Anyone else who wouldn't have a PHEV again?

[maby]

I'm hoping that the PHEV will last another seven or eight years (if it doesn't, that would be a strong argument against buying another!). By that time, I will be approaching retirement age and my available income to buy another expensive new car will be reduced. The distances I travel will also be reducing and I will probably have less than ten years driving left in me. Therefore, I anticipate that I'll end up replacing the PHEV with a relatively elderly diesel SUV - probably predating all the current and future emission controls. I may even go back to a Landrover Defender - it should have most of the bugs out of it at 20 years old!

I would have thought the reverse is true. I am semi-retired and do the reduced distances you anticipate. Hence most of my driving is on EV. Why on earth would I want a diesel in 7/8 years with all the likely financial penalties then in place. Even with your mileage approaching 100k by then, £3k for a replacement battery to extend the usable life of the PHEV sounds quite reasonable to me. :mrgreen:

I'll certainly consider the cost of extending the PHEV's life and if it seems likely that an investment of £3000 will result in another 7 or eight trouble free years, that would be a perfectly sensible option. As far as a replacement vehicle is concerned, I suspect that a company car will not be an option, so tax benefits will not be a consideration. So, I will be looking at a private purchase and weighing up the balance between a new (or virtually new) vehicle costing the equivalent of £35000 in today's money and a second hand diesel SUV - probably manufactured about five or six years ago today - and costing the current equivalent of three or four grand. In my remaining years of driving, it will be very difficult to recoup anything near to the £30,000 price difference of the new car!

 

[jaapv]

What would stop you driving on in the PHEV after a battery refurbishment, which is after all not more than the price of an old banger?
Mitsubishi builds their cars to a 300.000 Km standard, but in real life many old ones soldier on far beyond that.

 

[maby]

What would stop you driving on in the PHEV after a battery refurbishment, which is after all not more than the price of an old banger?
Mitsubishi builds their cars to a 300.000 Km standard, but in real life many old ones soldier on far beyond that.

Read the first sentence of my post - that is certainly an option if the rest of the car is sufficiently trouble free. I'm not currently optimistic about that and experience with the Prius indicates that independent garages are very reluctant to carry out maintenance on hybrids which could push the running costs up if it is always necessary to go back to a main dealer.

 

[gwatpe]

Once the warranty is up, I would not hesitate to replace the battery in my PHEV when capacity affected driving performance. The Prius battery although smaller has similar electrical hazards and I helped a mate with the replacement of it a few years ago. These components are designed to be serviced when the time comes. I would probably not buy one NEW again.

 

[maby]

Once the warranty is up, I would not hesitate to replace the battery in my PHEV when capacity affected driving performance. The Prius battery although smaller has similar electrical hazards and I helped a mate with the replacement of it a few years ago. These components are designed to be serviced when the time comes. I would probably not buy one NEW again.

You are talking about doing it yourself there - not something that everyone would be willing or able to do. I speak from experience when I say that in this country, at least, it is virtually impossible to find anyone other than a main dealer who is willing to do maintenance on a hybrid. Even the big independent chains like Kwikfit regard them as the work of the devil - they will change a tyre, but not do anything that requires raising the bonnet. I asked them to do a basic oil-change service a couple of years ago and was met with a flat refusal.

 

[simonrh]

The things that would stop me think twice about buying another PHEV would actually be easily solved I reckon.
1. The MMCS is crap. It is just too basic on its ancillary functions. Phone / ipod etc. etc. If they spent about £20 more with the equipment supplier they could deal with that in a blink
2. I would want a pure EV button. The colder the weather gets the more this is bugging me.
3. Natural evolution of battery tech for the £rd gen would hopefully yield another 10-15% battery which would get me comfortably to work rather than "only just" in the summer.

Otherwise i have no problem with the car's build etc. it all seems fine after 17k miles.

 

[Phever]

The things that would stop me think twice about buying another PHEV would actually be easily solved I reckon.
1. The MMCS is crap. It is just too basic on its ancillary functions. Phone / ipod etc. etc. If they spent about £20 more with the equipment supplier they could deal with that in a blink
2. I would want a pure EV button. The colder the weather gets the more this is bugging me.
3. Natural evolution of battery tech for the £rd gen would hopefully yield another 10-15% battery which would get me comfortably to work rather than "only just" in the summer.

Otherwise i have no problem with the car's build etc. it all seems fine after 17k miles.

these are more or less exactly the reasons why i started the thread. controlling the car via wifi instead of via cellular network hardly feels like 2016 either!

 

[zzcoopej]

In rebuttal to your statement that " It will require battery and charging technology that does not exist even in research labs yet.", you're wrong. The technology is already here. It's only the price and availability that's the issue.

And then to really blow your minds, the 4th option is possibly TankTwo -

https://chargedevs.com/features/can-tanktwo-redefine-the-battery-pack-with-big-data/

www.tanktwo.com

If TankTwo can pull it off, it changes everything.

