New owner questions

[alfredblack]

Outlander arrived yesterday, very basic instruction given, couple of quick questions for other drivers with knowledge.
Got 200 mile trip planned, read somewhere best to not use the battery and just use the engine, (mainly motorways) also when normal driving should i leave the charge button on or does this use more petrol when the battery is very low. thanks

 

[ChrisMiller]

Welcome Alfred!

Just put it in D(rive) and let the car do its thing. Later, you can read the manual (and this site) at your leisure and figure out ways of improving the efficiency of your trips by a few percentage points. Try to arrive at the next charging point with the battery 'empty', because driving on electric power is less than half the cost of driving on petrol (and saves polar bears etc. ... possibly) - this will be the case anyway if your journey is over 30 miles (unless you fiddle with the 'Save' button). Don't expect miraculous fuel consumption from your two ton brick if you're driving it full tilt down the motorway - 35 mpg (8l/100km) would be pretty good.

And the 'Charge' button is only needed if you're towing a trailer over an Alpine pass.

 

[alfredblack]

Thanks Chris
one more thing, should i be driving in EV mode, does this use less battery ?

 

[ChrisMiller]

You can't (easily) not drive in EV mode - the car will select battery only / serial / or parallel modes for you depending on power demanded, speed and battery state (and no doubt lots of other factors).

[edit] Ah, hang on, have you got an updated model with an EV button as well as 'save' and 'charge'? Cool (I think we'd all like one of those)! In any case, it won't make much difference on a long (over 30 mile) journey, but it's very handy for short trips, where preventing the engine from starting when you don't want it to is a bit finicky.

 

[alfredblack]

Yes, has EV button plus save and charge buttons, so would this have a baring on motorway driving.

 

[Steepndeep]

Yes, has EV button plus save and charge buttons, so would this have a baring on motorway driving.

Cool, I have just wondered how it works. Many people on this forum has bantered Mitsu for the lack of that functionality. Now it says EVprio button, not EVonly if I am correct?

Can you try and force the ICE to start with that button pressed? And describe how it works? Two situations come to mind

1 Cold outside (say 0-5 C) press ventilation and put indoor temp to 24 C and see if ICE starts.
2 Accelerate quickly, floor the pedal but do not try to push it through the floor as that will create "kick-down" sort of.
3 As 2 put press pedal "through" floor

Would be nice to see how the button works

 

[Steepndeep]

Update

Sorry 3 cases not 2.

And yes the EVbutton should play a role on all journeys within EV range (less than 45 km). City, parkinglot and Autobahn and everything in between. When battery is depleted it does not matter.

 

[alfredblack]

What is ICE (apart from the obvious). on the EV button i press start first and then press EV, has anyone any thoughts on the 200 mile motorway trip regarding battery or petrol or is it best just to use up the battery and then it will automatically switch to petrol when required. Will the engine recharge the battery while i am driving.

 

[Steepndeep]

Sorry

ICE stands for Internal Combustion Engine. In your case the big ironthing in front which we would like avoid starting on short journeys. Hence EVbutton questions

 

[ChrisMiller]

On a longer journey, I can't see that it will make much difference whether you give EV priority or not, since you'll have exhausted the battery (and the ICE will therefore start) long before journey's end. But you should find it very useful on shorter trips and if you ever visit a city with an 'eco' zone where you must use electric only (I'm not aware that there are any in the UK, but there are a few on the continent).

By default, the car will let the battery deplete to 'empty' (which is not really zero charge) and then maintain that state by charging from the petrol engine. You may notice (though it's hard to hear it in normal driving) the engine starting and then stopping to allow the car to drive on electric for a while, and then the engine starting again as the charge level drops. In this state, it's behaving very much like a standard (non plug-in) hybrid, such as a Prius.

If you press the 'Save' button it will retain the battery's charge level from that point on. 'Charge' forces the petrol engine to recharge the battery up to ~80% 'full' (getting those last few percent from the engine isn't very efficient, 'fast' chargers available at service stations etc also stop at about the same level) - but the only time you'd want to do that is if you're towing and approaching a very long, steep incline where you need close to maximum power from the battery and the engine, with a danger of depleting the battery and dropping into 'tortoise' mode.

As I said initially, this is all fascinating stuff (IMNVHO), but there's absolutely nothing wrong with just putting it into Drive and letting the car sort it out for itself (while you enjoy the quiet driving experience without worrying yourself about button pressing).

 

[alfredblack]

Thanks guys

 

[Gilbo]

Anyway... the question you asked..
I do regular long round trips (200 - 300 miles) Let the car do its own thing on the slow roads approaching the motorway, once on the motorway hit the save button as i find driving at speeds above 40mph drains the battery rapidly. then once off the motorway or stuck in slow moving jams on the motorway turn off save and run on the battery. This seems to work for me.
The mpg on these cars is VERY sensitive to speed, 70 - 80 mph on the motorway i get 35-39mpg, slow it down to 50 - 60 mph and i get early 40's mpg and the battery gets a charge whilst using save, usually adds a few miles of range.

so in summary..

Use "save" for the fast bits
Use "battery" for the slow bits
Don't use "charge" as the fuel will disappear very quickly
when the battery is flat - let the car do its thing.

BTW I don't thing 35mpg for a car this size on the motorway at speed is too bad?

 

[anko]

Use "save" for the fast bits
Use "battery" for the slow bits
Don't use "charge" as the fuel will disappear very quickly
when the battery is flat - let the car do its thing.

Save mode is nothing more than telling the car to switch back and forth between EV mode and Charge mode automatically on a regular basis, causing SOC to fluctuate by a percent and a half. Same hapens when you 'let the car do its thing' on an empty battery, except the baseline SOC is higher when you use Save mode. So, no need to worry about using Charge mode as long as you don't arrive with SOC to spare on your next charging location. And may I suggest you only use it on speeds of 40 MPH and higher (allowing parallel mode to kick in)? We had already decided it was not smart to use the engine on slower sections, as it forces the car into serial mode introducing two additional energy conversion steps.