Strategy for first 'out of EV range' journey

[Amsy]

Hey guys,

I will be travelling from Nottingham to Sutton Coldfield tomorrow morning - the distance is about 45 miles and most of it will be on motorways.

What should my strategy be?

Start in total electric mode - hit charge once on Motorway - and then back to electric for the end part of the journey ? Or is there a better way to do this trip

As always , appreciate any tips

Cheee
Amsy

 

[maby]

For that journey the strategy should be

1. Start the car
2. Drive to your destination
3. Stop the car.

if it's mostly motorway, nothing you do is going to make much difference. If you stick to the speed limit, you should be able to get close to 40 mpg after the battery goes flat and average well on the way to 80mpg over the entire trip.

 

[user 258]

Hi,

I am assuming that you will be able to recharge at the end of the 45 mile trip.

My strategy would be start in EV mode until on the motorway then hit save. If there are any parts of the motorway when your maximum speed is 50mph or less then switch back to EV mode for those and save mode again for higher speed parts. Keep an eye on the estimated EV range and try to run the battery down as you progress so that your distance to destination and estimated EV range decrease roughly inline with each other. The aim being, of course, to complete the journey with as little battery range as possible. I'd estimate you'd get through half a UK gallon and therefore average 90mpg overall.

Kind regards,
Mark

 

[Rooksdown]

Hi Amsey

However you drive and in whichever mode you feel like driving, my top tip is always make sure you have a few miles battery left, either by save or charge modes. The reason being without any reserve of electric power it becomes a slow heavy car, and if you need to quickly pull out of a junction the motors make a huge difference.

Cheers

One of the guys

 

[maby]

Hi Amsey

However you drive and in whichever mode you feel like driving, my top tip is always make sure you have a few miles battery left, either by save or charge modes. The reason being without any reserve of electric power it becomes a slow heavy car, and if you need to quickly pull out of a junction the motors make a huge difference.

Cheers

One of the guys

While that is true, I don't think you need to take any special action to achieve it. If you keep an eye on the energy flow display while driving with a "flat" battery, you will see periods of charging and the EV range will creep up to one or two miles - and this is the case without hitting the "Charge" button. The car always tries to have some battery in reserve to give a bit of boost when required.

I did a 70 mile journey yesterday starting out with a flat battery - at the end, it reported that more than 40% of the distance had been done on EV.

 

[gobiman]

My technique is similar to avensys. I hit SAVE when the speed limit hits 70 mph as at typical motorway speeds I think you are better off using the engine directly or, to put it another way, all electric is, relatively more efficient at lower/urban speeds.
For me,I typically head out of London and it is approximately 12 miles to the M4 (roughly half my charge). It is then generally a function of how far off the motorway the destination is. If 12 miles or more, I simply cancel SAVE on leaving. If less I will cancel on 12 miles or so to go - the aim being to arrive having used (almost) all the charge.
I can also vary things by cancelling SAVE in 50 mph roadworks (or even 40 in some cases).
My crude costing calculation is usually reduce the total distance by 12 miles at each end for the electric and assume 30-35 mpg for the remainder if motorway. You can then also calculate a rough "blended" mpg for the total.
Hope this helps - it does add some interest for the journey!

 

[maby]

My technique is similar to avensys. I hit SAVE when the speed limit hits 70 mph as at typical motorway speeds I think you are better off using the engine directly or, to put it another way, all electric is, relatively more efficient at lower/urban speeds.
For me,I typically head out of London and it is approximately 12 miles to the M4 (roughly half my charge). It is then generally a function of how far off the motorway the destination is. If 12 miles or more, I simply cancel SAVE on leaving. If less I will cancel on 12 miles or so to go - the aim being to arrive having used (almost) all the charge.
I can also vary things by cancelling SAVE in 50 mph roadworks (or even 40 in some cases).
My crude costing calculation is usually reduce the total distance by 12 miles at each end for the electric and assume 30-35 mpg for the remainder if motorway. You can then also calculate a rough "blended" mpg for the total.
Hope this helps - it does add some interest for the journey!