 

[Sunder]

And then to really blow your minds, the 4th option is possibly TankTwo -

https://chargedevs.com/features/can-tanktwo-redefine-the-battery-pack-with-big-data/

http://www.tanktwo.com

If TankTwo can pull it off, it changes everything.

That is very impressive. I'd guess at least initially though, it'd have a high failure rate, depending on how many balls you need to make a pack. Especially since you have communal sets of balls, nobody would be incentivised to look after them or remove faulty balls out of circulation. The algorithm will probably route around faulty balls initially, but once they hit a certain percentage, you'll have issues.

Edit: Just got a few minutes to read the text URL in more detail. Now this REALLY impressed me, and renders what I said above incorrect:

Not only can the spread be wider, but a significantly deteriorated cell, like one that has lost 70% of its design capacity, can still contribute to pack capacity in a meaningful way. This means that string cells, even when employing identical battery chemistry, have a longer useful life or can be pushed harder, hence a pack can be smaller. For example, a cell with elevated internal resistance will contribute disproportionately in low output power mode (while cruising), and the ones with lower internal resistance allow more current draw when peak power mode is active (during acceleration).

 

[gwatpe]

Mass production of a smart battery cell is certainly a useful approach. I have to question the automatic changing of the series-parallel arrangement of the cells. As cells lose capacity, more have to be placed in parallel to maintain a particular current demand. A point will come when the terminal voltage will reduce, and this will affect vehicle performance.

Back in 1993, a solar car with a high voltage battery bank had a mechanism to change the series and parallel arrangement of the battery cells to maximum power point track the solar array voltage. The interconnections had to be continuously monitored and the task had to be shared among all the battery cells to reduce the cell imbalances and maintain terminal voltages. This was only successful for the duration of the WSC race.

Any smart type battery cell would need a significant processor overhead to manage the complex task in a battery with potentially thousands of cells. Mesh networks are around, like are used in solar micro-inverter monitoring systems.

Retro fitting my PHEV is not an option and It would require a higher power to standardize for the car and power industry needs.

 

[anko]

Would the same body shell fitted with a 2 litre petrol engine coupled to a conventional manual transmission be measurably less fuel efficient than a PHEV? I doubt it.

I don't know. I saw Gwatpe managed to do 150 km on 9 liters of fuel. Don't think he would have been able to do so with a petrol Outlander. But like I said, I don't know. I do know I do not want to own a car with a manual gearbox again

 

[maby]

Would the same body shell fitted with a 2 litre petrol engine coupled to a conventional manual transmission be measurably less fuel efficient than a PHEV? I doubt it.

I don't know. I saw Gwatpe managed to do 150 km on 9 liters of fuel. Don't think he would have been able to do so with a petrol Outlander. But like I said, I don't know. I do know I do not want to own a car with a manual gearbox again

I'll certainly agree with you on the manual gearbox. The electric transmission with a great reduction in moving parts is one of the most attractive aspects of the PHEV for me. It is becoming rather difficult to find any conventional car with a proper automatic box these days and that would limit my future choices to a significant extent. They almost all seem to be on servo operated manual boxes these days - and I certainly don't want anything with a clutch ever again!

 

[user 816]

Would the same body shell fitted with a 2 litre petrol engine coupled to a conventional manual transmission be measurably less fuel efficient than a PHEV? I doubt it.

I don't know. I saw Gwatpe managed to do 150 km on 9 liters of fuel. Don't think he would have been able to do so with a petrol Outlander. But like I said, I don't know. I do know I do not want to own a car with a manual gearbox again

Look at how many non-plugin hybrids have been sold. They have fairly low power engines and carry batteries around but were sold on economy benefits. Millions of Prius sold, I have driven the Honda Insight myself.

As Anko talks about, these were about leveling out the power demands and saving excess energy when it was available to use when needed or to reduce engine need.

Without plugging in the PHEV is a big Prius, the reason Mitsubishi used an Atkinson engine is it has poor low end torque but compensates with better economy at mid to higher revs, it wouldn't be available in a normal car as it would be unpleasant to drive with.

Our heavy car cruises really well even at high speed with only 120bhp engine, often even saving some excess charge too and the battery helping out for good acceleration. This has more potential for efficiency than a 160-200bhp normal big SUV with an non Atkinson engine running at an arbitrary speed.

I think 40mpg is really good. Our diesel Outlander (C-Crosser) with 160bhp and no battery weight only does around that and my diesel Honda CRV with 150bhp averaged below 40mpg in reality unless you drove it impractically gently.

The PHEV is quieter and smoother than both of these were.

 

[user 816]

Would the same body shell fitted with a 2 litre petrol engine coupled to a conventional manual transmission be measurably less fuel efficient than a PHEV? I doubt it.

I don't know. I saw Gwatpe managed to do 150 km on 9 liters of fuel. Don't think he would have been able to do so with a petrol Outlander. But like I said, I don't know. I do know I do not want to own a car with a manual gearbox again

They almost all seem to be on servo operated manual boxes these days - and I certainly don't want anything with a clutch ever again!

