New Hybrid

[C_ED_99]

And what happens when you kick down again, and again , and again, without any regen braking, and not giving it enough time for the engine to charge it again. It might work once or twice but it's basic physics, you'll soon be left with a 148bhp petrol engine and no battery.

It is (annoyingly) unclear how much battery the car will reserve - which makes it hard to tell when that would happen - could you induce it?
Yes probably by draining the battery and going to a race track and doing back to back 0-60mph and full emergency stops to cook the brakes and prevent regen. - but how many times - 4? 6? I'm not aware of anyone having tried.

Beware though if you aren't going to charge it the fuel economy won't be special - as the tech is based on a GTE - maybe mid 30 mpg?
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-r...olf-gte-hatchback-2018-long-term-test-review/ - longterm average without plugging in 38mpg - granted 2018 Model GTE with 204 bhp

 

[vc-10]

And what happens when you kick down again, and again , and again, without any regen braking, and not giving it enough time for the engine to charge it again. It might work once or twice but it's basic physics, you'll soon be left with a 148bhp petrol engine and no battery.

It's a mass-market hatchback, not a drag racer. There will come a time where the battery is sufficiently depleted for it to be unable to assist, but I doubt you'd achieve that in any normal driving. You'd have to be specifically trying to end up in that situation. Even doing the stop light drag race repeatedly you're unlikely to be able to destroy the battery that quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if doing that sort of thing would cook the brakes in any normal car. The Prius is no different, in maintaining a small buffer charge in the battery at all times. If at a stop the charge level is too low, the petrol engine will keep running until the charge level is restored, rather than activating the stop/start, for example (although any car with stop/start will do this).

@C_ED_99 's phone analogy works quite well actually.

Edit:
The drivetrain is effectively exactly the same as the Golf Mk.7 GTE, but with a larger capacity battery (yay progress!). The Mk.8 GTE and the Cupra Leon e-Hybrid use the same oily bits but with a more powerful electric motor, putting out a total 245PS.

38mpg in a 200PS car though isn't that terrible. I would be interested to see what economy the e-Hybrid gets compared to the 190PS TSI if/when that arrives.

 

[corbu33]

@horsebox you are exaggerating with a non realistic approach... and let me clarify as well other thing. Even with a petrol let's say of 245 Hp, you do not always have the 245 hp (depends on the heavy foot), only if you kick it down and rev it up to a certain rpm that's when you have the full HP ... and it is the same here you get the 204 when you floor it... always... and when I said it costs gas, it is because, if you do not plug it to a charger. you also have the opportunity for example to drive full petrol for approx.. 50-70km and you get a 80%-100% battery again, but of course at the cost of having a 150 hp engine drag almost 1.6ton car... in the meantime even if using only petrol for recharging if you floor it because you need to, it will have 204 hp (also using the elctric motor). And for ex after 70km on gas/recharge, let's say when you are cruising with 140km/h, 30 min before entering a city... it is your choice if when entering the city you go full electric or otherwise keep it hybrid and floor it with 204 when you need to... because I don't believe you will drive only with kickdown... you can have fun but you cannot drive like this non stop... and being the same drivetrain of the VW GOLF GTE look at some reviews online and you will see that the Golf in the GTE mode, so the sportiest max HP setting (at somewhere around 10% battery, engine starts just to recharge the battery... exactly because you might need to floor it so the care is assuring that you have enough electric juice to give you max power... but again costs gas)... and from what I have seen and estimate should not be more than 7 lit/ 100km so not more than 190 TSI and you get a double personality car, full electric in the city when you feel like (and keep in mind that I estimated like this without having anywhere to charge it)... I like the double personality.

I also am oscillating between 190 TSI and 204 Hybrid, but more and more I understand and lean towards the hybrid.

 

[corbu33]

@vc-10 agree about consumption, around 35-40 mpg should do it for a 204 hp car and this is without the possibility to charge it... but to be honest I estimate it will be lower the consumption. We exaggerated and said no plugin charging ever but I think everyone can charge it 1-2 times per week, or at least once per week.

 

[vc-10]

It totally depends on your situation. In my current house I could charge every night. In my last place, I was parking on the street, so I'd very rarely get a charge in, as there were no on-street chargers. That issue is going to be the big problem with electrification IMO.

 

[AndrewJB]

@AndrewJB - I'm interested to know what Real World MPG figures you are getting in hybrid mode (battery + engine) for various journeys (around town, motorway etc), with a full, partial and depleted battery. I'm currently looking at this engine setup vs 2.0 190PS (fingers crossed it still gets released in the Leon MK4) as I think that's my ideal engine coming from a Leon MK2 PD170. I've driven the 1.5 150 engine and want more performance.

