Hybrid v EV driving

[ge1971]

Hi,

I've recently taken delivery of a Cupra Leon (Estate VZ2 PHEV).
Very happy with it so far, but I'm also pretty new to the PHEV world so thought this would be a good place to look for advice.

I'm trying to establish the economy of driving in full EV mode VS Hybrid.
I'll use a typical example:

A couple of times a week I do a 20 mile round trip. Half of that is 20-40mph over some hilly residential roads, the other half is flat dual carriage way.
I started with the (likely misinformed) position that I'd save money by trying to drive completely in EV mode for these day-to-day trips - that's great and I've used virtually zero fuel for a month.
However, I've noticed that the vehicle charge takes a massive hit at dual carriageway speeds - it seems like it's hardly using anything, then 15% is gone.
So, for example, that 20 mile round trip might use about 75% charge.

I appreciate the hybrid Vs EV equation can get complex when you consider electricity rates and fuel prices, so I'm not looking for THE correct answer, just more info from people with more experience in this sort of thing.

In the scenario described, I'm wondering whether I'd be better off using hybrid mode - presumably that would use more of the EV power when I'm trundling down a residential street, but use less of the charge with some fuel for the higher speed stretches, so maybe I could do a couple of trips like that without charging; at the cost of the occasional fuel top up - keeping the EV only choice to times when I'm unlikely to be going above 40mph.

I've not really dug into this yet, so still need to understand things like the battery manager, which I'm working on; but any pointers on this would be really appreciated

 

[Fergoo]

Hi,

I've recently taken delivery of a Cupra Leon (Estate VZ2 PHEV).
Very happy with it so far, but I'm also pretty new to the PHEV world so thought this would be a good place to look for advice.

I'm trying to establish the economy of driving in full EV mode VS Hybrid.
I'll use a typical example:

A couple of times a week I do a 20 mile round trip. Half of that is 20-40mph over some hilly residential roads, the other half is flat dual carriage way.
I started with the (likely misinformed) position that I'd save money by trying to drive completely in EV mode for these day-to-day trips - that's great and I've used virtually zero fuel for a month.
However, I've noticed that the vehicle charge takes a massive hit at dual carriageway speeds - it seems like it's hardly using anything, then 15% is gone.
So, for example, that 20 mile round trip might use about 75% charge.

I appreciate the hybrid Vs EV equation can get complex when you consider electricity rates and fuel prices, so I'm not looking for THE correct answer, just more info from people with more experience in this sort of thing.

In the scenario described, I'm wondering whether I'd be better off using hybrid mode - presumably that would use more of the EV power when I'm trundling down a residential street, but use less of the charge with some fuel for the higher speed stretches, so maybe I could do a couple of trips like that without charging; at the cost of the occasional fuel top up - keeping the EV only choice to times when I'm unlikely to be going above 40mph.

I've not really dug into this yet, so still need to understand things like the battery manager, which I'm working on; but any pointers on this would be really appreciated

Welcome to the world of PHEVs! Glad you're enjoying the car, I swapped my MK3.5 290 for a MK4 VZ2 245 PHEV back in July and other than initial software issues, which are now resolved, I haven't looked back.

You are correct PHEVs and EVs in general become less efficient and less economic at higher speeds. However, to answer your question regarding which is more economic will really depend on how much it costs you to charge.

I charge mine overnight on Octopus Intelligent where it costs me 7p per kWh. Round town or on drives at lower speed I probably average around 3 - 3.5 miles per kW so it's costing around 2p a mile.

Doing higher speeds will probably see you into the 2s but that's still around no more than 3.5p per mile at my rate.

In hybrid mode on a long run I average about 53mpg (plus it drains the battery too). So at £1.50 per litre this works out at around 12.8p per mile.

So to answer your question, if you can charge cheap and complete your day's journeys entirely on electric, it will always be considerably cheaper. However if you're charging on the energy price cap crica 30p per kWh, it should still workout cheaper but marginally. If you're using public chargers than the ICE will nearly always be cheaper as the rates have sky rocketed.

On longer runs where I know the battery won't last the day, I tend to manually switch between e mode in town / on slow roads and hybrid for higher speed roads and cruising.

The intelligent hybrid function through the sat nav also works well if you're doing a single long journey. I used this last weekend and did over 500 miles for £56 of petrol plus 2 charges (one at home at < £1 and one at my family's house which will have been crica £3.50. I was delighted with that cost compared to my 290 which would have been closer to £100.

Hope that helps

 

[Fergoo]

Just to add in terms of battery management the key thing to learn is lift and coast, especially as you're approaching junctions, roundabouts etc or when you're going down hill.

The car will tell you to do it, but at first it does feel very unnatural having your foot on neither pedal and you're adamant it's not got enough momentum, but you'll be surprised how far the car will coast (as it will disengage the clutch(s)).

Whilst the car is very good at regenerating, energy is lost in any conversion, so coasting which uses no energy at all is always the better option.

My wife really struggled with the coasting initially and was getting awful economy (literally killed over half the battery on 10 mile trip into town and back), but she's cracked it now and we can both easy get 30+ miles to a charge, although I'm sure that will change as we enter the colder months.

 

[ge1971]

Just to add in terms of battery management the key thing to learn is lift and coast, especially as you're approaching junctions, roundabouts etc or when you're going down hill.

The car will tell you to do it, but at first it does feel very unnatural having your foot on neither pedal and you're adamant it's not got enough momentum, but you'll be surprised how far the car will coast (as it will disengage the clutch(s)).

Whilst the car is very good at regenerating, energy is lost in any conversion, so coasting which uses no energy at all is always the better option.

My wife really struggled with the coasting initially and was getting awful economy (literally killed over half the battery on 10 mile trip into town and back), but she's cracked it now and we can both easy get 30+ miles to a charge, although I'm sure that will change as we enter the colder months.

Thank you for all the info Fergoo - really appreciate it.
I'm currently on a std electricity rate (I can't recall at the moment but think it's about 25p a unit). But you've confirmed that looking at a provider like the Octopus one you describe, where there's a cheap off peak rate is definitely worth further investigation. I work from home and trips over 20 miles are (thankfully !) pretty rare these days, so setting up an overnight charging schedule would be no inconvenience, and likely cover me for full EV driving 99 days out of 100.
...having said that I'll be doing a 550 mile round trip in a few days, but... !

I've never really looked the SatNav and how that manages battery life - I've always found the Android Auto option to just bypass the built in navigation far more reliable, but that's something I might do for the long trip next weekend to see what happens.

Thanks again, really appreciate the info you've passed on

 

[Fergoo]

No problem mate. Hopefully it helps.

As you say, it's definitely worth exploring an EV tarif given that most days you'll be able to run entirely in e mode. I'm in a similar position and rarely do over 30 miles a day. I've just gone through 2200 miles and so far I've done 1.5 tanks of fuel, with 1 of being the long trip last weekend.

The in built sat nav is clunky and AA is definitely both more reliable and easier to use (although the traffic updates on the inbuilt are accurate from my experience). However the intelligent hybrid function doesn't work with AA unfortunately .

Enjoy the long trip, we found the car both more comfortable and quieter than our previous MK3.5.

Any other questions feel free to ask

There's also some great threads on the MK4 Seat Leon and Formentor forum where the PHEV seems to be more common. The 204bhp model is the exact same drivetrain but with just different software on the ECU for boost (combined electric and ICE) mode, so is still relevant.