O.K. - My head hurts - which buttons to press . . . .

The deep and techy discussions are very interesting but, to many of us, I am sure, too deep ( ) - everyone knows the answer is "42" anyway. Mitsubishi have set the car up as "optimal" as to just getting in and driving, but in order to get "a bit more" out of the vehicle maybe a simple day-to-day

However, as the proud (and feeling righteous) owner of the car, I would like to ask / clarify a simple question, but realising everyone is different / has different requirements, it may not be an easy answer. However, if the responses could be a one-liner . . . . . (stand back and wait to be flamed!) . . . . would help me.

So, I live in rural England (Cambridgeshire) which is, at the highest point, about 90 feet above sea level I would think. Flat. A walk up the driveway is considered a steep hill.

I will be driving locally and should be able to do most trips on EV (drive into Cambridge 10 miles each way - charging available in Cambridge car-park or at the Park-and-Ride.

Monthly 100 mile round-trip on Motorway to Essex to see Son & Daughter-in-Law
Monthly 200 mile round-trip on A Roads to Nottingham to see Sister & Family
Bi-Monthly 150 mile round-trip on conjested roads to Norfolk. Holiday apartment, no charging available without a 20 metre extension to first floor bedroom window.

Total annual milage on my last car was averaging 8,000 to 10,000 miles per year.

From reading everything I can, options on driving to the best advantage of the car for me seems to be :-

(a) - Day-to-day : Run on pure EV when I know I can complete whole journey or re-charge at car park.
(b) - Motorway journey : Opinion seems to be to run on EV with "Save" button pressed once I get on a the Motorway, so as to charge the car but get best overall performance. Complete journey on city roads on EV and use "Charge" if I run low.
(c) - A class (non motorway/freeway) road trips - same method as (b) if I get a good non-stop run (dual carriageway, no jams)?

If you are wondering why I bought this car, the financials made sense - 300 miles on the clock, pre-registered to the dealer and £10,000 below list. Ability to write off Corporation Tax on the vehicle in the first year. So, brand new car and over £20,000 in savings and benefits with a tax charge to me of 5% of the original price (benefit in kind) making a personal tax charge to me of about £400. Otherwise I would have bought a diesel . . . .

Thanks for your thoughts on the questions . . . .

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

One line answer: That's how I use it, pretty much same pattern of driving. Will that do?

Now you're going to get 40 different opinions, and be none the wiser after you've read them all!

Pretty much likewise. I've had mine for 5 weeks, done 650 miles, all EV as almost all journeys are short and urban/suburban. I work from home and have a charger installed in the drive and have, as yet, never had to use a public charger.

This week I need to do a shortish (30mile) motorway journey and plan to hit the save button when I get to the motorway, but if needed, there is a charger at the destination before the return. Next week I have a 450 mile return trip up the A9 with very limited charging opportunities, so had again planned to hit the save button once out of town and then use the EV when I get there, doing the same on the way back!

In a strange way I'm kind of looking forward to getting a sense of the car off the EV, just to see how it does actually perform in the non-EV made. I have loved the EV experience and at >10p per kWh it has cost about £25 so far in charging costs, for 650 miles!!

Regulo said:

Hi Jeff,

One line answer: That's how I use it, pretty much same pattern of driving. Will that do?

Now you're going to get 40 different opinions, and be none the wiser after you've read them all!

Click to expand...

Thanks . . . I am currently wiser

lg1726 said:

Pretty much likewise. I've had mine for 5 weeks, done 650 miles, all EV as almost all journeys are short and urban/suburban. I work from home and have a charger installed in the drive and have, as yet, never had to use a public charger.

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Many thanks, I work from home as well and getting a PODpoint installed next week. I wondered if I would ever use a public charger, but they are free in Cambridge (other than the registration fee, but it covers all of East Anglia) so, freeeeeeee, no brainer!

Look forward with interest to your thoughts after the 30 / 450 mile journeys.

