Following the crazy car prices thread, I thought I’d see what similar to my car are selling for – amazingly between what I paid 2 and a half years ago and upto 4k more!

Now its a 4wd SUV and I struggle to get 40mpg out of it (not related to username- thats miles cycled to cider consumed). I recently changed job after my employer went into administration and now have a 45 mile each way commute. Diesel ££ ouch!

I’ve previously had a number of Passat estates which have been great (if dull) but perfect for chucking bikes in / kayaks on / travelling huge distances for work. Just looked at Passat GTE prices and given the above, a 3 year old one may be within reach.

So questions – hybrid related.

Weve got a charger at work but what would I need at home? Can I plug in to the mains? (I know basic questions right).

45 miles is well beyond the 30 mile electric range. Does it run on dino juice with a bit of E-oomph to get 156mpg? Would i even get close to 156mpg? (Pretty much all motorway to work). Or would I run on E until the battery ran out.

I’m spending about £400 on diesel a month currently 😱 so could potentially save over half this. So investing £4k extra into a car (one which is 3 years newer too) could pay back in less than 20 months. Is this a no-brainer? What am I missing?

Passat GTE is a compliance car – designed specifcally for company tax bands. You will get nowhere near 156mpg. the Pure EV range driven normally (i.e around the speed limit of whatever road you are on) is less than 20 miles. Nice car to drive but absolutely not efficient in any way.

I have an Octavia Hatch hybrid, so a similar system to the Passat. My commute is 18 miles each way. I can charge at work and at home, so I am doing all commute miles on electric only.
At home, yes you can plug straight into the mains. It is only a small battery (relative to full electric cars) so easily charges overnight, I’ve no idea how long it would take to charge from flat to full.
When I got the car new (leased) in August – the range was enough to get me very nearly from work to home and back (happy days). As soon as it got a bit colder, the range plummeted. I think on a properly cold dark morning with lights and heater all on, the range wouldn’t be much more than 20 miles. I’m hoping it will get better again once the days get warmer.
For longer journeys, you have the choice of starting on full electric and letting it use that all up. Once it has done that it runs on petrol, though it will charge the battery during braking and use that when it thinks best generally it just turns the engine off on when coasting downhill. Alternatively, you can program in the journey to the SatNav and put it in Hybrid mode and it will decide for itself on how best to deploy the modes. On a 70 mile trip like this, it was managing about 70mpg. It depends a lot on the type of road and speeds though.
Overall, I’m quite impressed. Some foibles – but mostly software related (like it forgets to pre-heat the car some mornings – appalling, I know).

Nice car to drive but absolutely not efficient in any way.

That’s not entirely accurate. For some uses, they are good. For example, if you have a short commute and drive locally at weekends, you could easily go weeks without needing any petrol. But when you come to go on holiday or drive somewhere distant, you have no range issues. I know people who do this and use hardly any petrol.

And as above, if you use them right you can still save petrol even if you are driving more than the EV range. You won’t get 156mpg, but you will do well.

Except that he has a 90 mile commute.

So most of the time he will be driving a heavy pile of battery around.

We’ve a regular non-EV passat estate and even with it being a 2.0L, 200ps diesel we’ll still get 55mpg on a long run which drops to about 40-45mpg when fully loaded with roof box on the top and bike rack on the tow-hitch. Although by the sound of it with your commute being in range of the battery you may be on to a winner.

Definitely do the sums on it though. I was considering swapping the other car for an EV and gave VW’s own EV checker app to see what I’d save, you know what it said? doing 10k miles a year I’d be financially better off buying a diesel than an ID3. Obviously the world would be burning, but my bank account would be bigger. So I’m doing my bit for the environment and keeping an old car on the road, after all 80% of a cars lifetime emissions are generated before it’s even hit the road (no source, read it somewhere years ago).

Except that he has a 90 mile commute.

So most of the time he will be driving a heavy pile of battery around.

Which will be full of energy that will help power the car, as above.

Another Octavia Hybrid here. Mine is a company car, as a new car it doesn’t make sense for private purchase but second hand it may work well for you.
I like it a lot. I have a hilly 15 mile each way commute, below 8 degrees it has to warm the batteries and I do not quite get there and back. Just over 8 degrees and I can do it on 80% battery and it gets better with more heat. Full charge on three pin is about 5.5 hours.
We pay 16.7p at all times for electricity which works for us as my wife often does the same trip twice in a day to take our daughter to school and it can charge in between. At that rate it works out about 5p per mile.
On a 200 mile trip all in it works out at a similar cost to a diesel equivalent.
The switch between petrol and electric is very smooth, much better than a Mercedes A250 that I have driven. If your electric is similar cost to hours I think it will cost you £3.50 to do a 45 mile journey as opposed to £16 currently? If you can charge at work before returning happy days.