Not really the right person to do real world MPG... I have one setting... foot flat haha.

In the GTE you'd cycle through using the drive mode button but the Leon doesn't get a physical button. There is a drive mode switcher somewhere in the infotainment screen but I don't know exactly where.

There's a battery section in the car menu but it wont let you select batter only once hybrid has been selected.

 

[AndrewJB]

Interior is a huge upgrade over MK3! Quite a nice place to be at night time.

There is some MPG figures on screen, not sure how relevant they are because apart from 5 mins booting it around in hybrid mode I've pretty much used electric all the time.

 

[corbu33]

Yes looks really nice. You have the DCC ? Hope you tell us more, you are “poor” in description .

 

[AndrewJB]

Yes it has DCC, like when I had my Cupra I just set that to hard haha.

 

[corbu33]

More more

 

[corbu33]

No sound deadening under the bonnet.

That is really strange, why this engine should not get the soundproof on the hood... ? so how is the noise level with gasoline also on.

CUPRA HYBRID has it... only from cost point of view... to not put it... than I would say they should do economy for the 1.0 tsi but not on the most expensive "premium" trims and engines... really strange. Think it can be retrofitted easily.

 

[corbu33]

Once the battery's dead, this is no hot hatch. It’s just a heavy car with a small engine. So go purely petrol if you want a Cupra Leon for fun ... this is the verdict of TOP GEAR which seem to say different about the logic how the both engines are working.

 

[Deleted member 123864]

It's a mass-market hatchback, not a drag racer. There will come a time where the battery is sufficiently depleted for it to be unable to assist, but I doubt you'd achieve that in any normal driving.

So you admit that when you said the 204bhp is available all the time is absolute bollocks then? PS a depleted battery is perfectly achievable in normal driving.

@horsebox you are exaggerating with a non realistic approach... and let me clarify as well other thing. Even with a petrol let's say of 245 Hp, you do not always have the 245 hp (depends on the heavy foot), only if you kick it down and rev it up to a certain rpm that's when you have the full HP

Of course. The bhp is a maximum available at a specific RPM/time, The petrol engine part of the hybrid produces a maximum of 148bhp @ X RPM, the battery part of the hybrid produces 100bhp at a different time (no RPMs in a battery). Obviously 148 + 100 does not equal 204 so they both produce the maximum they can at different times in the acceleration cycle - low down in the case of a battery, and higher up in the case of the petrol engine.

 

[vc-10]

In any normal use case, it's available the whole time. As I said before, it's a mass-market hatchback. Any piece of machinery has its limitations. As I have said COUNTLESS times, the system keeps a buffer of charge available. Drive the car hard on any normal road, you will never drain the battery sufficiently to cause issues. If you drive a regular petrol car in the same way you're likely to overheat the brakes and cause issues with cooling.

 

[mattster]

Hi I'm looking to order one very shortly and hoping someone might be able to answer the below questions:-

What is the current lead time for orders on the phev?

If you drive in electric mode will the heater work on a cold morning or will the petrol engine kick in?

Many thanks

 

[corbu33]

@AndrewJB Hi, maybe you can ask your dealer why no soundproof on the bonnet, since I don't understand it... the 204 BHP hybrid is the only version that has not . Cupra 245 has it, all other Leon have it, Golf and Octavia have it (all versions)... I am really curious if there is a logical explanation.

 

[AndrewJB]

Hi I'm looking to order one very shortly and hoping someone might be able to answer the below questions:-

What is the current lead time for orders on the phev?

If you drive in electric mode will the heater work on a cold morning or will the petrol engine kick in?

Many thanks

Heater works in electric only.

 

[AndrewJB]

@AndrewJB Hi, maybe you can ask your dealer why no soundproof on the bonnet, since I don't understand it... the 204 BHP hybrid is the only version that has not . Cupra 245 has it, all other Leon have it, Golf and Octavia have it (all versions)... I am really curious if there is a logical explanation.

it will be cost saving. retrofit cost will be about £40-60 for clips and the cover if your that bothered about it, I personally remove them anyway.

 

[corbu33]

it will be cost saving. retrofit cost will be about £40-60 for clips and the cover if your that bothered about it, I personally remove them anyway.

Why remove it ? How is the sound insulation ?

 

[AndrewJB]

because they get dirty very quickly and look bad.