Jeff

Buttons, Buttons, Buttons. Sunday drives on Bitumen roads are just the start. Wait till the roads turn to mud, or you get snowed in or you have to negotiate some steep grades, or you tow a caravan, etc etc etc. How did we manage to drive a stick transmission, or even the double clutch on older cars. Had to drive a car with a foot switch for the high beam, and even a pedal to engage the starter. Never had to manually crank.

I use a sticky SAVE mode a lot on Power ON for most journeys, and if I know it is only local, I turn it OFF, and generally, the PHEV operates in EV mode for a few km, and up to 4km with a full battery. If you forget to press a button and the battery becomes depleted, you may use a bit more petrol on a trip if it is over 250km, but the use of electricity at the start muddies the economy calcs, especially if some of the journey uses series hybrid mode.

The strategy you outlined will be more than adequate. Remember to press the buttons at the right time for best results. Over 50,000 km driven in a PHEV now, and pressing buttons at the right time can still be a challenge when there is no road and it is very steep and slippery.

Yep, been driving for over 45 years, no at-fault accidents and three points on my licence (6 years ago for 35 in a 30 zone in a Smart Car!) in all that time. Nowadays I like to keep to proper roads and hopefully I will just push anything and everything in sight and close my eyes if the roads turn to mush. Or RTFM if it is really bad. :lol:

Where we live, the land is flat and, if you go east, the first set of mountains will be the Urals. When we get Easterlies, it can blow cold but luckily it also means that we get very little snow of any depth as there is nothing to force the precipitation. Everything stops here with 1cm of snowfall.

It looks like my intended driving style is like my school reports - "adequate, but could do better". Bro. Edwin would be proud (sort of) that I am still being consistent.

Thanks, Jeff

For the best economy, stay away from Save and Charge as much as possible. if you anticipate a stretch of "below 40 MPH driving", you may want to use Charge to collect the necessary charge to get across that stretch. That is a simple as I can put it.

Bet we are going to have a more complex discussion once more

:lol:

anko said:

For the best economy, stay away from Save and Charge as much as possible. if you anticipate a stretch of "below 40 MPH driving", you may want to use Charge to collect the necessary charge to get across that stretch. That is a simple as I can put it.

Bet we are going to have a more complex discussion once more

Click to expand...

Oh, please no! Between us we have tried all sorts of different strategies and the bottom line really seems to be that nothing you do makes a major difference to fuel economy and all you are doing is juggling with the 20 to 30 miles that the battery gives you, so is it really worth it? Once your battery is flat, the car is going to do its own thing and you will get approximately 40mpg. If you are driving a hundred miles, then your battery is going to cover around a quarter of that and choice of strategy may vary the efficiency over that part of the journey by perhaps 10% - not significant as far as I can see...

OK, maby, I hear you. So, in my examples, which was the point of the post (hoping it wouldn't go too far off topic), for Option (b) which stated :-

b) - Motorway journey : Opinion seems to be to run on EV with "Save" button pressed once I get on a the Motorway, so as to charge the car but get best overall performance. Complete journey on city roads on EV and use "Charge" if I run low

so, you suggest I should leave home, get onto the motorway and run on EV until the battery is flat and then let the car do its own thing? This is what I thought I was supposed to do. BUT, not having done the 100 mile trip from Cambridge to Nottingham yet, the purpose of the question was to ascertain if that was the best option. I would like to arrive in Nottingham with enough battery power to be able to drive the 5 miles from the end of the A52 into central Nottingham on EV only, avoiding creating pollution and when leaving do the same outwards.

This creates another question, and I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. In your suggested mode, what state of charge will the battery have if I have left home in Cambridge on full charge, ran it flat by the time I got to the A1 and went in "let the car do its thing" mode until I get to Nottingham? Would the battery have any charge or would it be down on one bar? Would I be able to go into EV when I got to Nottingham?

Please excuse the naivety of the question, I am completely new to all of this . . . . .

Jeff

Regulo said:

Now you're going to get 40 different opinions, and be none the wiser after you've read them all!

