Roadside charging v's petrol engine charging

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PaulGodfrey

New member
Joined
Dec 14, 2017
Messages
3
Hi all,

I have just placed an order for my 2018 Outlander PHEV 5HS to be delivered early January. Having looked on You tube and the like regarding charging while on the road, has anyone done the maths comparing the price to charge the car while stationary in battery charging mode against the cost to charge with Eco tricity etc. Does it make commecial sence to use these stations or is it better to charge while moving.

Paul Godfrey
 
The cost of roadside charging is rather in a state of flux at the moment, so there is no simple answer to your question. If you had asked the same three years ago when most of us here bought our PHEVs, the majority of public access charging points were effectively free to use - typically you just paid a small annual subscription fee and the electricity was free. Under those circumstances, roadside charging was very cheap - cheaper even than charging at home. The situation is changing a lot now - most of the charging network operators are introducing per kWh pricing - and often at prices that make it more expensive than simply running on petrol.

It is debatable if charging via the engine ever makes economic sense - the generator and battery are good, but still a fair bit less than 100% efficient, so there will always be power losses and if you want to minimise running costs, you are probably better off simply letting the engine drive the wheels via the generator and electric motors. Under normal driving conditions, there is nothing to be gained from burning petrol to take a flat battery up towards full and then consuming the charge in EV mode.

Your best strategy is probably to charge the battery wherever you have access to electricity at domestic rates or better, then manage the use of that charge across your day. If your journey is within the EV range (which, realistically, is closer to 20 miles than 30). then just drive normally. If your journey is going to be significantly longer than the EV range, then use the Save button to reserve the charge for those parts of the journey where you will get the most bang for your buck - in other words, the slower, flatter parts of the journey. A fully charged battery will get you further at a steady 30mph on a flat, clear road than it will at 70mph on the motorway, or climbing a long, straight hill - use Save to ensure that you are burning petrol under those conditions.
 
Thanks for the quick reply .

There are still free to use stations in some supermarket car parks I believe. . Would hear be rapid charging in 25minutes or so or for longer spells to get the 80% charge.
 
PaulGodfrey said:
Thanks for the quick reply .

There are still free to use stations in some supermarket car parks I believe. . Would hear be rapid charging in 25minutes or so or for longer spells to get the 80% charge.

I don't understand the second sentence in the paragraph above. If you are asking if the chargers in supermarkets are ChaDeMo type rapid chargers, then I think the answer is generally, no. ChaDeMo chargers are expensive beasts and I don't think too many were installed outside the motorway service area network.
 
I always advise never to use the charge button unless cruising at 60mph +
If sitting stationary it just is not cost effective
 
So! Does it prove better when travelling at speed to charge? and is 60mph the speed to commence charging as a set norm.
 
PaulGodfrey said:
So! Does it prove better when travelling at speed to charge? and is 60mph the speed to commence charging as a set norm.

If you are not towing something heavy, preparing to climb a steep hill, or preparing to enter a zone where you could get penalised for burning petrol, then it is probably better to not use the Charge button at all. There are some theoretical strategies for reducing overall fuel costs that rely on actively managing the battery through a series of manually controlled charge and discharge cycles, but there is not a lot of evidence that it actually works and it would be easy to make things worse rather than better.

The primary value of the charge button is to get the battery level back up to a relatively high point in anticipation of a high demand for power. The PHEV petrol engine does not have a lot of spare power over and above what is necessary to keep the car cruising at a moderate speed with a normal load on relatively flat roads. It struggles when towing a heavy load at speed and when climbing long, steep hills. Hence, if you have let the battery deplete and you know that you are going to need a prolonged period of high power in the near future, you are well advised to engage charge so that you can benefit from the combined output of the petrol engine and the battery.

Even under normal load, the PHEV engine will rev high under load on an empty battery - climbing a hill or flooring it off the lights. That sets my teeth on edge, though others here accept it. Hence, I try to avoid ever running on a flat battery. We spend long periods away from any charging point and the battery level will drift down even if you drive on Save all the time. Hence, I do run in charge mode from time to time to get the level back up - but that is not for the purposes of fuel economy - it is to make the car feel more comfortable to my driving style.
 
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