out I think.

Any suggestions

I find on Octopus Go we get about 35-45% of our electricity use into the off-peak period. Car charging, dishwasher every night (delay by a couple of hours) and try to do washing machine loads at night too.

re: towing, I think it's PHEV all the way right now assuming your everyday use is in that nice <30 miles per day average that they do well at. Still get a lot of the EV benefits, hardly use any fuel day to day, but can do the long, towing trips without fuss. Something like an Outlander PHEV will do 1500kg, the big SUVs all do 2000+.

Karnali:
We have a Zoe and a Tesla and run both on the 4 hours per night cheap charging, as well as water heating, dishwasher and washing machine. Zoe has no problem with scheduled charging in the night.
Are you running the schedule via the car or the charger. I leave the cars on immediate charging and then schedule the charge with the app for the home charger - in our case a Zappi charger. Seems to work fine every time.
Maybe if you are scheduling from the car it is confusing the charger? Just a guess I should add!

Our EV comes later this year, through Tusker, as per previous posts. The Easee charger was installed a few weeks back. We are on Scottish Power standard tariff, which is about 30p I think. We use a load of power, as at least one of the 4 of us in or WFH during day. I can see the car doing around 300 miles in an average week so likely a couple of charges/part charges.

Not sure whether a switch to cheaper night rate/more costly day rate will save us money. Not prepared to set up dishwasher and washing machine for night running due fire risk when we are asleep.

My reckoning spreadsheet, comparing current diesel car to the EV has a monthly saving of £60 on fuel, which is not much more than a guess based on approx 300 miles/£60 of diesel a week, so £240 a month.

Keen for thoughts on my estimates, and on tariff options.

Something like an Outlander PHEV will do 1500kg, the big SUVs all do 2000+.

We looked at the Outlander but the electric only range was abysmal and made it totally unworkable. If it was short enough to work on the battery I'd more likely be on a bike or bus. My commute is 20miles each way but slow going so you'd probably want 30 of electric mileage to make it work. Plenty of charging near the office and I assume I'd manage 30 miles worth from a home charge each night. I only need 750kg of towing capacity with 75-90kg of nose weight. Maybe we are hovering around a Passat GTE or similar. I can't quite work out if a PHEV estate would also work out better than an ICE for the longer motorway trips to family etc. It's mainly idle musings at the minute as we're a way off making the leap but I'm learning from others on here far more than from the marketing bs.

I had an Outlander PHEV, it’s max range when fully charged on a hot day never exceeded 30 miles. Then at motorway speeds it dropped quickly. Doubt you’d tow for long on electric only!

So I have this to play with until Friday. I40 eDrive40 M Sport with Tech and Pro packs.

63 grand and it doesn’t even have electric seats and lumbar support was an option apparently…. Will report back after I’ve done some miles.

Keen to hear the feedback. Mine, whenever it arrives, is the base white version, only upgrades being leather and towball. Think it has cool blue trim tho … 😁

Not sure there’s a great deal of point having an EV tariff unless you maximise the benefit. Fire risk seems a bizarre reason not to run them at night.

63 grand and it doesn’t even have electric seats and lumbar support was an option apparently

🤯 I suppose that’s always been the BMW way - enticing base price, bump it up on extras?

Tesla have a model 3 Performance + enhanced autopilot at £62,000. Biggest drawback is saloon rather than hatchback though. Nippier than the M40. Did I read right on the BMW website - 5.7s 0-60? That is about the acceleration of the rear-wheel-drive Model 3 and that’s £52,000.

Still, if the BMW is what you like go for it.

@bensales - I'll be interested to hear how you get on - that's almost identical to my car that should finally be arriving in two months time (just mine doesn't have the pro pack).

Re the lack of kit yes it agree - the stuff that they are getting away with making optional is nuts - same with Audi and Merc.

Re the comparison to a Model 3, having driven both the BMW is in my view a much better car. Yes the M3 is quicker in a straight line but the BMW is still bloody quick (actually a little quicker than claimed - more like 5-5.1 secs to 60) and drives and handles much better, plus cabin quality is head and shoulders better. The BMW is missing some kit but more than makes up for that by having a proper boot (it's basically a hatchback). Fingers crossed it actually arrives!

I’ve got a Model 3 Performance at the moment. Its lease ends later this year, so I’m scouting for the replacement. The only two decent candidates on my company car list are the i4 and the Polestar 2.

Performance isn’t an issue, they’re all quick enough for me. My primary wants are better build and materials than the Tesla, better headlights than the Tesla, comfort on long motorway drives and enough room to stick a growing family in once in a while.