Click to expand...

HaHaHa! Told you so! :lol:

maby said:

... and the bottom line really seems to be that nothing you do makes a major difference to fuel economy

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Well, that may be your bottom line, but it is certainly not mine. See now you've done it again :mrgreen:

jthspace said:

OK, maby, I hear you. So, in my examples, which was the point of the post (hoping it wouldn't go too far off topic), for Option (b) which stated :-

b) - Motorway journey : Opinion seems to be to run on EV with "Save" button pressed once I get on a the Motorway, so as to charge the car but get best overall performance. Complete journey on city roads on EV and use "Charge" if I run low

so, you suggest I should leave home, get onto the motorway and run on EV until the battery is flat and then let the car do its own thing? This is what I thought I was supposed to do. BUT, not having done the 100 mile trip from Cambridge to Nottingham yet, the purpose of the question was to ascertain if that was the best option. I would like to arrive in Nottingham with enough battery power to be able to drive the 5 miles from the end of the A52 into central Nottingham on EV only, avoiding creating pollution and when leaving do the same outwards.

Click to expand...

Jeff, please understand that maby is more concerned with drivability of the car than fuel economy. Somehow, he feels the car handles better with a full battery. That may be true or not true, but driving around with a full battery negatively impacts fuel economy.

The whole concept of a hybrid is having a battery that can absorb excess power, which is available at a relatively low cost once the engine is running, That excess power can be used later with the engine turned off. This is why we get the nice MPG figures. Now, the fuller the battery, the less it is capable of absorbing that excess power (or willing to do so). This is to protect the battery from excess wear. Have you ever noticed how regenerative braking is not working very well, the first couple of miles after a recharge? Same reason. The battery is not willing to accept (all of) the power generated by the electric brakes and therefor the car must deploy the mechanical brakes (and will waste energy when doing so).

Your idea to arrive at the city limits of Nottingham with 5 miles of EV range left is great. Please try to do so. But instead driving around with enough energy in you battery for 20 or 30 miles of EV range during the whole trip and only start using that energy in the last 20 or 30 miles of your trip, it would be best to just drive, using most of the energy in your battery, and hit Save when you are down to 5 miles of EV range. Or you could even use it all up and hit Charge a few miles before reaching the Nottingham city limits and allow the car to rebuild the 5 miles of EV range.

An analogy: if you have a 15 gallon gas tank and every time you have used up 1 gallon, automatically 1 gallon is added again. And the fill-up is while you drive, effortless. Would you then drive around all the time with 10 or more gallons in your tank? Or with just 3 or 4 gallons? I think it would be most economical when you do not carry around all the excess weight and bring as little as possible. Only when you know there will be no fill-ups available in the last few miles of your trip (or when you know you are going to be burning fuel faster than you can refill for a while, because you must climb some hills), then you may want to have some extra gallons in your tank. Do you bring these all the way? Or do you add them to your tank close before you need them? I think it would be most economical to add them as late as possible.

One might say: if this is all true, then why at all plug-in? Well, electricity from an external source is a lot cheaper then electricity generated by your engine. This outweighs the reduced efficiency of the system big time.

My bottom line: bring as much as you can from your charge point and use it as fast as you can.

Anko,

Many thanks. I realise all of this PHEV stuff is like religion - there are different flavours of the same belief. Wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same? . . . . . O.K. maybe that isn't a good example in the present moment, but the concept is there. Each believes s/he is right . . . . . and they are.

As you rightly say, "the whole concept of a hybrid . . . . ." - the problem I have is that I know what I have, I just don't know how to use it. :shock:

So, to restate / modify :-

b) - Motorway journey : Run on EV for as long as possible, keeping what I may want at the end of the journey by pressing the "Save" button with the reserve I want (*). Complete journey on city roads on EV and use "Charge" if I run low.

(*) Cambridge to Nottingham - keep 5 miles in / 5 miles out, so 10 miles reserve in my example.

