Can I run the PHEV on petrol alone?

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andyturbo2000

New member
Joined
Jan 23, 2018
Messages
2
Hi,
I am currently thinking about my next company car and the PHEV ticks all the boxes tax wise.

My problem is that I currently have a fuel card, so very reluctant to charge at home and use my own electricity, considering I have all the fuel I need on the company. I also pay tax for the fuel card so want to make sure I’m not paying again for electricity, so to speak.

I also don’t have access to a charge point at work, so I will be seldom using the battery, if at all.

The tax benefits of having a PHEV are really good compared with my diesel 4x4, but…

Can I run the PHEV on petrol only? And I really mean on petrol only !
Would it damage it?

Ethical, probably not but I’m not footing the fuel bill.
Cheers,
Andy
 
Yes, you can - we run ours primarily as a petrol car. It does take a degree of management and I would recommend that you charge the battery via the petrol engine from time to time - the PHEV can be a rather unpleasant car to drive on a completely flat battery - it revs the engine a lot higher than I like to hear. Also, I guess that leaving the battery completely flat for months or even years could reduce its service life expectancy.

We bought the PHEV primarily for the tax benefits - rather like you are considering. We do have access to a charger at home, but our normal pattern of usage is primarily long trips lasting several days with no possibility of charging. As a result, we generally charge off the mains about once per week - sometimes twice. We make use of the "Save" button to retain the charge for as long as possible, but it still drifts down. You are not obliged to charge it up once it gets to minimum on the battery - the car drops into a default hybrid mode under which it runs on petrol for a few miles, putting a small amount of charge into the battery at the same time, then switches to EV for a couple of miles to consume that charge before going back to petrol. The problem that I have with this is that although the car can run on the petrol engine alone, it is a relatively detuned 2 litre engine in a rather large and heavy car - it relies on the battery for the extra boost for hill climbing or decent acceleration off the lights or overtaking. If you let the battery simply discharge all the way down, then ask for a decent pulse of power, it has no choice but to race the engine - sets my teeth on edge!

In practice, I keep an eye on the charge level while we are away from home and when it dips close to minimum, I hit the Charge button to bring it back up to something like 50%. This is enough for the battery to be able to provide a decent level of power in response to a demand from you and avoid the screaming engine syndrome. We have a lifetime average fuel consumption of about 42 mpg over the last three years. That is based on a usage pattern of one or two mains charges per week - you probably should not count on better than 35 mpg of you are never going to charge it.

Having said all of that, assuming that you are in the UK - are the tax concessions really enough now to justify a PHEV? We bought ours more than three years ago and the situation was a no-brainer - low BIK penalties and, since the company is ours, advantages in terms of a decent government grant to help buy it and favourable write-down rules against corporation tax. The BIK is going up now, the EV grant is dropping and VED is going up. I'm not convinced that it makes anything like as much sense now and it really is not a particularly nice car for the price compared with much of the competition.
 
Many thanks for your reply. Thought as much. Trying to find that perfect balance of great company car tax rate and 4x4 or large (ish) SUV.
 
maby said:
Yes, you can - we run ours primarily as a petrol car. It does take a degree of management and I would recommend that you charge the battery via the petrol engine from time to time - the PHEV can be a rather unpleasant car to drive on a completely flat battery - it revs the engine a lot higher than I like to hear. Also, I guess that leaving the battery completely flat for months or even years could reduce its service life expectancy.

I don't think there is any problem with service life expectancy

When battery is shown as empty on the car display ... in reality the battery is at 30% battery charge level (SOC) or 3.80v

This is the ideal battery charge level for maximize the battery life

If car is parked for long time at 30% battery SOC ... unless there is a WIFI module , nothing does happen to the main battery, only the 12v battery may run flat like any other car.

If there is WIFI module active in the car, then yes ... once a day the main battery top up the 12V battery ... still this does not allow to bring the main battery too much low

So ... in theory the car is designed to be used without having to know which button to click (SAVE or CHARGE), and without the need to charge the car ... using in automatic mode it will behave like a normal hybrid car .. without any problem

Still ... there are possibility to improve the quality of driving and economy by using the CHARGE button when is "convenient" .. but that will be a long story ... and as well is very much subjective

What I did notice is that fuel economy is best when car run in parallel mode ... so when the ICE is used both for drive the front wheels and for re-charge the battery , something possible only above ~80km/h ... so ... ideally is good to click on charge while on highway ... and try to run in pure EV mode in urban traffic
 
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