New owner with some general questions

[maby]

Activating charge will cost you 20% in fuel efficiency....

In another thread, avensys wrote:

Mitsubishi themselves actually state that using charge mode, then EV mode, rather than just running in save mode will use about 20% more fuel.

I've seen this statement on the Australian PHEV Q&A. But to be honest, I do not understand why manually switching between Charge and EV would cost 20% more than when the car automatically switches between Charge and EV mode (as this is what HV mod is). Anybody?

Unless you press the Charge button, the car will never significantly recharge the battery "in-flight" - it will discharge down to a target level (which may be either 20% or the level at which you press the Save button) and will then let the charge level drift up and down by a few percent to accommodate driving conditions. Pressing the Charge button effectively sets the target level up to 80% and the engine runs continually till the battery gets back up to that level - this is not an efficient use of your petrol.

 

[greendwarf]

Activating charge will cost you 20% in fuel efficiency.... Just activate save on the motorway bits.
Using charge only makes sense in hilly conditions. (And when you have an emission-controlled zone ahead)

Why hilly conditions jaapv?

At the risk of jumping in ahead of a Dutchman (what does he know about hills anyway :lol: ) you will find elsewhere descriptions of the ICE "screaming" in high revs trying to deliver enough power on its own to get up steep hills in UK (it's a heavy car empty for a 2 litre engine) so you need the extra power available from the battery, especially in mountains (see manual). The Charge mode allows you to re-charge the battery in the plain before you start climbing. At least that's the theory - haven't tried yet myself but will see how it works out in the Alps at half-term.

 

[crustovich]

Does anyone know how much additional fuel is used to charge the PHEV from a flat battery to full while on a long motorway journey?

My experience is that in certain conditions, the charge mode is more efficient than the normal mode.
My example (I apologise in advance for the km/ltrs) is my drive home from work involving a 40km freeway (100km/hr) segment followed by a 25km at 60km/hr. The battery is flat (used on the trip to work).
Thanks to a suggestion by Anko, I decided to play around with the charge mode.
If I do it all in normal (hybrid) mode, I arrive home with an average fuel consumption of 6.7l/100km. If I do the freeway segment in charge mode, I will have just enough charge in the battery to do the 25km segment on battery only. I arrive home with an average fuel consumption of 5.5l/100km.
These are average figures and I've only done it in each mode a couple of times, but the trend seems to point to the charge mode on the freeway being more efficient. Obviously if electric charging was available it would be way more efficient, but for my circumstance the charge mode seems to work, albeit with only a small advantage over hybrid.
Hope this helps.

 

[kljasdfbkjaaalke]

Does anyone know how much additional fuel is used to charge the PHEV from a flat battery to full while on a long motorway journey?

My experience is that in certain conditions, the charge mode is more efficient than the normal mode.
My example (I apologise in advance for the km/ltrs) is my drive home from work involving a 40km freeway (100km/hr) segment followed by a 25km at 60km/hr. The battery is flat (used on the trip to work).
Thanks to a suggestion by Anko, I decided to play around with the charge mode.
If I do it all in normal (hybrid) mode, I arrive home with an average fuel consumption of 6.7l/100km. If I do the freeway segment in charge mode, I will have just enough charge in the battery to do the 25km segment on battery only. I arrive home with an average fuel consumption of 5.5l/100km.
These are average figures and I've only done it in each mode a couple of times, but the trend seems to point to the charge mode on the freeway being more efficient. Obviously if electric charging was available it would be way more efficient, but for my circumstance the charge mode seems to work, albeit with only a small advantage over hybrid.
Hope this helps.

Interesting. How about if you, as some suggest, hit Save when on the freeway? You should be able to drive the 60km/h part to work and home on one charge.

 

[Ozukus]

I ran a test today of stationary testing of Charge Mode today (GX3h by the way) as I had some spare time and some metrics to base a calculation on.

