Milage/Eco display ... what does it mean?

On my 2018 (Canada) unit I have a screen that displays various usage and eco information. To be honest, most of it I find pretty confusing. And, the manual really doesn't help much So, here's the first question:

The eco information screen tells me that I am getting 6.9 l/100km and 20.1 kwh/100km. Now, what I don't understand is this ... is this an either or report or do I need to add the 2 values together to get an accurate value?

Honestly, if I'm really getting 6.9 l/100km I'd be very happy. This is the value reported today at hwy speeds with a/c on part of the trip. We went just over 200km on mountain roads.

First post on this forum, so please be kind

Bob.

Hi Bob,

My instinct is that the answer is neither.

The displays are of how much petrol and electric charge you would use, if you did exactly the same thing for the next 100 km.

You can't really add them together, because the petrol is used to generate power (if you're in serial or parallel hybrid modes).

Since the battery only holds about 10 kWh, you can't draw 20 kWh from it, so at least half of that would come from consuming petrol (unless you stopped and recharged along the way).

The only way to accurately measure consumption over distance, is to record everything you put in, and how far you go. In my case, I really don't need to know. I put $20 of petrol in twice per year, and charge the car every two days in winter, and every three days in summer. That's all I need to know.

mellobob said:

On my 2018 (Canada) unit I have a screen that displays various usage and eco information. To be honest, most of it I find pretty confusing. And, the manual really doesn't help much So, here's the first question:

The eco information screen tells me that I am getting 6.9 l/100km and 20.1 kwh/100km. Now, what I don't understand is this ... is this an either or report or do I need to add the 2 values together to get an accurate value?

Honestly, if I'm really getting 6.9 l/100km I'd be very happy. This is the value reported today at hwy speeds with a/c on part of the trip. We went just over 200km on mountain roads.

First post on this forum, so please be kind

Bob.

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Accurate value is a bit of a joke on this vehicle's displays :lol:

jaapv said:

Accurate value is a bit of a joke on this vehicle's displays :lol:

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Misunderstood (or even ill explained) does not necessarily make it inaccurate :idea:

I mean, kobody seems to know what it means. So, how can we know that it is inaccurate?

AndyInOz said:

Since the battery only holds about 10 kWh, you can't draw 20 kWh from it, so at least half of that would come from consuming petrol (unless you stopped and recharged along the way).

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Well, the display does not say 20 kWh was drawn. It says 20 kWh per 100 km was drawn. So, it can go two ways: only miles driven in EV mode are factored in or indeed generated power is included.

Hi mellobob, you say "Honestly, if I'm really getting 6.9 l/100km I'd be very happy."
Well from my experience, the average fuel consumption recorded on the display between petrol refills is reasonably accurate on relatively long trips when compared to full to full petrol calculations, although of course real cost should take into account any electricity used for charging. I would say that 6.9l/100km could be very realistic for your drive. I have recently covered nearly 1750 miles (2800km) in France, which included a range of terrain and road types. Some of this included Alpine mountainous roads as well as autoroutes, keeping to speed limits, but usually with a fairly full luggage load.
I was able to top up the battery on several occasions when a suitable power supply was found, but what was particularly impressive was the regeneration coming down mountain roads where it was not unusual to add up to a potential 20 km or so to the battery range. On one occasion the full battery range recorded almost 70km, although of course this was not a real world figure unless we were on very flat roads with long inclines in our favour.
My overall petrol average for the whole trip, which was based on petrol refills, was 41.91mpg (14.6km per litre / 6.85 litre per 100km). If I take off the 180 km approximately added to range by charging from electricity points it was 39.2mpg (13.9km per litre /7.19 litre per 100km). Obviously on different types of trip the petrol consumption at various fill ups varied enormously from 33.8mpg (11.9 km per litre /8.4 litre per 100km) up to 54mpg (19.00km per litre)/ 5.2 litre per 100km). Also as most people on this site could tell you it is often possible to travel shorter distances with no petrol fuel consumption or around that as indicated by the Mitsubishi display.
I previously owned a plug in Prius which had a much smaller battery range (11 miles -17km ) but on long trips it was far more fuel efficient – a similar French distance trip last year ( although less mountainous) recorded over 60mpg (21km per litre / 4.76 litre per 100km). However they are very different forms of transport.

Anyway – all a rather long way of saying your consumption figure of 6.9l/100km sounds about right and you should be happy! Hope my maths has been OK.
I’m not commenting on the kwh/100km figure.

Thanks for the responses!

I'm not really all that much concerned/obsessed with the gas mileage issue since, like so many others, I really don't use the ICE all that much. Most of our driving is done as to town and back again ... all on plug-in electricity. Seems that the time between gas fills if very long indeed!

My prior car was a Hyundai Tuscon with the 1.6l turbo engine and on the trip I took yesterday I would get a mpg in a similar range ... and this is a bigger and heavier car.

But, to be niggley, the reporting on the screens of this car are very confusing! Hey, I know it's complicate with the ICE doing charging and driving and regen and plugin. But, if they are smart enough to manage all that how hard can some accurate mpg figures be?

Just a thought: Would the OBDII program give any better info?

mellobob said:

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Just a thought: Would the OBDII program give any better info?

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Yes, using the PHEVwatchDog, you can get detail trip information with information about state of battery at trip start and trip end, and as well, fuel consumption .. plus much more info

Definitely using OBD2 and the Android App will allow to have more clear info on what is happening in the PHEV

Our PHEV is extensively used in hybrid mode (plugged at home at night, then many miles each day).

Both infos are based on the whole driven distance.

The average fuel consumption is working when engine is on. The average electrical consumption is counting when power is drawn from the battery and engine is off. Seems that regent power isn’t factored in, same as generated power.

I didn’t verify the accuracy of those values, I will do for fuel soon.

Superflan said:

Our PHEV is extensively used in hybrid mode (plugged at home at night, then many miles each day).

Both infos are based on the whole driven distance.

The average fuel consumption is working when engine is on. The average electrical consumption is counting when power is drawn from the battery and engine is off. Seems that regent power isn’t factored in, same as generated power.

I didn’t verify the accuracy of those values, I will do for fuel soon.

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This would make sense.

When in hybrid mode is electricity going from the ICE to the battery and then to the electric motors or is it a direct path? Hmmm, probably both. There is probably more than a few lines of computer code running all this

Superflan said:

Both infos are based on the whole driven distance.

The average fuel consumption is working when engine is on.

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Isn't that a contradiction? I think when you reset the avg fuel consumption just before then engine turns on (because of low SOC), fuel consumption will be rather high. Think in terms of 10 - 12 l / 100 km, depending on speed. It stays high as long as the engine is running. After then engine turns off, it gradually reduces to a more normal value.

Superflan said:

The average electrical consumption is counting when power is drawn from the battery and engine is off.

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Also with the engine on, power can be drawn from the battery. Would be strange if that was ignored. On the other hand, if you want to know an efficiency measurement (how far can you drive on 1 kWh), then it would be good to only measure pure EV kms.

Thanks Anko, you read my mind. Actually I meant to say that both indicators works continuously, as they would on a pure ev or pure gas car. And regen power isnt factored (counted backwards) in electric average.