1000 miles in...

[Flatcoat]

Been keeping an eye on the forum while waiting for my GX3h. Many thanks for the advice and guidance thus far. I've had it for a fortnight/1000+ miles and am very happy, albeit finding the initial attitude adjustment a little challenging.

The first key point seems to be that the PHEV is very dependent on driving style. After the first few days' driving like a nun (--.- MPG), I've fallen off the wagon a bit, with several 100+ mile days and limited recharging on site. My average is now just south of 50mpg which isn't bad for a 2000kg vehicle but the contrast between predominantly EV driving and ICE use is a bit frustrating. Most of my usage is on rural roads, so I'm not able to make the most of cruise control and steady speed cruising. Internal temperature is kept at 18, aircon is off (unless car starts to steam up), ECO mode used as a default (although it would be ideal if this was activated as the default on startup). Where possible, I plug in on site but being realistic sometimes I can't schedule my days to allow for 4 hours on site simply to recharge the battery. It's plugged in religiously every evening, so starts the day with a full charge. Any suggestions on how to bring the average back up a bit, or do I need to accept that there will be times when I feel smug and times when I get depressed?

On another front, it does seem as if various reviews are missing a critical point about the PHEV. It is a comfortable ol' bus with no performance pretensions. It reminds me a little of a Saab 9-5 estate I used to own: big, slightly saggy and definitely biased towards more leisurely progress. On the plus side, I'm not sure if there is another EV on the market that can take the volume of clobber that you can squeeze into a PHEV. My current record is 45 pairs of boots, in boxes, or four large cardboard boxes. Other EVs may (or may not, don't really know) be more efficient but quantity has a quality all of its own.

Thanks again for the help that the forum provides. Despite the technology, the PHEV is not exactly PnP for new users. This from someone who has been sad enough to read the manual. Twice.

Flatcoat

 

[maby]

I think something approaching 50mpg is probably the best you are going to get for that pattern of usage at this time of year. It will improve a bit as the weather warms up next spring. My usage pattern is a total of around 50 miles Monday to Friday - almost entirely EV - and 150 miles at weekends - almost entirely petrol. I'm seeing about 55 mpg on the dial after about 1300 miles.

 

[Flatcoat]

I seem to have been pessimistic when calculating my fuel consumption. According to Fuelly the correct value is 56.6 mpg. Best so far is 64.7 so there is clearly work to be done to get close to the best reported stats.

 

[maby]

Those "best reported stats" come from people whose pattern of usage leaves them running primarily electric. The best you can get running pure petrol mode is about 44mpg - as soon as you start doing a significant number of 100mile trips, your fuel economy starts to be dominated by them.

And that 44mpg only is available if you keep below about 60mph - like most cars, it starts to drop off rapidly as you get to 70mph and above. If those 100 miles are bombing up the motorway at 80, it's quite easy to get the fuel economy down to 30mpg or less.

 

[CJ1045]

It also depends whether you take into account the cost of charging. It is quite easy to convert the cost of charging to an equivalent amount of petrol

e.g. Car says cost of charging for October was £31.25 based on the unit price for electricity you have told it and its measure of the kWh that you have charged it with.

If 1 litre of petrol costs £1.35 then you have effectively used £31.25/£1.35 litres of fuel in addition to what you filled by pump.

In just over 2000 miles I have a petrol only MPG of 50.86 but a combined petrol and electricity equivalent of 44.02.

Saying that within the 2000 miles is pretty much 1000 miles of long distance petrol only mileage. I am pretty happy with the figures.

CJ

 

[Flatcoat]

OK, it seems reasonable to assume that the main economy driver isn't so much the vehicle as the usage pattern. Assuming a full charge at the start of the day, anything under 30 miles is EV all the way, subject to outside temperature, weather and the usual disclaimers. A round trip of 50 miles or thereabouts requires prior planning so that sufficient time is available on site to charge up again. Anything over 100 miles is a dead duck as far as EV driving is concerned and consumption control reverts back to a light right foot, plenty of anticipation and a more relaxed approach to the speed/time equation. I know there have been various suggestions/recommendations about maximising range but presumably this is more fine tuning than substantive changes?