I’ll not be having another Tesla, not because it’s hasn’t been a great EV, but because they’re not very good cars. I also disagree with their philosophical design position of removing proven, working, sensors in favour of using computer vision. The vision doesn’t work. The adaptive cruise, auto headlights and auto wipers in the Tesla have been the worse of any car I’ve owned. To the extent that I don’t use them any more. Yes, they’re unnecessary luxuries, but if they’re on the car, they should bloody work. Vision might work one day, but I’m not being a guinea pig any more.

I’ve tested the Polestar and really liked it. It was quiet, comfortable and extremely well put together. The Long Range Single or Dual motor have plenty of performance and with two option packs it has pretty much every toy you could ever want. Decent size boot and a small, but usable, frunk. It also has the charge port in the same place as Tesla, making use of Tesla superchargers less contentious.

Initial thoughts on the BMW are it’s even better made than the Polestar, as quiet, and it rides beautifully, although the test car I have has fully adaptive suspension. I don’t find the seats anywhere near as comfortable as the Polestar, they’re narrow and hard. The infotainment system is excellent and the head-up display fantastic. However, for me, it’s substantially more expensive than the Polestar when optioned to the same level, and it’s going to take a lot to convince me to part with the extra money.

We looked at the Outlander but the electric only range was abysmal and made it totally unworkable. If it was short enough to work on the battery I’d more likely be on a bike or bus.

is the outlander phev just crap then ? We had a Toyota chr hybrid as a hire car and it was surprising how useful it was and I guess you don’t realise how long a petrol engine spends idling or at low load /energy recovered by braking etc. the typically 20-30mpg petrol engine was boosted to 65 plus by the hybrid side.

On paper the numbers don’t add up but in real world use quite good.

It’s not an electric car and doesn’t try to be. I think thats where mitsubishis tax avoidance scheme went wrong. People believed it would actually be an electric car with an engine.

Still wouldn’t spend 35grand on a car though

is the outlander phev just crap then

rhetorical question?

I suppose it does have a big boot?

PHEVs seem like ‘compliance’ cars

All the downsides of ICE and BEV with no upside?

Does it not function as a proper hybrid then does it just deplete battery first then go to engine ?

While I agree it is/was a tax avoidance car

It also strikes me that people have unrealistic expectation to use it as an electric car when it's a hybrid.....

Funny my last 2 cars were new style Minis (made by BMW) and their auto windscreen wipers were dreadful.

Did I read right on the BMW website – 5.7s 0-60? That is about the acceleration of the rear-wheel-drive Model 3 and that’s £52,000.

that's the standard RWD i4. The dual motor M40 is 3.9 or something like that.

The one I sat in was comfy, with the leather seats, which are an upgrade that I guess most will opt for.

The seats were a shame. Other than being too narrow (for me) and having a hard base, they were great. The fabric/fake leather mix is very nice and they’re a great looking design.

But the Polestar ones are better for me.

is the outlander phev just crap then ?

I've not driven one but that's what people say about it. It IS an EV, but only if you drive less than 15 miles a day or whatever it is. My neighbours had one on a lease and they did drive it to work all the time, about 5 miles, and rarely put any petrol in it. I think the problems with them is that they are rubbish as hybrids getting terrible MPG when the petrol engine is involved in any way. To be fair it was a pretty early effort.

All the downsides of ICE and BEV with no upside?

I disagree. There are plenty of use cases where they work well. Short commute and occasional long drive is not an unreasonable situation. A colleague had one and in winter would drive to work and most of the way back on electricity, using a tiny amount of petrol. If we had charging at work he'd have been able to get home on electricity as well. They work well IF the battery range covers your regular driving. If not, then they don't.

Does it not function as a proper hybrid then does it just deplete battery first then go to engine ?

AFAIK PHEVs allow you to choose how you want it to behave, at least some do. So if you are going on a long trip you can run it as a hybrid, then say you have to go through a city you can put battery on. But that seems to vary by manufacturer.

online reviews suggest when used in combo mode its 45-50 mpg.

20 if used in petrol only.

(vs the on paper quoted 26/68MPG

That aligns with my experience in the toyota tbh.

Does combo mode eventually drain the battery then?

It's a pretty different setup to the Toyota.

andylc
Free Member
Not sure there’s a great deal of point having an EV tariff unless you maximise the benefit. Fire risk seems a bizarre reason not to run them at night.

Posted 12 hours ago
REPLY | REPORT

just coming back on this. We are regularly advised not to run appliances at night due fire risk, but EV tariffs will encourage it.

