PHEVs

[stonecoldrmw]

I mean... This comes as no surprise but glad it's now out in the open.

Wide open.

Plug-in hybrids are a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

 

[LongRanger]

pretty much every company car driver I know that has had a BMW330e or Outlander has never charged the battery. That number runs into the hundreds of vehicle units only related to what I've seen - and I am just a single person in the ocean of company car / fleet drivers

 

[fancealot]

Yes I know of a couple of PHEV owners who have never charged thier on board battery, they still think they are saving the world somehow by just buying it, although they do regularly complain they get 'nowhere near the stated mileage' I do try to tell them that it's combined battery and ICE that gives the miles and it would do close to what's stated IF they charged the battery, I think one actually did try to charge once ... at aldi... for 20 minutes

 

[Dilly]

We’ve had an Outlander for 3 years. It gets charged and used most days just to take the the dogs out. Most of it’s driving is done on battery only
It’s just started nagging for 15 litres of fresh fuel which it does every 3 months. We can only get 5 litres in at the moment.
Average mpg over nearly 17000 miles is 130mpg including a pre-Tesla holiday that our Ioniq wouldn’t have coped with.
Current quarter is 223mpg.
As it’s used effectively, I’m quite happy that ours isn’t the wolf. As a petrol car, it only does 35mpg in that respect it can be a gas guzzler.
Since it’s just a dog taxi, it would be hard to justify a full EV to take it’s place.

 

[phil4]

We’ve had an Outlander for 3 years. It gets charged and used most days just to take the the dogs out. Most of it’s driving is done on battery only

The problem isn't you, it's the company car drivers who get it because it's a great tax break.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

pretty much every company car driver I know that has had a BMW330e or Outlander has never charged the battery. That number runs into the hundreds of vehicle units only related to what I've seen - and I am just a single person in the ocean of company car / fleet drivers

Spot on. It's the mentality of some people that don't pay for their fuel. My last PHEV was a Prius, bought at a few months old and had been the dealers demonstrator, used by one of the salesmen as a company car. When I bought it, it had done about 2,500 miles at an average of about 40mpg. During the five years I owned it the average rose to 115mpg by the time I sold it. It was pretty obvious that the dealership hadn't ever bothered to plug it in.

During the time I had it I was commuting around 15 miles each way to the new house were building, and able to charge overnight at our old house and often charge from solar at the new house (as soon as the roof was on). Most of that commute each day was in EV mode, except in winter, when EV range did the usual thing and fell off a cliff in the colder weather. In summer it was easy to average around 160mpg, but that dropped a lot in winter.

 

[stonecoldrmw]

pretty much every company car driver I know that has had a BMW330e or Outlander has never charged the battery. That number runs into the hundreds of vehicle units only related to what I've seen - and I am just a single person in the ocean of company car / fleet drivers

Exactly that - I know a few people at our place who do exactly the same. @Godsense and I have been working on a business case for our company cars to try and get the M3 on there as a standard range is the same price range as some of the other cars on the list.

We’ve had an Outlander for 3 years. It gets charged and used most days just to take the the dogs out. Most of it’s driving is done on battery only
It’s just started nagging for 15 litres of fresh fuel which it does every 3 months. We can only get 5 litres in at the moment.
Average mpg over nearly 17000 miles is 130mpg including a pre-Tesla holiday that our Ioniq wouldn’t have coped with.
Current quarter is 223mpg.
As it’s used effectively, I’m quite happy that ours isn’t the wolf. As a petrol car, it only does 35mpg in that respect it can be a gas guzzler.
Since it’s just a dog taxi, it would be hard to justify a full EV to take it’s place.

223mpg is ridiculous and just shows that if used right they can provide better environmental results. As the article mentioned it's all about driver behaviour.

It was pretty obvious that the dealership hadn't ever bothered to plug it in.

If the dealership didn't bother to plug it in, then they clearly don't understand the logic behind EVs either which makes me think, I'm not touching your brand!

 

[Glan gluaisne]

If the dealership didn't bother to plug it in, then they clearly don't understand the logic behind EVs either which makes me think, I'm not touching your brand!

