Reply With QuoteThey’re a great middle ground for company car drivers. I know a few people with them who have never charged them up, they’re just onboard for the tax advantages.
The 330e for instance is quite a big seller.
Reading / watching a number of reviews, there doesn't seem to be a lot of love for PHEVs. A lot of reviewers seem to be describing them as the worst of all worlds. However, for someone like me, they seem ideal. 90% of our journeys are less than 20 miles and most of the rest would also be within 50-100 miles. We do go on driving holidays (250-300 miles one way) a couple of times every year so the easy fill up of the petrol tank for those times seems great. And the lack of range anxiety seems great as you always have the option to fill up the petrol tank in minutes. The alternative would be to have 2 cars - one electric as a daily and one for holidays or longer trips which seems silly (2x insurance, road tax etc)
Any thoughts on why the lack of love for the PHEV?
They’re a great middle ground for company car drivers. I know a few people with them who have never charged them up, they’re just onboard for the tax advantages.
The 330e for instance is quite a big seller.
why buy a car on the basis of a couple of trips a year? Most long journeys are fine with an ev with a little advance planning, a phev is the worst of both worlds imoOriginally Posted by Ethos
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why buy a car on the basis of a couple of trips a year? Most long journeys are fine with an ev with a little advance planning, a phev is the worst of both worlds imo
Depends where those trips are. Usually go abroad every year - wouldn't fancy going through France, Spain or further afield in one.
unlikely to be the case on a 250-300 trip as stated by the poster tho. And plenty of people do it, depends on where you are going I suppose.
In which case you could just hire a car for that trip. The money saved in running costs can more than cover it.
But that’s irrelevant anyway as loads of people with EV’s take them on holiday to Europe. Yes it takes a little more planning but from a lot of stories I’ve read, it’s not difficult.
Interesting thread - was considering a used BMW G30 530e as a potential replacement for my diesel Audi A6 saloon - which is both long in the tooth and ULEZ noncompliant.
I've read lots of stories to the contrary and irrelevant but I prefer to drive my own car and not convinced of the savings either.
Works well for me. The vast majority of my miles are local and are done in EV mode. Most of these miles using electricity from my solar panels.
I bought the car a couple of years go and will almost certainly go full EV next time round. That’s if the improvements to the charging infrastructure outpaces the number of EVs on the road.
I did a long trip to the south of France this summer and the infrastructure in rural areas is very sketchy indeed and rapid chargers at autoroute service areas seemed to have long queues. The trip would have been very painful without an ICE to fall back on
I think they make sense for now. PHEV do have the ICE maintenance costs compared to full EV. I have a HEV (not a plug in) I'm getting more than 60mpg on long trips (better mileage on short trips as stop start is running on the small EV battery in town) - the PHEV was an extra 10K and full EV an extra 10K on top of that - so could not warrant the extra cost. Next time - in perhaps 5y will go full EV when infrastructure has improved. while getting good trade in for the HEV. (This is in PT not UK).
“ Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.” HHGTTG
I specifically went for a PHEV over an EV to get the best of both worlds. My i3 has up to 80 miles of electric range and another 100 miles on petrol on a long trip.
When the fuel crisis was in full swing I just charged at home, kept calm and carried on.
When looking to recharge on a long journey I had the option of waiting in the queue for the charger or just putting more petrol in and carrying on.
I did see a TED talk where the guy was basically saying a PHEV is better for the environment than a big battery EV if you have the typical usage of lots of short trips and the occasional longer journey. Once you have taken into account the impact of building and carrying the engine vs building and carrying the equivalent battery.
In experience the sbove scenario would work well for a lot of people. I had a Lexus CT200H HEV but the battery was woefully small.. The maximum speed on electric was 20mph at which time the petrol engine kicked in and even at slow speeds there was only approx 15 miles worth of energy available. I now have a full electric car which suits me well enough, but in truth a PHEV would be even better if the electric battery would have sufficient capacity to give say 45 to 50 miles travel. This would need a battery of about 15kw or thereabouts and I don't really know if any but the top range PHEVs have batteries of that capacity.
Mine works great for me 7 mile each way commute free charging at work at the moment also have a home charger, use the engine for any long trips at the weekend they don’t make a full ev version of my car anyway
Nothing wrong with a PHEV conceptually for how a lot of people use a car, as long as you plug them in of course.