I first executed a journey of 32 miles starting with a full battery and heating on. At the end of the journey I had

Average MPG of 64 Miles
EV Range left of 8 Miles
Total Range left of 308 Miles

I ran in Charge mode for a period of 22 minutes with the above 3 parameters changing to

Average MPG of 40 Miles
EV Range left of 18 Miles
Total Range left of 311 Miles

So for 22 minutes of charging and using the Average MPG

32/64 = 0.5
32/40 = 0.8

I consumed an additional .3 Gallons of fuel at a cost of £1.48 to achieve a range extension of 3 miles which is effectively an average of 10MPG.

I could look at it from an EV range perspective and say 0.3 Gallons of fuel gave me 10 additional EV miles, however that's still only 33.3MPG.

I expect the actual value would sit somewhere between the 2.

Basically this shows that the "only" purpose for the Charge Button that I can see is to boost your EV capacity in the event you are going to go up a steep hill to stop your engine screaming. So for me, as I have no steep hills to worry about, this buttons is a cosmetic addition to the vehicle that serves absolutely no purpose :?

 

[maby]

I ran a test today of stationary testing of Charge Mode today (GX3h by the way) as I had some spare time and some metrics to base a calculation on.

I first executed a journey of 32 miles starting with a full battery and heating on. At the end of the journey I had

Average MPG of 64 Miles
EV Range left of 8 Miles
Total Range left of 308 Miles

I ran in Charge mode for a period of 22 minutes with the above 3 parameters changing to

Average MPG of 40 Miles
EV Range left of 18 Miles
Total Range left of 311 Miles

So for 22 minutes of charging and using the Average MPG

32/64 = 0.5
32/40 = 0.8

I consumed an additional .3 Gallons of fuel at a cost of £1.48 to achieve a range extension of 3 miles which is effectively an average of 10MPG.

I could look at it from an EV range perspective and say 0.3 Gallons of fuel gave me 10 additional EV miles, however that's still only 33.3MPG.

I expect the actual value would sit somewhere between the 2.

Basically this shows that the "only" purpose for the Charge Button that I can see is to boost your EV capacity in the event you are going to go up a steep hill to stop your engine screaming. So for me, as I have no steep hills to worry about, this buttons is a cosmetic addition to the vehicle that serves absolutely no purpose :?

Which supports my suggestion that in most cases the best strategy is to hit Save with an almost full battery and stay in save mode till you are 20 or 30 miles from your next opportunity to charge. If you are travelling a familiar route, it may be more efficient to use up your charge earlier if the last few miles of the journey will be high speed motorway, but in general you want to have the battery run flat just as you park up at the charging point - that way you will have had the reserve charge in the battery at all times to give you the extra boost if you need it.

 

[SMB]

Hmmm. Seems everyone has different results and opinions on the most efficient way to drive this car.

I think the advice about making sure there is enough battery left for hill climbing is good. On Saturday I did a 50 mile round trip towing a horse box across the hills of Scotland and thought I might need ear defenders to protect my hearing from the engine noise. :shock:

 

[crustovich]

Interesting. How about if you, as some suggest, hit Save when on the freeway? You should be able to drive the 60km/h part to work and home on one charge.

Yes this is the next test I plan to do.

 

[user 258]

Hi,

I believe that using charge mode to recharge the battery while on motorways is efficient IF it enables a later urban part of your journey to complete in EV mode.

For example, the other day I had a 75 mile each way trip to make (airport). The first 45 miles (approx) is urban with varying speeds but mostly below 50mph. The remaining 30 miles is motorway. I extensively used EV mode for the first part of the trip, and always when the speeds was below 42 mph. I was down to about 20% battery charge when I hit the motorway. I then engaged charge mode and by the end of my trip I was at about 60% charge. I used the 20 minute preheat before the return journey. Then on return I again used charge mode for the motorway segment, and extensive EV mode for the later urban part, returning home with 1 EV mile showing. Temperature was 0C. MPG there was 57 and mpg home was 47.

Although using charge mode isn't generally efficient, when used in parrallel hybrid mode (so the engine rpm can't be increased to charge more), driving in series hybrid mode is even less efficient due to the double conversion of energy. An additional benefit is that avoiding series hybrid mode means you don't really hear the engine at any time.

Kind regards,
Mark