Given that Toyota seem to have pretty much lost all interest in EVs, and are persisting with their "self-charging hybrid" nonsense, I can't say I'm surprised that they never plugged it in. The give away that they'd never charged it was when I went to collect it, and found it plugged in to their charge point. I assumed it was fully charged, and was a bit annoyed to find that it wasn't when I drove off. It seems the dealership didn't understand that they needed to hold the RFID card against the charge point in order to turn it on . . .

Toyota may well have lost a few customers from their position on EVs. I bought a new Prius in 2005, because I was impressed with what Toyota were doing. I bought another new Prius in 2010, as I'd liked the previous one, and the facelift model was significantly better. I bought the PHEV Prius in 2013 because I hoped it would be a stepping stone to there being a BEV version by the time I came to trade it in. My reason for selling the Prius and getting an i3 was because I got very, very angry at the constant "self charging hybrid" nonsense on the TV all the time. The i3 was a fun little car, but really too small for us, with too short a range, hence the switch a year later to a Model 3.

Toyota could easily have retained me, and many like me, as loyal customers, as the build quality and customer service I experienced in ~13 years of Toyota ownership was second to none. I had zero defects and zero warranty issues, just a couple of recalls instigated by them. As an example of their service, I had a recall when I was working at Shrivenham, from the Toyota dealer the other side of Swindon, about 7 or 8 miles away. They arranged to collect my car from work in the morning, do the recall work, and return it to me washed, valeted, full of fuel and with a bottle of champagne that afternoon by way of apology for the inconvenience. It's having experienced service like that for years, with a car that was a lot cheaper than the Model 3, that makes me a bit of a grumpy old git about Tesla's pretty dire approach to quality.

 

[Rustybkts]

pretty much every company car driver I know that has had a BMW330e or Outlander has never charged the battery. That number runs into the hundreds of vehicle units only related to what I've seen - and I am just a single person in the ocean of company car / fleet drivers

Or the Merc E300e that my son had.....same with him and never plugged in!

He now has a two year old BM petrol from the company fleet but they are leaning towards EV's so there's hope there.

 

[Dilly]

I guess it’s down to driver mentality.
When my wife drives her Outlander, using the regen paddles, she squeezes every last possible watt out of the battery. On one journey she can gain 4 miles.
When she drives the Tesla the electric’s free and the heavy right foot comes into it’s own...

 

[Rustybkts]

Keeping to the subject, my previous car was a 2012 Ampera capable of an easy 50 miles in summer in EV mode and fully electric drive unlike most of these compliance 2020 PHEV's. It was also pretty quick and could be used for many weeks without using any fuel at all.
Its range wan't too far short of the early Leaf/Zoe's.

Most if not all owners soon become subject to a self imposed "range anxiety" as the miles clocked down, working hard to arrive home with enough electrons to ensure the engine didn't start.
It was a running joke on the forums.

Even after 8 years these modern PHEV's are being self limited by using small batteries and motors which require assistance from the engine when accellerating. All stuck in the oil powered mentality.

Considering GM are so drenched in piston power, its amazing that the Ampera ever saw light of day and was eventually discontinued due to poor sales.
I bet it would be different now.

 

[Jason71]

So everyone wants PHEV's to charger more right?
Well right up until the point when you get to a public charger and find a PHEV "that doesn't really need to charge" hogging it?

 

[Jason71]

Here is an idea. Mandate a min 20kwh battery to make them usable all year round on battery and a maximum 60bhp/tonne on the petrol engine so they are crap when not using the battery.
or just stop giving the tax breaks

 

[tsh2]

Sure, they shouldn't be getting tax breaks, but I wonder what all these old 20 mile EVs will do to the 2nd hand market. They _should_ have the range to do many 2nd car journies exclusively on electric - so might still serve a purpose when they move into the hands of people with tighter financial pressures.

 

[Zigway]

Re. tax breaks, I think the government have recognised the problem and already started to level the playing field when they removed plug in car grant from PHEVs (or at least they effectively did by increasing the minimum electric-only range to de-scope pretty much every PHEV being built). Company car BIK rates are already dramatically more attractive for BEV vs PHEV, let's hope the government keeps it this way, and pushes PHEV in the direction of ICE vehicles. I think it's right to continue to support charger installation grants for all EVs, it makes it easier to make the full BEV step later as well as encouraging charging regularly.