They are more service intensive, and with the two power trains they’re more complex and have more points of failure than either an EV or ICE alone.
You may think I’m splitting hairs here, but you don’t have a PHEV. The i3 is a full EV with a range extender.
The engine in your car is not connected to the drive train, it is only there to act as a generator and charge the battery.
It is, in my opinion, a better solution to the problem than PHEV. The Vauxhall Ampera had a similar system and Nissan are now promoting their Quashqai E-drive which does away with the plug in and just uses a generator to charge a battery.
I went from MG ZS EV (which I found to have too small a battery range) to a Peugeot 3008 PHEV, hoping to get the best of battery and ICE. It was, in reality the worst of both.
Battery range on it was supposed to be the best of all PHEV's but in reality still only gave 10-15 miles during the winter months. With it being a heavy car, the ICE engine (which I felt lacked power) only managed late 20's MPG.
It didn't last long, I truly hated it. I've now got a Tesla and haven't looked back (although probably did enjoy my MG more).
Edited to add, battery, ICE, hybrid, PHEV - it matters more what type of driving you do. Long daily mileage probably warrants a hybrid, short daily trips an electric etc
Just like with any car segment, and any drivetrain, there are good and bad implementations of them.
I spent quite a long time in a 2015 Golf GTE, with a realistic EV range of 12-18 miles on a fully charged battery, and it covered my 5 mile each way drive to the train station and back without the engine ever starting if I didn’t want it to.
Average mpg on long journeys (200 miles) was around 45mpg, which I didn’t think was too bad for a 200bhp hatchback.
Have the F-Pace P400e PHEV and think it’s great. Most local journeys are done on pure electric. Longer journeys/holidays in the U.K. no limit on range. Did I mention 400bhp by the way?
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
I wondered how you’d been getting on with it, I do like the F-Pace. 👍
I’ll be going PHEV I think, probably the XC90 or X5. Daily journeys less than 10 miles with occasional longer trips to North Wales. Need something big enough for mountain bikes / paddle boards and gear as well as two kids and a dog.
Can’t fault it really. Does everything I want it to. Usually has a 28 mile range in the morning after charging overnight which is all I need most of the time. IC engine is always there with the extra 300hp when needed or on longer journeys.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Did I see something last week that said PHEV are now bad. To do with charging emissions etc
There was a article recently about how hybrids in general aren't as clean as they are made out to be. Same old same old , they designed a test and the manufacturers designed a car to pass that test, they didn't design a car to be as clean as possible
Not sure about ‘charging emissions’, they’re down to the electricity used to charge it.
Could be that they fail to achieve the same mpg as in the WLTP test, which is even more skewed as a large part of the test would be run on the battery for a PHEV, and you obviously won’t get triple figure mpg over a longer journey than the test.
As somebody else just said though, no car gets the same mpg as in the official test, as nobody drives like the official test in the real world.
Not sure why PHEVs should be singled out for that criticism, but any vehicle that reduces the need for petrol or diesel to be used has got to be a good thing.
I have an 2020 XC60 D4 I’m currently swapping for a 2021 330e on Thursday. The Volvo is great for weekends but I spend most of the driving by myself in bad traffic between Bristol and Bath. And the steering is quite unresponsive at higher speed.
I’m not sure it’s the right decision but they’re similar value so I’m going to give it a go.
We camp once a year and I’ll have to rent something for that. But to be fair, even with a roof box we struggled to get everything in.
The new Mercedes C Class PHEV has a claimed range of 70+ miles. So probably early 60s in reality.
I ran an Hyundai Ioniq plug in. In summer we would get get upto 35 miles out of the battery this included upto 20 miles at motorway speeds. In winter this dropped to 25 ish.
We were guilty of the not charging at home brigade as we were renting and didnt trust the house wiring. When at our own home (and charging) using the car for mixed driving we saw 200 mpg over a 5/7 day period.
I fail to understand the “ worst of both worlds “ narrative.
My only comment would be the weight increase from an Ioniq hybrid to the plug in was 100kgs , which you cart around with you 100% of the time. If you dont have the access or discipline to home charge daily then a conventional hybrid is probably better.