Wonder if there will be an increase in fire related incidents with more people running washing machines and dishwashers while they are asleep..

just one of many links google threw up :

https://www.thefpa.co.uk/news/running-electrical-items-overnight-poses-fire-risk-charity-says

I’d love to know where they get their figures from when advertising the mpg on hybrids.
Took a Range Rover Sport 440e for a 24 hour test drive. They state up to 70 miles on pure electric, I got 55 so that was pretty good . Wasn’t hanging around and that was a mix of dual carriageway and A roads and town centre. That worked out at around 19p at my electric cost.
Took it on a longer run (after fully charging) it in hybrid mode and returned 65mpg over 140 miles. That worked out at about 17p a mile for me.
Completely forgot to see what it did on petrol alone. ( was making the most of the fuel that was already in the car 😀).

The WTLP figures for hybrid on that vehicle are
313-353 mpg ??

It’s a pretty different setup to the Toyota.

hence my question is the mitsubishi a bit shit - seems like alot of people seem to expect it to run a pure electric then goes to engine.

where as a proper hybrid uses both and tbh even on the long trips through france i never saw the battery deplete to zero.

I think a genuine hybrid has a place in certain circumstances where a full BEV set up would be prohibative for real estate (city car class) or weight (Cargo vehicles)

 

Much of the PHEV negativity is because so many were sold due to tax benefits for company car drivers but there was no incentive to plug in so largely they didn't. That and people who thought the official MPG figure would apply to motorway journeys of hundreds of miles.

They work well if you plug them in and start most journeys full of charge. Even on a trip outside of the electric range you can get great economy overall, they still regen brake and switch off the engine where they can. Had a Golf GTE for 2 years on lease and it would do worst case 42mpg motorway starting on an empty battery. Most days I'd just use electric, or for something like my 100 mile round trip for work it'd be about 65mpg equivalent on petrol plus the £1 of electric to fill it. You control how it uses the battery, default is to run down the battery first but on a long trip you can just put in hybrid mode and it uses the engine when you're cruising but in traffic (where ICE is inefficient) it's just electric. Doesn't seem to make a huge difference though as long as you start full and finish empty.

In so many ways getting a PHEV again would really suit us. We have a Leaf and a big petrol MPV at the moment (for the family camping/bike trips, tip runs, etc), if we went down to single car it'd probably be a Passat GTE. I leased the Golf as it was new tech but it seems to be pretty reliable and VW group put that 1.4 TSI PHEV powertrain in lots of stuff now.

The WTLP figures for hybrid on that vehicle are
313-353 mpg ??

I think part of the problem is that you have done two journeys that average nearly 100 miles between them when the average UK journey length is about 8 miles so a hybrid can do those with ease.
I know they do multiple runs with hybrids to get the figures such as how long they go on battery alone, consumption with zero battery etc. but it is a fanciful figure. I don't think the electricty cost is taken in to account at al but may be wrong.

For what it is worth I have an Octavia hybrid and commute to work 15 miles each way so it works very well for me. I do longer trips maybe three times a month so tend to fill up the relatively small petrol tank about every 1,100 miles.

Oh, and also not all PHEVs are the same. The base spec Outlanders didn't have an electric heater so need the petrol engine running to get heat, I think similar for the Kia PHEVs. They can also have the engine kick in if you accelerate a bit too hard, later ones got an EV button that could prevent that.

The VWs work well as a short range EV, electric heating (so can preheat, etc) and don't get the engine kicking in unless you hit the kickdown switch on the throttle.

We are regularly advised not to run appliances at night due fire risk

By whom?

Just add a smoke alarm above the appliance in question, in this case the car. A clothes drier is much higher risk.

The WTLP figures for hybrid on that vehicle are
313-353 mpg ??

When PHEVs first came out they didn't change the test, or didn't change it appropriately, so it would do most of the test on electricity alone and give ridiculous figures. People seemed to want a single figure for fuel economy but it obviously varies - if you drive 10 miles a day then miles per gallon of petrol is infinite.

where as a proper hybrid uses both and tbh even on the long trips through france i never saw the battery deplete to zero.

Yeah in the Toyota all the battery does is store energy that the car would otherwise waste and re-use it when needed i.e. when booting it or in a traffic queue. Ours would always be about 70% charge unless:

- You'd just started - it favoured the electric motor heavily for the first minute or two to allow oil to circulate before loading the engine
- You were in a queue trundling along at 10-15mph
- You were stationary
- You were driving a steady 30mph or so on the flat, in which case it would drain the battery for a bit then recharge it

It's a great system for maximising fuel efficiency, but that's all it does because you can't plug it in and the battery is tiny.