O.K. All EV Journeys are equal, except some EV journeys are more equal than others.


I will therefore, for the time being, practice using (a), the newly modified (b) and maybe replacing (c) with (b) for the time being.

Practice makes perfect, so I expect the above isn't the end of the learning curve, but the beginning of a new journey.

:mrgreen:

Thank you all for your thoughts and comments that have so kindly been offered.

Jeff

anko said:

jthspace said:

OK, maby, I hear you. So, in my examples, which was the point of the post (hoping it wouldn't go too far off topic), for Option (b) which stated :-

b) - Motorway journey : Opinion seems to be to run on EV with "Save" button pressed once I get on a the Motorway, so as to charge the car but get best overall performance. Complete journey on city roads on EV and use "Charge" if I run low

so, you suggest I should leave home, get onto the motorway and run on EV until the battery is flat and then let the car do its own thing? This is what I thought I was supposed to do. BUT, not having done the 100 mile trip from Cambridge to Nottingham yet, the purpose of the question was to ascertain if that was the best option. I would like to arrive in Nottingham with enough battery power to be able to drive the 5 miles from the end of the A52 into central Nottingham on EV only, avoiding creating pollution and when leaving do the same outwards.

Click to expand...

Jeff, please understand that maby is more concerned with drivability of the car than fuel economy. Somehow, he feels the car handles better with a full battery. That may be true or not true, but driving around with a full battery negatively impacts fuel economy.

....

Click to expand...

That's not quite right, you know! If I'm driving relatively short distances with the opportunity to charge every night, then I follow your philosophy more or less - use the battery on the slow parts of the journey and save on the fast parts, aiming to use it all by the time I get to my next charging opportunity. The difference between us is that I don't do a lot of driving in that pattern - usually three days per week at home with the opportunity to charge and four days on the boat with no opportunity to charge. In practice, my local usage is so low that I get by on two charges per week.

On those long weekends away, I know that "Save" is still going to let the charge level drift down, so I simply drive on Save all the time. Most of my trip is motorway or fast dual carriageway - which will draw down the battery very quickly - so when I leave the house I will be driving at 60-odd MPH in Save mode with a full battery - by your theory I probably should run for a while on Normal to drop the SOC a bit. At the far end of my journey I do perhaps ten miles on slower roads - I keep the car in Save because I know that I'm going to be doing some more slow driving over the weekend and will not be able to charge. Even in Save mode, the SOC drifts down a bit, so I arrive at my destination with 13 or 14 bars on the battery gauge.

We spend three days on the boat, using the car to go shopping and things like that. I keep it on Save all this time, generally running in serial mode with the SOC continuing to drift down. Hence, when I start my return journey to the house I will usually have 50% SOC - perhaps a bit more. I'm going to be driving about a hundred miles home - mostly motorway - so I keep it in Save mode most of the way back in order to ensure that I have some capacity in the battery for overtaking and hill climbing. When I get to something like ten miles from home, I let it drop back to Normal and use up my remaining charge.

Over those four days, I will have driven about 200 miles without the opportunity to charge. At least 170 of them will inevitably be driven on petrol - my only scope for improving fuel efficiency is playing around with the 20 to 30 miles of EV range that I have. It is certainly the case that the first fifty miles (more or less) of my trip are driven in parallel mode with a full battery. It is also the case that the last 50% of my charge is going to be used driving the car at motorway speeds rather than the more efficient low speeds. It is possible that if I were to control that battery usage more carefully, I might manage another five miles on EV but out of a total trip of 200 miles, I'm really not going to lose any sleep over that - life is just too short!

Bet you want to go back to the one line answer now. :lol:

My strategy is basically the same and I can often hit 40mpg on even longer trips.

I set off and travel some urban driving, I allow 30 to 40% of my battery to be used, hit the motorway/dual carriageway and hit save. there is no point using battery on the motorway as it burns too quick trying to push a 2 ton brick through the air.