Plan B is of course to use the PHEV as a 'normal' car: jump in, start up and head off. It's reassuring that you can do this but as I am still in the first stage of infatuation this does seem to negate the purpose of a plug-in hybrid. This whole driver re-education process may take some time.

In passing, Maby, motorways, at 80. Up here? I'm more likely to be stuck behind a tractor at 25!

Flatcoat

 

[maby]

That is pretty much it. You can do quite a lot to influence the length of that initial EV range - heating and lighting will eat deeply into your battery range and the ECO button does seem to have a useful effect - but do you really want to drive your brand new £35k car wearing three pullovers and still shivering because you are too mean to turn the heating on? You don't say what model you have - if it's a GX4, then making good use of the pre-heat while still plugged up to the mains can mitigate this quite a lot.

Once you've run your battery flat, then you are subject to all the same considerations as the driver of any car - drive it gently for good fuel consumption.

There's been a lot of debate about how to use the "Save" and "Charge" buttons and the paddles. The consensus seems to be to leave the Charge button alone unless you have a very steep hill to climb somewhere along your route and to press Save under circumstances where you would not be making good use of your battery. The classic example of this is when you start a long motorway run with plenty of charge left in the battery, knowing that you will have some miles of slow driving at the other end. Bombing up the motorway is not a good use of your battery charge, so it makes sense to press save and do it on petrol, using the battery at the other end.

I have recently started using the Save button for the first few miles of each journey - heating the car is not an efficient use of the battery, so I force it to burn petrol till the heater has warmed up, then turn Save off. It's too early to be sure, but I think this may be improving my mpg average across the journey by as much as 2mpg without sacrificing any comfort.

 

[Flatcoat]

Mine's a GX3h so heating is from the ICE anyway. Given that it gets a wee bit chilly up here from time to time, I think I'll pass on the no heat option. Range optimisation is one thing, being cold and miserable is quite another.

 

[maby]

Mine's a GX3h so heating is from the ICE anyway. Given that it gets a wee bit chilly up here from time to time, I think I'll pass on the no heat option. Range optimisation is one thing, being cold and miserable is quite another.

Very wise! That being the case, I strongly suggest that, if you have a trip of more than five or ten miles to make in the day, you should press the Save button when you set out on a cold morning and force the engine on immediately rather than waiting for the battery to run flat. Heating the car off the battery will suck it dry very quickly, leaving you burning petrol - better to burn the juice from the start and get heat into the car as a side effect rather than waste your battery warming up the car, then end up burning petrol to move and wasting the spare heat that the engine will inevitable produce.

 

[Ozukus]

As far as I'm aware unlike the GX4 the GX3 doesn't have a 4kw fan heater installed so heating only comes from the engine and therefore won't be draining the battery but will be kicking ICE in straight away.

 

[maby]

As far as I'm aware unlike the GX4 the GX3 doesn't have a 4kw fan heater installed so heating only comes from the engine and therefore won't be draining the battery but will be kicking ICE in straight away.

You are, of course, right - scrub my previous post!

 

[davec]

As far as I'm aware unlike the GX4 the GX3 doesn't have a 4kw fan heater installed so heating only comes from the engine and therefore won't be draining the battery but will be kicking ICE in straight away.

You are, of course, right - scrub my previous post!

Well I have a GX3 and it was certainly my understanding that the the ICE needs to run to generate any internal heat. However, I did notice on the drive home tonight that the ICE would cut-out to save fuel even though the heater continued to run - presumably it was distributing latent heat from the heating system.

For me the pre-heater was the biggest sacrifice in not chosing the GX4, the rest of the functions and gadgets just didn't justify the additional cost. So far, I've no reason to doubt that decision but I'm only 12 days and 260 miles in!

 

[KentishSteve]

Interesting point for gx3 owners

 

[Lyra252]

Hi

I have found that using Save, when under load, eg climbing a hill or fast (over 50) driving gives best mpg,as the battery is most efficient just tootling around.

I have averaged just over 60mpg since July with lots of 300 mile motorway trips included.

No electric heat for me, but the engine heats up in no time, and provides hot air after as little as 3-4 minutes.

Also managed 25mpg towing a very heavy dive boat, no worse than Discovery/RRover.

Don't miss the whistles and bells of higher models, but would like LED DRLs and side door protectors.

Have just got a couple of LED sidelight bulbs, next job.

Cheers

Chris