My guess? You thought you were going on petrol power only. But the engine could't handle it (depending on your speed, you may have had only 40 kW or so available) by itself and it has been draining the battery, looking for E-support. Until the battery didn't want to be drained any further.
Not a glitch. You should either make sure you have plenty of battery power before you start climbing (use Charge mode beforehand) or reduce your speed.
Exactly.
You were demanding more power than the car could sustain, so it had exhausted its reserves. Quite impressive really, I only managed to do so once in 40.000 Km, @ 160 KpH, full load, ski box and long Autobahn incline.
This is why I follow the policy of retaining my charge till I'm approaching the end of my journey - and why gwatpe has gone to the trouble of building an accessory to help him do similar. A PHEV driven actively uses up charge - I've never actually turtled mine, but I often have it showing absolutely flat with the engine revs building up higher than usual on stiff acceleration or hill climbing.
Question is - what would happen in a petrol car under similar conditions? Surely speed would also drop unless you could increase the fuel flow by more acceleration. Would this happen under cruise control? I ask because the PHEV is the first car I've driven with it so don't know the answer. :roll:
Question is - what would happen in a petrol car under similar conditions? Surely speed would also drop unless you could increase the fuel flow by more acceleration. Would this happen under cruise control? I ask because the PHEV is the first car I've driven with it so don't know the answer. :roll:
You only really get these circumstances on a hybrid - it has two separate power sources and needs both of them to achieve maximum performance. If you completely deplete the battery, the car is left a bit underpowered and has to reduce its performance. On a conventional car, this would be equivalent to a partial breakdown of the engine - not something that the engineers would design for.
