When, if ever, is it worth hitting 'charge'?

[Sailordoc]

OK, only had my PHEV for a bit over a week. First long trips today and over next few days. Have used Ecotricity charge points today, but only 11 EV miles left and no prospect of another charge for 2 days. Do I just run it as normal , let it deplete the battery and then carry on as petrol powered until my next Ecotricity stop, or is there any situation where using petrol to recharge the battery to 80% makes sense?

Sorry, still trying to get to grips with things.......

 

[Neverfuel]

Try and give it a proper charge - you should not rely on fast chargers all the time. Use the charge button if you have to run on petrol anyway and need to climb hills or tow something on the trip.

 

[Sailordoc]

Try and give it a proper charge - you should not rely on fast chargers all the time. Use the charge button if you have to run on petrol anyway and need to climb hills or tow something on the trip.

Yes, yes, when at home I always charge fully overnight, but that is not possible over the next few days so Ecotricity will be only option to charge. Don't need to tow, but at weekend will be going to Pembrokeshire and there will be some hill climbs so will look to hit charge before I get to that section. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Neverfuel]

Fast chargers will only give you 80% charge so you would only get 20 or so miles anyway - worth it if you are stopping for a rest anyway, but no point going mad on it. Gwatpe has posted some good tips on his long Aussie road trips which may be useful. Let us know how you get on.

 

[kentphev]

Drivers manual says use charge before steep hills.... I'd agree with that big time. Going up a steep hill with no battery is a bit painful in a PHEV.

Went up Bluebell Hill in Kent with no charge left and it was really sluggish... Felt like my old CRV towing loaded horse trailer in 6th gear up hill into a headwind!

 

[greendwarf]

Depending on your view on air pollution, it might also be worthwhile to Charge when driving at speed (when ICE is running efficiently) outside of urban area so you can crawl in stop start town traffic without pumping out (and breathing in) pollutants and the ICE running inefficiently. :mrgreen:

 

[Sailordoc]

Just to follow up, I charged at Ecotricity a couple of times on the way to Pembrokeshire, and managed 50mpg over the 240 mile journey, and hit charge before a hilly section. On the way home I didn't have time to stop for a charge, and drove around the legal limit all the way. That averaged 36 mpg!

 

[PhevWestNorway]

Charges before the ferry queue so that heating or cooling can be used without engine while waiting.
Charging can certainly be used to advantage before uphills when pulling heavy trailers.

 

[maby]

I'm away from the house for several weeks with no possibility of plugging in, so I'm using Charge quite a lot to keep the battery level up.

 

[gwatpe]

The specific battery level does not seem to be important. I have been travelling for weeks using save mode. The battery level has dropped slowly during this time. I have used "CHRGE" mode to bring the level back up to about 15 bars, then back to "save" mode. Extended high speed driving may depleted the battery in parallel mode quite fast. Save works fine even up to 110 kph.

 

[sheselectric]

Re posts above, I drove up a long steep hill with no battery and it wasn't nice, it sounded like a a very small cc trying to do it ... What I haven't understood is that with a 2000cc engine, why is it so noisy on ice alone (on a hill) . Can anyone explain this, I might be misunderstanding how it works. Thanks.

 

[jaapv]

When the car needs full power the batteries can only supply about half of it. The rest is supplied by the generator driven by the ICE running at optimum revs. It sounds exactly like a car using a CVT transmission.
The level of charge is not really relevant in this mode as the car will use its 7% charge reserve to supply the electrical part.
Didn't you shift gear when climbing a hill in a conventional car? I guess the sound is so surprising because the car is very quiet normally.

 

[Grigou]

7% are not forever on a long steep hill, and the noise is really louder when the battery is depleted (I experienced it a few days ago in Savoy : the ICE revs are higher, to be able to deliver 0 to 60 kW without any help of the battery).

The only solution is to anticipate ... and even so, not to have a too long moutain pass to drive. When I drive to Courchevel in Save mode I lose about 3 to 5 bars on the jauge every 10 km at the end of the trip.

 

[jaapv]

Yes - but you regain them rapidly on descent. Climbing a long mountain pass should indeed be done starting out on as high a charge as possible.

 

[maby]

When the car needs full power the batteries can only supply about half of it. The rest is supplied by the generator driven by the ICE running at optimum revs. It sounds exactly like a car using a CVT transmission.
The level of charge is not really relevant in this mode as the car will use its 7% charge reserve to supply the electrical part.
Didn't you shift gear when climbing a hill in a conventional car? I guess the sound is so surprising because the car is very quiet normally.

Every conventional car I've bought in the last 20 years had so much spare power under the bonnet that it could climb just about anything in fifth - from a standing start if necessary!

 

[jaapv]

Well, given that we do not all drive Morgan +8 cars, I would suggest that is not the average state of affairs.

 

[karl]

I don't think it's that noisy. I live at a top of a hill so if I get of the motorway with flat batteries, the last part can get a bit noisy,
but not much worse than a diesel automatic. It's not a particularly large hill though so I guess it can get worse if you
would be driving longer and with a load.

I guess the RPM could have been tuned a bit lower, and the exhaust system and the silencers looks a bit wimpy,
but I still think that it's tolerable. Maybe the effect is a bit exaggerated by the slow speed and relatively high RPM.

After have read a lot of comments here and elsewhere, I got pleasantly surprised that the car is really nice to drive also on empty batteries,
at least when not hill climbing.

 

[gwatpe]

Getting back to the OP question.

My driving experience, with limited corded recharging at the moment has the "CHRGE" mode used primarily after I have returned back to "NORMAL" mode and forgotten to return back to "SAVE" mode and the battery has been depleted more than I had planned. Even so I generally only recharge the battery on cord power, or the ICE when the level is under 50%.

I suspect that if my driving needs became predominantly EV, then "CHRGE" mode would be used infrequently.

We will all have slightly different driving needs and will need to find individually, what works best for us. We will need to adapt to whatever driving needs come up and there is no single mode that works all the time.