Driving in 'Hybrid' mode.

[Dave5118]

Has anybody driven their eHybrid Leon in 'Hybrid' mode only? ie. maintaining the battery's level. Because of the problem with the charging port on my Leon, I have been doing just that to avoid running the battery down too low. However I am getting disastrous MPG figures, coming from a Hyundai PHEV, I used to get about 67mpg to work , and about 60mpg coming home. In the Leon my best this week has been 47mpg going and 35mpg coming home. And on each occasion the battery drains by about 5-10%,
I have tried it in 'charge' mode too, and on the same 10 mile journey, it only adds about 10% in about 30 mins, no motorway driving. Beginning to think there may be a problem with the onboard charge unit or something?

 

[Syds273]

I have a commute of around 24 mile round trip mix of motorway and town driving and using hybrid mode and I get above 60mpg. I have noticed that putting it in cruise control on the motorway helps with efficiency.

What mode you using for the commute? I probably am driving it carefully without having much fun to see how efficient it can be.

 

[Keith Roberts]

Did 55 miles in Hybrid this morning and returned home 77.6 mpg and 46% battery left. 35 miles on the motorway at 70mph.

happy with that. Electric mode and around 32 miles on a full charge.

 

[Dave5118]

I have been driving it in '=' mode, where it tries to maintain the battery charge, so drive like a traditional hybrid. That was the only mode in the Ionic PHEV. Getting about 60mpg was easy in the Ionic without losing battery level.
The only way I can get anything over 55mpg, is to put it into hybrid mode without selecting '=' mode, then it drains the battery level by at least 15-20% over 10 miles or so. When it's repaired I will be using it mainly in EV mode, but it seems not to be a car to recommend as an hybrid car to me.

 

[Keith Roberts]

I thought long and hard before buying the Leon PHEV. However when I looked at our week to week usage it’s mostly driving within a 40 mile range which is manageable mostly on Electric. Days out say 100 miles in hybrid gives around 70-80mpg. Consequently I’m doing around 1000 per tank of fuel refilling with about 30 litres of petrol. The other consideration was the cost of the car. At full retail price I would have been better buying the 1.5 petrol however managed a good end of quarter discount so really for me It works. Also I garage the car every night so it’s always recharged, if you don’t charge and use the electric mode every day you may as well just have a petrol. We did look at an all electric but unfortunately the charging infrastructure especially in the north is not there yet so at this time this seems the perfect solution plus no worries about range anxiety.

 

[Syds273]

I thought long and hard before buying the Leon PHEV. However when I looked at our week to week usage it’s mostly driving within a 40 mile range which is manageable mostly on Electric. Days out say 100 miles in hybrid gives around 70-80mpg. Consequently I’m doing around 1000 per tank of fuel refilling with about 30 litres of petrol. The other consideration was the cost of the car. At full retail price I would have been better buying the 1.5 petrol however managed a good end of quarter discount so really for me It works. Also I garage the car every night so it’s always recharged, if you don’t charge and use the electric mode every day you may as well just have a petrol. We did look at an all electric but unfortunately the charging infrastructure especially in the north is not there yet so at this time this seems the perfect solution plus no worries about range anxiety.

Totally agree with you Keith, I have only done 360 miles so far and ive only done under 40 mile trips but the vast majority is motorway speeds and then stop start traffic. My MPG is around 94mpg, the KWH/1000 is around 14.2.

I am getting used to charging up at home/work but happy i dont have full electric as iv got down to 5% and worried if i didnt have petrol id be knackered.

Shame the infrastructure isn't built up in the north but by the time i need my next car i hope things are better!