It has a chunky three pin plug so does not fit in all outside sockets so I use an extension like the below and I see no need to install a new permanent socket
EV Extension

I’ve been looking at this recently as my wife does a 40 mile each way commute 3 times a week.

First of all, this video is very useful and explains the benefits of a PHEV.

The Vauxhall Ampera/Chevy Volt seems to be the only relatively cheap PHEV (circa £8k) that can get 50 miles off a charge. The lifetime MPG figures are very interesting.

However, for longer journeys something like a Audi A2/Polo Bluemotion/Fabia Greenline/Volvo C30 Drive will get 80 + MPG and be considerably cheaper (£2k – £3k) to buy, and overall cheaper to run.

Wife has a Golf GTE. Usually drives less than 20 miles a day which can easily be achieved just on electric. Fitted a Wallbox charger and charges in around 2 hrs.

Hybrid mode for longer journeys will return 60-70 real world MPG.

GTE mode is quick enough to put a smile on your face.

It’s a good choice if you can charge at home or work, and your daily commute is less than 20 miles.

Cezza

As with others above, we get between 20 and 30 miles electric range on ours and this more or less gets me to work and back if I’m careful with the right foot.  The rest of our local trundling around is done on electricity.

Not to get bogged down in mpg arguments, more than half my mileage this year has been electric – so even if the engine wasn’t that efficient it’s still a lot of petrol-free miles to make the world betterer.

Other users may vary…

Polo Bluemotion

Ok but a Polo isn’t normally a replcement for a Passat, is it? It’s a small car vs a large family one.

The Chevy Volt/Vauxhall Ampera isn’t a Phev but a range extender. It drives on electricity all the time and uses the engine as a generator to charge the batteries. It was probably one of the best engineered cars of the previous decade and years ahead of its time. I first drove one about 10 years ago and it was like being in a scalextric car. Of course everyone and his dog has an ev now so it’s nothing new but at the time it was a revelation. Obviously the project got canned because big oil but great cars. Getting a bit long in the tooth now but probably still fine as they were so over engineered. Do around 30 before batteries depleted but probably nearer 20 now due to age.

Do you have another car? What about pure electric?

The Chevy Volt/Vauxhall Ampera isn’t a Phev but a range extender.

It’s a series hybrid, as opposed to most of them which are parallel hybrids, but this makes no practical difference.

Obviously the project got canned because big oil

Not convinced that’s the reason, I think you can look at the thread for many people’s attitudes towards the idea. And Big Oil seems unable to prevent the pure electrification of the world so why would it have been able to stop this one car? I think it was because it wasn’t wanted enough, but EVs are and I think we can give a lot of credit to Musk for that.

@jp-t853 @burger do you find sometimes you start up the Octavia and the petrol engine starts despite having plenty miles left in the battery? Ours gives a warning along the lines of “not enough charge” but turn it off and on again and the battery works fine.

Still occasionally get the problem with the ACC where it detects cars on the inside instead of the outside.

2018 GTE estate here. Expect roughly 18 miles from a charge in winter with middling speed. Motorway speed hammers the battery and a full charge will go in about 10 miles.
Summer should return about 25 again with middling speed.
Don’t rely on regen it’s only any good for maintaining a charge for hybrid mode.

@40mpg, I would suggest the GTE is not the car for you. The car you have is probably better suited. Or a 1.4/1.5 TSI if you are desperate to change.

PHEVs and hybrids are just window dressing.

Either get a huge petrol engine or a BEV.

I’ve had a Renault Captur PHEV for 18 months and have been really impressed with it. 60mpg minimum and 150 mpg max so far. Average use for me gives around 115mpg.

Fixating on mpg with a phev is wrong. Mine can be wildly different day to day on the same journey depending on traffic let alone ambient temperature. I can easily boot it from the lights and knock a couple of miles off each time. Then when it comes to home time I have 7 miles remaining instead of 12. But then if I get stuck behind something slow it tickles the battery usage and I might get home without running the ice.

Short version: too many daily variables to rely on mpg quotes of phevs.

I have a Countryman PHEV as a company car.
As a real work example for March this year I used approx. 255kWh and 30L (6.5 Gallons) of petrol to cover 830 miles. I can commute on full electric charge and only charge at home using a 13A supply (Countryman can’t fast charge).

So, approx. 127mpg which sounds great until you realise you need do need to pay for the electricity too… We paid 20.13p per kWh in March so total electricity cost was £51.35p. Using average March petrol cost of £1.67/L petrol gives £50.10 in unleaded.

