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AndyW

New member
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Messages
1
Morning, Afternoon, Evening all,

I'm seriously considering a PHEV4h as my new company car, and would welcome some thoughts from outlander drives not just the sales guys. A bit about me, typically 30- 36k a year mileage with a high proportion as motorway, been driving a Passat for the last three years, A4 and Avensis tourers before that.

BIK benefits are obvious, private mileage is reimbursed at 13p per mile to my employer for hybrid vehicles,

Initial thoughts having driven one were that its a nice drive, different ride style/feel to others but not a comparison. Drivers seat felt softer not as supportive in the lower back than used to and the Satnav phone interface seemed less user friendly than the VW, though I know my way around that car and its 3 years old.

few questions;
average cost to charge at home??
do other company car drivers get that back??
is it worth an upgrade to the Kenwood system?

look forward hearing from you
 
AndyW said:
Morning, Afternoon, Evening all,

I'm seriously considering a PHEV4h as my new company car, and would welcome some thoughts from outlander drives not just the sales guys. A bit about me, typically 30- 36k a year mileage with a high proportion as motorway, been driving a Passat for the last three years, A4 and Avensis tourers before that.

BIK benefits are obvious, private mileage is reimbursed at 13p per mile to my employer for hybrid vehicles,

Initial thoughts having driven one were that its a nice drive, different ride style/feel to others but not a comparison. Drivers seat felt softer not as supportive in the lower back than used to and the Satnav phone interface seemed less user friendly than the VW, though I know my way around that car and its 3 years old.

few questions;
average cost to charge at home??
do other company car drivers get that back??
is it worth an upgrade to the Kenwood system?

look forward hearing from you


I am similiar, had mine since January, very happy as my company car.

I take it your employer is not going to reimburse electricity for charging?

The actual car aside there are several other factor to if it makes financial sense.
As your reimbursing your employer for private miles I assume your on a fuel card and they pay the bill?
Then the next bit is how many private miles are you doing? if its a relatively low amount then most the cost of charging with electricity your paying for, is subsidising the company as for some of your business journey at least its running on your electricity and saving the company petrol.

Not a good situation.

The PHEV makes sense as a company car in only 4 scenarios to me.

1. company pays all fuel including business and private and you do lots of both. Don't bother charging and run it as a tax efficient petrol car.

2. company pays business fuel and you repay private fuel. You do lots of business miles and relatively few private miles. You don't bother charging and run it as a tax efficient petrol car, making allowance for the more expensive small private mileage from the poor MPG as you save so much in tax.

3. you do a lot of private miles (like commuting) and very few business miles. You pay for most the petrol and the electricity. Electricity acts like cheap petrol and reduces your running cost.

4. The company has some scheme to repay you for petrol and electricity use... or pays you the approved rate per mile for such a vehicle which you apportion to petrol and electricity. This would be ideal for most of us but seems little interest from employers.

In your case if you're repaying only an agreed 13p you have some 'damage limitation' from the effects of poor mpg so you could run it as a petrol car and not worry about charging. As simple as pressing the 'save' button each time you start up.

Seats took a little getting used to but very comfy now, superb cruising machine, not a true offroader but good enough to be sure of getting home no matter what the UK weather throws at us.
IMHO steering could be improved a shade, slight vagueness around centre means on the motorway it needs a little more frequent correction than my CR-V used to.

Sound system fine for me, a little clunky but you get used to it. The voice control for the phone is growing on me, it seems to be far more accurate than ones I used before.
 
Ignoring the "value" aspect just be aware that you are unlikely to get above mid 30s MPG on the motorway and you only have 8 or so gallons of fuel in the tank.

If nothing else you could become very familiar with the inside of a service station!
 
With that annual mileage and driving pattern, the contribution of the battery to your running costs will be minimal - regard it as a petrol car with electric transmission. Plug it up occasionally - more for battery health than for running costs - and expect to get an average of around 35mpg - possibly a bit higher if you stick to speed limits.