Plug-in is a different thing of course.

By whom?

Just add a smoke alarm above the appliance in question, in this case the car. A clothes drier is much higher risk.

my bad wording, apologies. No, I'm not talking around fire risk from car charging. I am looking at cost benefits of switching from current tariff to the likes of Octopus, where I will save more money by running washing machine, dishwasher etc at night, which is a practice that the fire safety industry dissuades us to do.

If I swop to an EV tariff, yes, I can charge car up for less, at night, but i'll pay more than currently to run the household appliances during the day..

If I swop to an EV tariff, yes, I can charge car up for less, at night, but i’ll pay more than currently to run the household appliances during the day..

There's a break-even point in terms of mileage above which you are overall better off on the EV tariff.

My EV tariff is cheaper even without the electric car but I appear to be flouting recommendations by running my dishwasher and washing machines at night.

There’s a break-even point in terms of mileage above which you are overall better off on the EV tariff.

thanks, any idea what that mileage figure might be ?

Break even will depend on your mileage but also all of the other electricity that you use during the night and day. The equation is different for everyone.
If you get the average miles per KWh for your car you can divide your monthly year mileage by that to see how many more KWh you will consumer if you do all of your charging at home. Balance that against your baseline use.

Thanks, yes, need to get some numbers into a spreadsheet and work it all out, was just wondering what figs others had.

By whom?

Fire brigade. There have been countless posts on here telling folk not to run dishwashers, washing machines etc. at night because they are statistically the most likely to go on fire.

Now, charging on your drive is one thing but if you have a built in garage I can see why people would be reluctant to take that risk.

You've seen the reports of how quickly battery fires can wipe out houses, whether or not its a statistical likelihood its probably fair to say the intensity would be too much for standard fire proof insulation (based on the heavily insulated charging boxes for RC batteries).

thanks, any idea what that mileage figure might be ?

I can't remember but it was pretty low. I calculated we are saving about £80/mo on diesel, with my wife doing a 13 mile each way commute. Of course we do other driving - we spent £14 on car charging electricity in January (driving about 850 miles roughly); that would have been at least 10x that cost in diesel so £140 meaning we've saved £126 ish. We spent about £73 on peak time electricity. We also used 231kWh of off-peak electricity Jan and only 178kWh went into the car. So someone else can work that out :). Rates are 42p and 7.5p respectively.

Ooh... 7.5p is cheap.... For me, octopus would be 10p off peak..

DrP

Ooh… 7.5p is cheap…. For me, octopus would be 10p off peak..

Yeah it's the land of signed up ages ago .... Those prices have gone up since....much like the cost of the replacement lease car so it's pretty moot for the purposes of current cost to break even.

You’ve seen the reports of how quickly battery fires can wipe out houses, whether or not its a statistical likelihood

Worth noting that NMC chemistry found in most car batteries much less thermally stable and want to ignite Vs life4po found in (recent)house batteries before someone makes that comparison.

is the outlander phev just crap then ?

Yes, we have got 2 of them at work as vans. IIRC the biggest range someone ever got out of one was 24 miles on electric by driving extremely carefully. And I can confirm if you knacker the battery it cost £13,000 to have a new one fitted by Mitsubishi.

IIRC the biggest range someone ever got out of one was 24 miles on electric by driving extremely carefully

I'm still struggling with the fact someone thought it was a good idea to make a car that usedall it's electric first rather than be a functional hybrid. I guess it must have been a stipulation to qualify for the bik loophole

I count ourselves lucky as we nearly ended up with a 3rd one at our depot. Mitsubishi said we could have the last 3 in the country but they wouldn't convert them to vans, so the company I work for refused to have them.

Worth noting that NMC chemistry found in most car batteries much less thermally stable and want to ignite Vs life4po found in (recent)house batteries before someone makes that comparison.

Fair point (I'm assuming you meant more thermally stable there?)

I’m hoping so!

I have an A-Class PHEV which gets plugged in at home and at work (where I get free leccy).

Over 19500 miles, the car has recorded 202mpg. I mostly drive to and from work on full electric but am regularly up and back to Nottingham, from Kent, wheee I’ll balance the battery use myself so that it is on, or as close to, 0% when I get home. Typical mpg in that circumstance will be around 65.

Soo...having had the leaf for a few days, and driven about 120 miles, I've averaged 0.17kwh/km... Which is about 3.6miles/kw....

What sort of figures are you lot getting?

Have just stuck some aero roof bars on it, ready to receive a pair of racks.. Wonder how much that'll drop the economy!

Drp