Owners in Europe testing the tow capabilities of the PHEV

I came across a forum in Norwegian and they had some pictures of towing with the 2014 Outlander PHEV.



Bert Vriezen had this to say (loosely quoted as it was translated automatically by Google):

I think I'll have to add a picture of my combination.
It is a trailer with about 3,000 pounds payload.
With the Outlander PHEV I'm trying to limit myself to a maximum of 2,000 pounds a few times a year.

Click to expand...

Another owner talked about towing a 2 horse trailer with one 600kg horse with no issues at all, over a distance of 90 kilometers.

Nice picture It's cool that the matter with using a trailer is being tested. IMO the manufacturer should have given out more info about this, how car(battery, engine consumption and so on) will react to beeing a towingcar. Although I wonder yet on what will happen if you use this car to tow a caravan max weight 1500 kg fully loaded and during the summer. An average camping trip will be at least 1000 km. Will this car do it every year as the diesel version will have no trouble at all?? Does anyone have an idea about this?

Lots of people use the car for towing, and it would be nice to hear if anyone have experience about this.

Thanks

I hope it does the job of towing well as buying an Outlander PHEV to tow a 1500kgs caravan to France in August, going to be an expensive mistake if any issues! I will let you know. We will pick up the car on its first release in the UK in mid June we hope.

From what I read on the Dutch forum it should not be problem if you drive at 90-100 KpH. The ICE will be a bit noisy regularly, especially on inclines. 1500 Kgs is the maximum towing weight, so you will have to limit the caravan load.
Fuel consumption is comparable to other heavy (petrol) SUVs as there is no cheating the laws of physics. If you drag a 3500 Kg combo with the aerodynamics of St. Paul’s Cathedral, expect something in the order of 7-8 Km per liter. On a 45 liter tank…
There is talk on the Dutch forum about the possibility of adding an extra fuel tank.

outlanderphev said:

I came across a forum in Norwegian and they had some pictures of towing with the 2014 Outlander PHEV.

Bert Vriezen had this to say (loosely quoted as it was translated automatically by Google):

I think I'll have to add a picture of my combination.
It is a trailer with about 3,000 pounds payload.
With the Outlander PHEV I'm trying to limit myself to a maximum of 2,000 pounds a few times a year.

Click to expand...

Another owner talked about towing a 2 horse trailer with one 600kg horse with no issues at all, over a distance of 90 kilometers.

Click to expand...

This Norwegian car has a Dutch registration… :lol:
http://www.outlanderphevforum.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2168&start=75

.
I thought that towing limits were standardised throughout the EU and that the legal limit for the PHEV is 750kg unbraked and 1500kg braked. Is this correct?

Ignoring the possibility of sirens and blue flashing lights, would towing loads more than the above not have insurance and warranty implications?

Or have I got this quite wrong :?

T.

Just came home from a 2000 km Caravan trip with a Caravan slightly over the allowed 1500 kg.
My experiences:
Average fuel consumtion about 12-13 liter/100km (average Daily trips without charging, was about 350 km)
It is not able to use the Save or Charge mode fully. With any of those settings it recharges the battery in about 250 km
Without save ot charge it lasted about 20 km. So I Always used save mode to keep battery for any uphill runs.
Quite much noise from the ICE at acceleration.


But in the whole it worked fine. Since I charged the car at the camping places and took someshorter dily trips without the Caravan, the average for the whole week was about 9ltr/10km

Hi bullit
really interesting. Please tell us though that your overall consumption was 9l per 100km?! Sounds a bit expensive otherwise!

I had thought camping would be cool with a hook up to charge the car
Cheers
H

Hypermiler said:

Hi bullit
really interesting. Please tell us though that your overall consumption was 9l per 100km?! Sounds a bit expensive otherwise!

I had thought camping would be cool with a hook up to charge the car
Cheers
H

Click to expand...

Your guess is absolutely right! A zero more or less might be important....

Bullit, how did it feel towing? Do you use torsion bars at that weight? My van is close to the limit and I'm thinking they might help overall...

This picture is not from Norway.

AnneGrethe said:

This picture is not from Norway.

Click to expand...

I've got a guy who works for me that says stuff like this... Like I say to him, instead of saying how bad it is, tell me how I can do it better... Whereabouts is it from?

:lol:
As noted before, the car is Dutch, but who cares where it is? we are an international bunch aren't we? It is the car that counts...
H

If it is of any use to anyone, I have just completed a 2,700 mile (4 350km) trip through France towing a fully loaded 1450kg 2m wide and 7 metre long caravan (size affects 'drag factor') and got 23.8 miles per UK gallon -that's 11.87l/100km or 7.38l/100 miles (EU miles!).

There was no huge difference between using electric+petrol (overnight charging) and just petrol - not surprising really as the electric towing range is very small compared to my daily average journey, usually less than 5% of the trip.

I was surprised to find that the UK Caravan Club, who did a road test on the PHEV this year got virtually the same consumption figure.

I drove on both normal and save settings and found little difference and drove at the 50mph(80kph) and 60mph(90kph) limits we use in the UK for single and dual carriageways.

Better than expected and the 50kg below max towing weight would in theory only add much less 5% as then majority of the fuel is used to overcome aerodynamic drag.

My only driving concern was when crossing the Millau Bridge, a very long consistent uphill slope, where the French had put restrictions of 50kph for cars and 30kph (19mph) for HGV and Caravans and 'No overtaking' because of roadworks. We were the car and 'van at the head of a very long queue of vehicles by the time we got off the top end of the bridge.

Delighted with the perfomance and ease of driving!

Have towed my twin axle caravan a couple of times, once definitely over the 1,500kgs limit (!). Did 1,448km and got 15.8l/100km (228 litres of fuel!!). Drove from the north of England to central France. Once, through France, on a long uphill drag went into reduced power mode but, other than that, not a problem. Left charge button on all the time, although once the battery depleted, rarely managed to get any additional charge in.

I have towed this caravan with both this car and a Mitsubishi Shogun and find the Outlander is a much better tow vehicle. With the Shogun, you always knew you had something on the back whereas you don't with the Outlander (other than much slower acceleration).

Also towed a single axle trailer (less than 1,000kgs) and really don't know it's there.