So my 830 miles cost £101 (ish)

So let’s imagine a normal Countryman would do 40mpg (might be a bit optimistic!), the same 830 miles would cost £157 at £1.67/L

So from my perspective a PHEV makes some sense. However if I had a 90 mile commute the Countryman would no longer makes sense – like the Passat GTE it simply doesn’t have a big enough electric range (unless from a company car tax perspective).

Another point to note – my Countryman has has £5500+ worth of replacement parts in last 12 months (apparently I use it in electric mode ‘more than most’ so some important module failed!!!). As a second hand option I would be VERY wary of a PHEV due to their relative complexity.

like the Passat GTE it simply doesn’t have a big enough electric range (unless from a company car tax perspective).

But it’s not either battery or normal ICE operation. They can work together in a number of ways.

I have an A250e Co. car with an official range of 44 miles, which I charge at home using a Podpoint EVSE. My commute is 18 miles each way, which it will do there and back on one charge as long as the weather is ok and the air temperature not too low.

Yesterday I did a 374 mile round trip to Nottingham and back, used up all of my battery and got 62mpg out of the petrol engine.

The A250e has a setting on it which maintains the percentage of battery at the point where you switch over. As soon as I hit the motorway I switch to the petrol engine, using this setting, and if there are any traffic queues, I’ll switch back over to hybrid mode which lets me crawl along in electric only.

I’ll generally manage the battery level so that there is one or two percent left when I get home. The car is meant to do that itself, based on the satnav, but I get better results balancing it myself, again, using the satnav and looking ahead at what traffic is coming up.

For me, at the moment, the PHEV makes perfect sense as I can get to and from work on electric, and I’m up to Nottingham every couple of months dropping my son at university, thus using the petrol engine.

Sure, I could do the same with a BEV, but when I ordered the car I wasn’t confident that the charging infrastructure was up to the job, so wasn’t ready to take the plunge.

@molgrips – I knew I could rely on you to tell me how wrong I am on a car thread.

I am simply pointing out from MY PERSPECTIVE how I don’t think the maths adds up (with a worked example). The OP can then either agree or disagree but at least he has a real world example. You could have cut and pasted the full paragraph that began ‘So from my perspective’…

I’m actually a big PHEV fan – they are a compromise but quite a workable one. I’ve also covered 40000 miles in mine so I’m well aware of how the motors can can work together in ‘number of ways’. It is precisely this ‘working together’ that broke on mine hence my comment about being wary about a PHEV as a second hand option.

That’s not entirely accurate. For some uses, they are good. For example, if you have a short commute and drive locally at weekends, you could easily go weeks without needing any petrol. But when you come to go on holiday or drive somewhere distant, you have no range issues. I know people who do this and use hardly any petrol.

Depends.

My TL has a Peugeot thing, looks good on paper but it turns out it won’t drive on electric unless you do regular petrol miles. No idea why anyone thought that was a good idea but there you go.

I had a Golf GTE I got around 71mpg with that average, a great car and worked out not too bad to run. Fully electric now with an E-tron costs me about £15, well will, which is good for 150 miles average. Can be a lot more but also a lot less.

Like others have said, it’s very much “horses for courses” with a PHEV. My usage tends to be local/short range journeys with occasional long trips which works out well but if you do mostly long and faster journeys then you’re probably better off with an ICE or BEV long term. My next car will be a BEV but at the time I bought my PHEV there was nothing around at an affordable price that could tow.

It is precisely this ‘working together’ that broke on mine hence my comment about being wary about a PHEV as a second hand option.

I think there’s been a few horror stories on s/h Mercedes PHEVs.

I personally think you get the worst of both worlds with them but BEV s aren’t cheap.

The servicing schedule on a Tesla is only rotate tyres and change cabin filter,they don’t expect you to be popping it in for your yearly milking and with the regen your not really using the brakes much. So in theory much reduced maintenance costs but higher up front cost.

Can’t see towing being much fun with an ev as it’s gonna kill the range.

Pretty in depth look at the numbers on a radio program while cooking dinner this evening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00162yr

Sliced Bread, Radio4.

Weve got a charger at work but what would I need at home? Can I plug in to the mains? (I know basic questions right).

45 miles is well beyond the 30 mile electric range. Does it run on dino juice with a bit of E-oomph to get 156mpg? Would i even get close to 156mpg? (Pretty much all motorway to work). Or would I run on E until the battery ran out.

A couple of guys at work have hybrids, one even wrote the original how-to on re-celling a Prius, and had adapted it to work as a plug-in.