Amen to that, I recently had a loan car for 2 weeks with a VW DSG box, it was horrid, pulling away quickly was really hard to judge due to the 'rubber band' lag where your natural instinct is to increase throttle as nothing is happening then it decides to kick in and you end up tyres scrabbling from too much power. It seemed too keen to change up too soon so I kept it in 'sport' mode some trips but it still did it. Despite its fanatic desire to keep the engine at little more than tickover speed most the time fuel economy was still really rubbish. I suspect its programmed like that not to save fuel but to keep the racket from the engine quiet!

 

[maby]

...

Look at how many non-plugin hybrids have been sold. They have fairly low power engines and carry batteries around but were sold on economy benefits. Millions of Prius sold, I have driven the Honda Insight myself.

....

The PHEV is quieter and smoother than both of these were.

I owned a Prius for almost 10 years and was very fond of it, but it seldom managed significantly over 45mpg - which is nothing special for a car of that size and shape. I was a long time member of a Prius discussion forum similar to this one and the most common comment was annoyance that the fuel economy fell so short of the published figure.

 

[HHL]

...

Look at how many non-plugin hybrids have been sold. They have fairly low power engines and carry batteries around but were sold on economy benefits. Millions of Prius sold, I have driven the Honda Insight myself.

....

The PHEV is quieter and smoother than both of these were.

I owned a Prius for almost 10 years and was very fond of it, but it seldom managed significantly over 45mpg - which is nothing special for a car of that size and shape. I was a long time member of a Prius discussion forum similar to this one and the most common comment was annoyance that the fuel economy fell so short of the published figure.

A friend with a Prius also has that experience, on the open road, they are no better than a similar size conventional car, however, in stop-start city traffic, it easily achieves the published figures. And this is really where the PHEV shines as well, as a short run city car with lots of space and creature comforts it is great, especially in EV mode. For regular long distance travel, may be not.

 

[anko]

Definitely NO expert on Prii, but do they alternate between hybrid and EV mode on higher speed and once the battery is depleted?

 

[maby]

Definitely NO expert on Prii, but do they alternate between hybrid and EV mode on higher speed and once the battery is depleted?

It does, but the battery is a lot smaller and the cycle is much shorter than on the PHEV. Also, there is not the same concept of the battery becoming depleted - the car is effectively permanently in Save mode oscillating around 50% charged.

You have to understand that the Prius is more sophisticated as a hybrid than the PHEV, but makes no attempt at being an EV (OK - it does have an EV button, but the EV range is about half a mile). The petrol engine, generator and electric motor are all permanently engaged at all speeds - right down to walking pace - and the interaction between them is far more complex.

The generator is coupled directly to the output shaft of the petrol engine and that output shaft also feeds into one port of a three-way differential. The electric motor couples into another port of the same differential and the third port provides drive to the wheels. At low speeds the petrol engine can be stopped which effectively locks that port of the differential and, in turn, directs all the drive from the electric motor to the wheels through the differential. When the engine is started, the control systems balance its output with that of the electric motor - power is being simultaneously delivered to two ports of the differential which adds them together to produce the drive to the wheels - there are an infinite combination of engine speeds and motor speeds that can produce the same road speed (well, in theory at least).

The power control algorithm tries to keep the battery at 50% charge more or less. Pure EV mode really does not exist - the petrol engine is Atkinson cycle which has a very narrow power curve and the electric motor effectively controls the road speed in normal operation. The electronics try to keep the petrol engine running close to maximum efficiency and vary the electric motor speed to achieve the required road speed. In many respects, the electric motor functions as an electric turbocharger to compensate for the narrow power curve of the Atkinson cycle engine.

Regenerative braking is achieved through the electric motor. The generator also functions as the starter motor for the petrol engine. If the battery is allowed to discharge close to empty - due to a long hill climb or too many hard accelerations in a short period of time, you can get into a racing engine condition as it beings the battery back up to 50% The hysteresis cycle (as a percentage of the total battery capacity) is a lot larger than it is for the PHEV - the charge level can swing from close to zero up to close to 100% and back down again in the space of a few minutes as the car uses the battery capacity to provide acceleration.

 

[anko]

Do I understand correctly that the engine does not turn off, other than at very low speeds?

 

[maby]

Do I understand correctly that the engine does not turn off, other than at very low speeds?

It can turn off at almost any speed - the electric motor can take the car up to 50mph at least - but it is never off for long if the car is in motion because the battery capacity is so low. The normal cruising configuration of the car is the engine running at somewhere between 1000 and 2000 rpm providing both drive to the wheels directly through the differential and generating electricity. At the same time, the electric motor is running, also producing drive to the wheels and being the primary means of speed control. The speed of the petrol engine will increase as the road speed approaches 60mph more or less since the electric motor speed begins to max out around that point and the petrol engine begins to take over as the road speed controller.