I set regen to B2 as it gives some speed control without making the ride too jerky as it can on a higher setting unless you have a rock solid pedal foot. I do use the paddles when an opportunity to steal some power arises and as I used a fair bit of battery leaves room to put it in there.

I never use charge its just not efficient for me, except briefly at certain times when I want the engine power already on tap for a quick getaway or overtake.

At the other end I use some more battery on urban but I keep back maybe 10 - 20% as I know I can use it coming back off the motorway on the return trip and if you have a period when you need to do lots of quick bursts even in save you can run the battery down until the performance is temporarily limited by the car... its not nice running out of oomph when you need it most, just don't go there!

On the final leg I let it run down and do its thing.

One last thing, if you can adopt a relaxed travel style it makes a huge, huge difference. there is a PHEV sweet spot in the 58 - 68 range where even in save its quite effective in building some battery charge up, shutting down the engine and running in EV in the usual cycle. Any faster and the engine tends to run pretty much all the time.

Over a moderate distance this easing off a bit costs the duration of a couple of tracks on the radio worth of extra time and you arrive relaxed, leave all the fast lane pushing and shoving to others, with our traffic these days any gains won are lost in the next mile or so again with something holding you up. Nothing more satisfying cruising up the slow lane past the stationary convoy of BMW's and Audi's in the outside lane that tore past 10 minutes ago

maby said:

I keep it on Save all this time, generally running in serial mode with the SOC continuing to drift down. Hence, when I start my return journey to the house I will usually have 50% SOC

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Now, this is exactly what I mean. Why would you run Save mode at serial hybrid speeds? I have no idea. Why would you not want to do that? Well, the engine has a so called sweetspot were the amount of fuel needed per kWh produced is at its lowest. The sweetspot is roughly at 75% load. But 75% load is way more than what is in general needed for driving. So, our advantage over a normal car is that we can use the battery to buffer what we cannot use. But for this, we need a battery that is to a certain extend depleted. By keeping the SOC over 50%, you restrict the charge current and you prevent the engine from running at its most efficient load. If I am wrong about this, can somebody explain it to me?

maby said:

- so I keep it in Save mode most of the way back in order to ensure that I have some capacity in the battery for overtaking and hill climbing.
...
It is possible that if I were to control that battery usage more carefully, I might manage another five miles on EV but out of a total trip of 200 miles, I'm really not going to lose any sleep over that - life is just too short!

Click to expand...

And how was I wrong when I said you were more concerned with drivability than with economy?

BTW: If I understood correctly, Jeff lives in an area that very much looks like .... well like the Netherlands. Pretty flat. If I got that right, he doesn't need much reserve for hill climbing

BobEngineer said:

I allow 30 to 40% of my battery to be used, hit the motorway/dual carriageway and hit save. there is no point using battery on the motorway as it burns too quick trying to push a 2 ton brick through the air.

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You do realise that, on a long motorway stretch, when you hit Save mode at the beginning of that stretch, you run as much in EV mode as you would when you hit Save towards the end of that stretch? The only difference is that your average SOC has been higher. And with that .... never mind.

BobEngineer said:

if you have a period when you need to do lots of quick bursts even in save you can run the battery down until the performance is temporarily limited by the car... its not nice running out of oomph when you need it most, just don't go there!

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Before Jeff gets spooked, how often did this really happen to you? :shock:

BobEngineer said:

One last thing, if you can adopt a relaxed travel style it makes a huge, huge difference. there is a PHEV sweet spot in the 58 - 68 range where even in save its quite effective in building some battery charge up, shutting down the engine and running in EV in the usual cycle. Any faster and the engine tends to run pretty much all the time.

Over a moderate distance this easing off a bit costs the duration of a couple of tracks on the radio worth of extra time and you arrive relaxed, leave all the fast lane pushing and shoving to others, with our traffic these days any gains won are lost in the next mile or so again with something holding you up. Nothing more satisfying cruising up the slow lane past the stationary convoy of BMW's and Audi's in the outside lane that tore past 10 minutes ago

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Haha. Couldn't agree more!