A PHEV *is* an improvement on an ICE at the end of the day when it comes to air quality, especially in urban areas, even if CO2 on motorways leaves a lot to be desired.

Manufacturers have some questions to answer as well; one of the things I found surprising when shopping for my PHEV a couple of years ago is that some PHEVs have to run the engine to give cabin heating, which just doesn't make any sense! Sure it is more complex to properly engineer a hybrid electrical+coolant system in the first place and this is where more realistic testing regimes for CO2 would benefit everyone.

 

[Jason71]

Re. tax breaks, I think the government have recognised the problem and already started to level the playing field when they removed plug in car grant from PHEVs (or at least they effectively did by increasing the minimum electric-only range to de-scope pretty much every PHEV being built). Company car BIK rates are already dramatically more attractive for BEV vs PHEV, let's hope the government keeps it this way, and pushes PHEV in the direction of ICE vehicles. I think it's right to continue to support charger installation grants for all EVs, it makes it easier to make the full BEV step later as well as encouraging charging regularly.

A PHEV *is* an improvement on an ICE at the end of the day when it comes to air quality, especially in urban areas, even if CO2 on motorways leaves a lot to be desired.

Manufacturers have some questions to answer as well; one of the things I found surprising when shopping for my PHEV a couple of years ago is that some PHEVs have to run the engine to give cabin heating, which just doesn't make any sense! Sure it is more complex to properly engineer a hybrid electrical+coolant system in the first place and this is where more realistic testing regimes for CO2 would benefit everyone.

BEV BIK rates are better than PHEV but PHEV are still generally less than half ICE. So still a big incentive

 

[Jason71]

Sure, they shouldn't be getting tax breaks, but I wonder what all these old 20 mile EVs will do to the 2nd hand market. They _should_ have the range to do many 2nd car journies exclusively on electric - so might still serve a purpose when they move into the hands of people with tighter financial pressures.

My second car is usually fiesta size. Are there even any PHEV in that class? Other half is a liability in her mini. I dred to think what would happen if I got her an Outlander. I'd have to park the M3 in another postcode for starters!

 

[hoppo1979]

There are some proper sweeping statements on this thread

I had a BMW 330e for 2 years prior to my Tesla, always charged it up when I got home, and only ever charged it 'in the wild' at Tesco on the 7kw Podpoint (as long as plenty were free and I wasn't blocking a BEV) knowing full well at a 3.6kw max charge rate plugging it in and paying to charge it would be stupid and pointless.

Served me very well and it was a very nice car to drive. My wife has ordered a Merc A250e Saloon which comes next month as a step into alternate fuelled vehicles, that too will get charged every night and maxed out on electric only driving to save money.

Not every PHEV driver is a total idiot, its more to do with education of the driver.

 

[Jason71]

There are some proper sweeping statements on this thread

I had a BMW 330e for 2 years prior to my Tesla, always charged it up when I got home, and only ever charged it 'in the wild' at Tesco on the 7kw Podpoint (as long as plenty were free and I wasn't blocking a BEV) knowing full well at a 3.6kw max charge rate plugging it in and paying to charge it would be stupid and pointless.

Served me very well and it was a very nice car to drive. My wife has ordered a Merc A250e Saloon which comes next month as a step into alternate fuelled vehicles, that too will get charged every night and maxed out on electric only driving to save money.

Not every PHEV driver is a total idiot, its more to do with education of the driver.

Sadly that may not be enough justification for their existence. if you are not representative of the average owner
If I gave you a gun you probably wouldn't shoot any one either. Doesn't mean we should just let everyone have gun

 

[stonecoldrmw]

I agree with the above couple of posts. It's definitely an education thing.

I think another point to consider is that driving instructor are mostly in ICE cars and so people learn the ICE way of driving. That transition to everyone learning in an EV is a good 20-25 years away. The transition for the majority of motorists to the EV way of life I think it probably even longer. I just don't see people making the switch as quickly. I'm quite aggressive in terms of the deadline for the cessation of ICE cars. I think it should be earlier than 2030 and I think the government should increase the tax on ICE cars each year until we get to 2030. The additional funding could then be used to help drive the change in infrastructure that is required to ensure EV transition and uptake. I would force Manufacturers to pay a tax for putting every single ICE car on the road too and I'd incentivise the sale of their EVs.