onlynik said:.....
I wasn't comparing it, here, to a saloon, it was an SUV, albeit a fast one. But you are right it is a different car. However I used to have a Toyota Hi-Lux, before it was cool to own one, and drive it off road, and it's performance was about the same.
FWIW, past (SUV) vehicles have been.
Porsche Cayenne Turbo 4.5 Litre, 450 bhp, 2355 kg = 191bhp per tonne
BMW X3 2.5 litre, 189 bhp, 1740 KG = 108 bhp per tonne (to get any use out of this you needed to have the engine at over 4k rpm.)
Toyota Hi-lux 2.4D 89 bhp, 1700 = 52 bhp per tonne.
Now I was, as you say, running with a flat battery, I was on my way home from the hills, and had not been able to charge it anywhere, however the spec for phev are 1.8 tonnes and 200 BHP, so it should be at least comparable to my previous BMW. It isn't. I'm not sure what the power output of the petrol engine itself is, but I'd like to find out. There is a dyno day being held locally, so I may get it tested there. It would be nice to see a graph of where the peak power is.
Well, it is a bit unfair to compare it with the Porsche - that has close to twice the power to weight ratio!
Try keeping your battery charge up and see how much difference that makes. If I'm driving any significant distance, I hit Save as soon as I set out and stay in save until I'm ten or twenty miles from my next opportunity to charge. There is certainly an argument that this is less than optimum for fuel consumption and Trex has run tests that seem to indicate that this could be approaching 10% under ideal conditions. Personally, I take the view that the difference between 40mpg and 44mpg is not enough to compensate for having an underpowered car.