Thanks - useful perspectives! So as I understand it, the down sides are:
1. Carrying the heavy engine and whole ICE drive train around when it is used pretty less
2. More failure points / service requirement due to greater complexity
3. People not charging the battery and just using it to get the tax benefit and actually being worse for the environment than using a pure ICE vehicle
4. Some implementations of the tech provide a useless battery only range and / or an engine that's not powerful enough / not efficient enough
That F pace sounds very interesting - will explore that, the 330e and the other examples people have talked about.
Dunno, I've read many positive reviews on EV and PHEV cars. I'm just getting into the market for a new car, but as a retiree, the current prices (e.g., chip shortages) for electric and hybrid cars in particular, are too high to fit my budget.
I have a Range Rover Sport PHEV and given that most of my trips are local and it does around 23miles real world in electric, I regularly get over 100 miles per gallon and often up to 150miles per gallon.
And no range anxiety when we do our regular holiday home run down to Somerset.
Seems like a good solution to me.
So clever my foot fell off.
I’ve a Skoda Superb PHEV and it’s bloody brilliant. 90% of my driving is around the city and suburbs and never really more than 10klms per trip. I get about 50klms per charge so I do most of my driving in electric mode, meanwhile the ICE is always there for when more power is needed, or for longer journeys.
how far are you going on longer journeys that a battery EV wasn't suitable?
I've got the 3ltr V6 diesel and love it but I'm thinking to change once we get solar installed this year.
What MPG do you get when you're on a long trip running on the engine?
Somewhat frequent trips to Dublin which is a ~450klm round trip for me. It’s not so much that a BEV isn’t suitable, it’s more that the infrastructure is terrible.
im assuming Galway to Dublin?
there are both ionity and tesla fast charging facilities on that route to be fair.
Yes, I’m aware of that - but I remain uninterested in a full BEV. I like the redundancy of having a tank of petrol and being able to change trips routes/destinations at the drop of a hat without having to plan around charging stations.
Exactly the same for me with my plug in hybrid (volvo xc90) except I took it to Holland. Works well for me but my next car will be full EV, no hurry though.
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It depends on the trips though.
I do a 606 mile journey to Scotland at least twice a year, sometimes more - 10 hours door to door.
I have a diesel BMW, fill up near home and top up in Cumbria. Job done.
I wouldn't even consider an EV purely based on those journeys as it would be a frickin' nightmare to even consider attempting them. My normal work days are 200-ish miles each day; again an EV would barely cope with that in the cold weather / pissing rain / mad heat; the achievable mileage being destroyed by the use of heating, wipers, AC etc.
A PHEV still wouldn't come close to my BMW diesel on economy either.
In fairness, it depends on the EV.
I do a 500 mile each way to Scotland a few times a year, I’ve done it in a 32kWh e-Golf (not recommended unless you’re not in a hurry!), a 58kWh ID.3 (much more sensible, only about 90 mins longer than in a petrol/diesel) and in the last 2 years in a 75kWh Tesla M3 or 77kWh ID.4. Setting off fully charged, the last two need a short stop near Leeds then a 30 minute one at Perth, so only about 45 mins more.
I wouldn’t drive 1000 miles in a day, so it’s recharged slower time overnight for the return journey a couple of days later.
It’s still horses for courses though, and agree a PHEV or a range extender EV would cover a good chunk of most folks daily mileages.
I’ve been seriously looking at the BMW 530e, it just seems to tick a lot of the boxes that a full EV doesn’t.
I've currently got a 520D and the 530e seems highly thought of - at least based on the reviews I've seen. Now I've retired I'm not doing the mileage so may be taking a test drive later this year but don't feel inclined to go fully EV just yet
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fair enough, but that’s moving the goalposts somewhat on your original point, anyway each to their own I was just curious.
I don’t disagree, if I was doing 200 miles a day and that trip to Scotland a few times a year I would t go for a Bev nor a phev either for that matter.
200 miles a day for work, jeez, you couldn’t pay me enough to spend that much time on the road! I do about 8 miles a day and that’s more than I’d like!
Well you are quite right, and I think that is the way forward. Primarily EV with range extension via fossil fuel. That's why some of the other PHEV's fail, they are primarily ICE with Electric for low speed/short distance.
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