Depending on the configuration and how it’s set up, they’ll run in electricity until they need more power, either because you’re heavy with the right foot or go above ~50mph.

The benefits of regenerative braking then depend on how you drive, if you’re the type to accelrate and brake a lot then it’ll do it’s job of making the economy better. If you plan ahead and anticipate and coast up motorway slip roads without braking rather than slam on the brakes from 70 as late as possible for the lights then it’s not doing anything extra really. How long you can keep it running fully electric varies by model.

The batteries are useless, no battery likes being cycled 100% to 0 twice a day, so the range is going to drop massively. A proper electric car cycling 80-60% will go on forever by comparison.

So one is getting Golf GTI performance with better economy. The other is annoyed that his old Volvo did better mpg.

If you just want the cheapest option, buy whatever 50mpg diesel bangernomics car you fancy. You’ll save far more in depreciation over the next 3 years when car prices inevitably crash back down when supply restarts than you will ever save in incremental mpg.

What am I missing?

Other than the obvious environmental impact of burning the fuel required to move two tonnes of metal 90 miles every day?

Time to WFH or find a new job.

Time to WFH or find a new job.

How did that work out for you when you were putting food on the table by battering up and down the country doing film work ?

Not always a simple choice as you put it

How did that work out for you when you were putting food on the table by battering up and down the country doing film work ?

Easy, mostly I drive somewhere, park the van on location, rig, then cycle to from the hotel to set each day.

Office days are rarer, and there are plans to move the office out of London which would mean everyone’s commute gets shorter anyway.

Longer distance jobs (just finished one in Newcastle) I park it in an NCP and get the train back and forth, only using the van when I need to get between locations.

A few compromises and I’ve got my annual mileage down to the national average, despite traveling what would be a ludicrously selfish amount if done by car.

I’d be doing better but the broadcasters rules on COVID mean we still can’t car share.

Surely time to find a new job or wfh though. Still an inefficient way of working how ever you try to justify it.

Or rather realise that your original statement was a bit unjust really.

Still an inefficient way of working how ever you try to justify it.

The trains alone saved about 6 hours of time each week for getting admin done instead of counting junctions on the motorway. And the fuel savings are paying tradespeople to do what would be DIY at the weekends, I’m firmly calling this a win for efficiency 🤣

Derailing the discussion though, I was just pointing out that buying a new car barely scratches the surface of the original problem (the cost of commuting), and there are options that are either cheaper, or both cheaper and have other societal benefits.

no battery likes being cycled 100% to 0 twice a day

Is that what PHEVs do, or do they protect the battery like BEVs do (except Tesla)?

Is that what PHEVs do, or do they protect the battery like BEVs do (except Tesla)?

They (presumably) all do to an extent, but you can’t get away from the fact that the greater the % you cycle it through, the more it degrades the battery. A big battery you charge once a week is going to last ~10x longer than one you charge 10x a week though the same percentage becasue the number of charge cycles it can do is finite. Probably even more because the small battery is always working flat out whereas the big one is only delivering a tenth of its capacity to deliver current as well.

It’d be a trade-off either way, however much you protect the battery by artificially limiting it’s capacity, you have to do that work with the engine instead. Because for a commute of that length it’s when not if the battery runs out (to whatever ‘hidden’ capacity that is).

Compare to say the no longer produced* i3 range extender, which has a more generously sized battery and a tiny engine. That you could view as a hybrid where the engine protected the battery, rather than the battery just supplementing the engine.

*weirdly, because i just googled it and it outsold the pure electric version almost 3:2

Dear god, 39 grand for a Golf!!!

The batteries are useless, no battery likes being cycled 100% to 0 twice a day, so the range is going to drop massively.

My car has a 15kW battery but can only be charged to 10.6. I don’t know why there is a spare 4.4 kW, but maybe Mercedes have considered the drop in range through charging regularly, so make it impossible to charge up to 100%.

My experience of a hybrid and long distance is don’t bother !

Hybrids are great for short journeys and the occasional long one but not 5 days a week

Stick with what you have got if a change will require any kind of investment.

Bear in mind a 3 yr old battery will already be quite a bit less efficient.

My BMW hybrid from new only did about 18 miles (BMW stated 25 miles) by the time I sold it at 5yrs old it was down to 8 miles on a good day.

Electric is great for short journeys around town. They are not a solution for speed and distance

The other thing I don’t miss is the faffing with buttons which has been mentioned above or the forever range anxiety/plugging in

In a big diesel estate now, much prefer it for the type of journeys I need it for, even if it’s not half as fast accelerating as the old hybrid

Electric is great for short journeys around town. They are not a solution for speed and distance

unless of course that distance can be achieved on a single charge.