In terms of running costs alone, the Outlander diesel will almost certainly do better. Taking into account BIK savings, I guess that the PHEV will probably come out on top - after all, your business miles are paid for by your employer, so you really don't care about the difference between 35mpg and 50mpg, do you?
 
For this car my company has recently changed the rules. All fuel (electricity/petrol) is now private, so will be paid by me and then I will claim back business miles at 13p. It will now be in my interest to charge it.

Before the change I would of had to reimburse all private mileage at 13p, so it would make no sense to charge it at home as I would be subsidising my company with cheap fuel (electricity).

As the mpg is not great on the petrol alone (compared to your Passat), you really need to think about how often you will be able to charge it and if you see any benefit from your company for charging it. The BIK may be enough of an incentive to choose the car, but it may be better to run it as a petrol car as BobEngineer said.

I have ordered one and I do 18k a year with 10k of that business.

Good luck!
 
My tuppence
Putting aside the tax issues, the car is really optimised for short trips within the realistic range of say 20 miles and then reliable (in effect home or work) access to a charging point. If both these criteria are not met, I don't think it really works that well.
Beyond 20 miles ( or 30 if you drive downhill,turn off AC/lights/radio etc), you have a 2 litre petrol SUV carrying around a battery pack which will give 30-35 mpg on the motorway and as others have pointed out, a small tank.
I use mine primarily in London (where it is really good) and keep my old V8 X5 for longer trips - out of town/Scotland/Alps.
To be fair the real joy of the PHEV is that I could use it for a trip to the Alps but it is not ideal (lack of range and power) and other cars (including my old X5) are better for this.
 
I was sold on the Outlander PHEV as a BIK saver, but the small fuel tank and 2018/19 tax year BIK % is very high compared to the 5% at the moment but the overall cost is cheaper. (on a 4 yr lease)

The big issue I have with the Outlander is the small fuel tank of a range of 250 miles and the dash/cabin.

Does anyone know if the new MY16 outlander has the same fuel tank ?
 
gobiman said:
To be fair the real joy of the PHEV is that I could use it for a trip to the Alps but it is not ideal (lack of range and power) and other cars (including my old X5) are better for this.

We took ours four up and luggage to the Alps at half-term - no problems with power or range between reasonable journey breaks anyway. I would think it is not cost effective to keep another car (tax, insurance, MoT etc.) just for occasional out of city trips. :?
 
The same here. The car is an excellent choice for mountain driving - I have done so for four two-week trips now. In fact, in heavy snow it is amazing, outperforming just about anything else. Plenty of power. And they do have petrol stations in the Alps.
The only thing to remember is keeping “charge” mode engaged all the time.
And yes, the engine revs up from time to time on a steep climb. So does an automatic gearbox, and a manual one if the driver knows what he is doing.
 
Im sure if you're getting one free - you cant moan too much :)

I just bought a nearly-new and collected yesterday. After 1 full day of ownership Im starting to discover a few niggles which have taken some of the "buzz" from the experience.

MMCS - awful to use, slow to start and navigate through unintuitive menu structure
Bluetooth audio + nice to have as previous car didnt
Voice control + actually does seem to work, there's a first!
DAB + nice
Reversing camera + nice
Driving position & adjustment + nice
Bluetooth hands free - drops calls constantly
Range display - says 240 miles compared to 500+ in the brochure
EV range - says 20 miles on full charge with everything switched off
Charging cable supplied - too short
13A charging is almost free + Solar PV at home
16A/32A home chargers no longer free + although only £200 for 16A
Eco button - seems a bit pointless and why is it NOT on by default?
iphone app - not great and you connect to the car, rather than it to your network. Range not great either.
Tilt/Slide Sunroof - very 1980's

But at least I'm living the electric dream..
Hopefully I'll get over these and come to love it.. I'm probably being overly critical but to be fair some of the gripes are unrelated to it being a hybrid and are issues that simply should not be there on a modern car.
 
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