Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Electric Cars

|More likely to have been freezing

Self charging hybrids seem the best compromise but sad that only petrol versions available now given cleanliness of current diesels.

It seems that BEV's can be economical after jumping through expensive hoops to get power walls or at least off peak charging. What happens when such creates it's own peak though as I doubt the present concessionary rates will continue or at best the price gap will narrow.

Whilst on the subject when are BEV's going to pay VED? Toting around their heavy batteries is just chewing up our already poorly maintained road surfaces, not to mention tyre dust pollution. On a positive note though the concerns folk had about not hearing them coming seems to have been answered with the tyre noise they produce

Richard how do you figure self-charging hybrids as being a good compromise?
I don't see the benefit of them and must be missing something ?
Meant only to educate myself as I don't get it?

Audi Q3 rental is finishing in the next twelve months so looking at replacement options - buying not rental this time. Feel I should go down the PHEV/EV route and liking the X1 - or iX1.

90% of journeys are less than the 30 or 40 PHEV range but is it hassle plugging and unplugging daily?

On EV a single charge would last us a week probably.

Averaging around 5000 miles pa.

The extra cost over the petrol/diesel versions probably makes no financial sense but feel under pressure to try and cut emissions.

I've owned a plug-in hybrid and having a home charger I didn't find it in the slightest bit inconvenient. If you're mainly doing relatively short journeys I'd say it was the ideal vehicle. The only downside is on longer journeys when the charge runs out your consumption will be relatively high.

The real plus that I found was not having to go into filling stations more than once a month.

Having said all of that some of the latest self-charging hybrids are giving very good fuel mileage in all circumstances. The latest Honda Civic for example has a 2.0 litre engine and 55 mpg overall seems to be readily achievable. Gets very good reviews too.

Richard it's a fallacy that VED is used for repairing roads, it never has been. It's a tax that goes straight to the exchequer.

It was until 1937 🙂

K

(wouldn't want one, but)... There's plenty of self-charging diesel hybrids around. Their hybrid ability is often hidden though - I guess innovation frightens the vast majority of horses.

for example, have a look at LandRovers, and see if you can spot anything much in the way of info about their propulsion. "Dnnn MHEV" is the closest you'll see for a description of a diesel hybrid.

Will

The only issue as I see it with self-charging hybrids is that all the electric motive power still comes from burning the fossil fuel in the car. For folks who regularly need to do long distances the PHEV is a much better option in my view as you can still charge from your solar array if you have one and for local running around you'd be doing it nearly all on electric.

I did consider a Mini Countryman PHEV but didn't go for it as the electric-only range was too short for our needs (we often do trips in the 30 to 60 mile range) and we do long distances so rarely (apart from touring in the Morgan) that the pure EV made much more sense for us. The alternative choice was a BMW i3 but it was out of our price range.

I take your point - and would add that experience in my short-range PHEV shows that they can recover useful charge while on the move. For example, a mostly motorway 120 mile commute would see the i8's notional 34 mile battery range would be making a contribution for the first 100 miles or so.
I averaged about 49mpg for typical UK motorway driving - so that'll be a mix of 65mph in 3 or 4 busy lanes, stop start 0-5mph around Heathrow, and 70.0mph on the wide open plains for the M40.

The reason I'd not try that journey in an EV - where I often did the return trip in a day, or with an overnight stay - is that I couldn't guarantee that the plentiful chargers in the company car park would work (about a 50% strike rate to find one that charged).

Will