While that is true for a mixed journey with a fair amount of non-motorway driving, the OP was asking about a 45 mile trip that is mostly motorway - he's going to have to use a fair amount of his charge on high speed cruising. I just question the value of fiddling with the charge and save buttons if you are only doing four or five miles off-motorway - it will burn a teacup full of petrol and you are potentially risking an accident if you are paying too much attention to fuel consumption strategy and not enough to actually driving!

 

[jaapv]

Hi Amsey

However you drive and in whichever mode you feel like driving, my top tip is always make sure you have a few miles battery left, either by save or charge modes. The reason being without any reserve of electric power it becomes a slow heavy car, and if you need to quickly pull out of a junction the motors make a huge difference.

Cheers

One of the guys

It is indeed possible to get the car into emergency power mode, but you will have a hard job getting there. After the battery shows empty (aka 20% level) it will run quite normally without any problem and will apply a bag of tricks to keep it that way. Only after you have managed to run it into the hard stop of 13 % level will it display a turtle and slow down. I have only seen it reported tin the various forums twice.

 

[Amsy]

Thanks guys . I read the post from avensys just before setting off - so followed the same strategy of using save mode when doing high speeds - thanks Mark!

For me when I was in EV mode , the battery level eroded at a significantly faster rate at over 60mph so using the save button made sense - but impact of using this strategy vs not using is difficult to quantify

But I was happy with the trip computer reading of 82 mpg

 

[gwatpe]

I have to question the critics. The distraction of pressing buttons like SAVE mode while driving. How did we ever drive a stick shift, with a clutch even. I would have preferred the SAVE button to be on the steering wheel. This will be on the after warranty list.

 

[jaapv]

I agree. Why should you take your eyes of the road to operate a huge button in an easily locatable spot?

 

[gwatpe]

It is indeed possible to get the car into emergency power mode, but you will have a hard job getting there. After the battery shows empty (aka 20% level) it will run quite normally without any problem and will apply a bag of tricks to keep it that way. Only after you have managed to run it into the hard stop of 13 % level will it display a turtle and slow down.

I had my PHEV get to the loss of range data, and an empty battery and petrol gauge and then the slow down after continued driving, and down to 20-30kph at the hard stop. No message appeared, or turtle screen. This may be another difference between Australian region cars, to add to the growing list of bugs we face down under.

Now keep 10L petrol in the car as reserve, as I now know the car will respond to a drink of the motion lotion and you can get to a refill ASAP.

 

[maby]

I have to question the critics. The distraction of pressing buttons like SAVE mode while driving. How did we ever drive a stick shift, with a clutch even. I would have preferred the SAVE button to be on the steering wheel. This will be on the after warranty list.

It's not so much a case of pressing the button as of watching the status displays to work out when to press it.

 

[gwatpe]

Hi maby,

My driving requirements are quite simple and I don't have to look at the battery gauge often. When I leave home with a full battery, I press the SAVE button. After about 5km of driving the PHEV decides to operate the ICE. By this time the battery has dropped 1-2 bars. Hilly driving for approx 30km. Battery drops to approx 4 bars down. Turn OFF SAVE mode for a bit to reset the number. Turn the SAVE back ON. SAVE stays ON till the first STOP light. Depending on traffic, and stops, SAVE is either ON or OFF. SAVE is OFF when stationery. Over the course of the journey about half the battery is usually depleted. As long as the PHEV has at least 1/4 of the battery capacity for the hills on the return journey all is good. PHEV is not happy on one particular hill in series hybrid mode, but no problem in parallel hybrid.

The battery gauge is always visible on the dash, so is not really a distraction. Have tried and failed with the fiction of the estimated ranges. Seem to get 500-600km on a typical petrol refill of 30-35Litres with a few electric recharges mixed in. Just have to reset a trip meter when the tank is filled. Have only run out of petrol deliberately.

Would prefer some additional instruments to help work out the best driving styles on the go rather than at the end of a journey when you can't do anything about it, until next time.

Vehicle loading does dictate highway driving needs. The more the vehicle is loaded, will usually need CHARGE mode rather than SAVE mode. A mate with a VAN uses CHARGE mode all the time when towing.

Lots of options to try when learning how the PHEV works best for your own driving style and road and traffic conditions.