Battery Charging - Save Mode

[nick2b]

Had my car a week now and I'm trying to figure my way through the subtleties.

Drove to Manchester on the motorway today and decided to use the save mode for the higher speed bits. Mostly during the journey the dash arrows were indicating a blue engine to battery line and an orange engine to wheels line.
This I assumed was the petrol engine driving the wheels and any 'spare' going to the battery. However, over the course of about 100 miles, the battery charge appeared to move not a jot.
Is this flow of energy so little that in reality it makes no difference?

 

[user 422]

In the "SAVE" mode your selected its doing exactly what it should do - keep the Battery at the level it was (+/- a couple of % ) when you pressed the button.
If you watch the energy flow carefully you will see that even on Motorways it will occasionally drop to Serial and even EV only mode depending on your throttle position, i.e. overtaking or incline changes...

If you really want to push a charge into the battery while driving use the "Charge" Button - that mode will recharge the battery to approx 80% in around 30Mins driving ( as long as you are not hacking along at 90... )

 

[nick2b]

Thanks.

I get that about the 'save' and 'charge' buttons.

It was more an observation about how little charge must be going into the batteries even when the indicators are showing flow.

 

[gwatpe]

My observations with driving a working PHEV in SAVE mode, on ACC, with 75% battery capacity at 100kph is that on a flat road, the transmission is in parallel hybrid. The petrol consumption as measured by OBD2 sits at approx 8- 9L/100km. As the road conditions change to incline, the Petrol increases to 14L/100km before the electrics kick in to supply ACC needs. As the road conditions change to decline, the petrol consumption drops back and the electrics stop assisting, At about 6L/100km, and depending on the grade, regen occurs, at the engine speed determined by the clutch. If the load drops more, then the clutch releases and the petrol can drop back to 1.9L/100km. By this time too many other variables come into play and it is difficult to replicate.

The SAVE mode attempts to preserve the set battery charge status. As dgmulti has stated, CHARGE mode attempts to recharge the battery.