Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Best HEV or PHEV

You never plug in your PHEV! Presumably you rely on recovery when braking and use the engine to charge. That's expensive. You can charge a PHEV from a 13amp socket in about 6 to 7 hours.

Yep…rely’s on recovery when it self brakes. I could have opted for the diesel version but it’s isn’t as refined and it’s slower.

Did attempt charging it a few times from a 13amp socket that took 8hrs (expensive during the day) but it only gave me approx 55 miles of range and not the 70 miles ford claim.

You can't possibly recover enough charge from braking so you must be charging from the engine which costs more than electricity whatever rate. Range will vary with ambient temperature, I get 35 to 40 miles in winter and 40 to 50 in summer and have got near 55 in very hot weather. I have a Volvo V60 PHEV with 18kW battery.

I’m currently getting 53mpg without plugging it in, at worst around 45mpg. I’m sure if I really thrashed it it’ll drop further. It’s only a 1.5cc three cylinder.

I have a Seat Leon 1.5 PHEV. I plug it in most nights, and it charges either from the spare solar energy that was stored in a 10 kWh battery in the garage from the previous day's sunshine or at Octopus's cheap EV rate of 7p. I get 2.5 - 3 miles of driving from 1 kHr of charge, so that is a remarkable 3p per mile. The range on an 80% charge of the 20 kWh battery varies from about 40 miles in the cold of winter, doing short journeys around town, and 70 miles in the warm days of summer, out and about driving at 40-60 mph on the country roads. The advertised range is 80 miles I think.

As it happens, being retired, I don't very often do more than 40 miles a day - so I find that I have probably only bought a single tank of petrol (which goes 400 miles without the battery) in the 7 months I've had the car. So more than 90% of my driving is in pure EV mode. It's a pleasant drive in EV mode with more than adequate performance for me, but if you put it in sport mode and combined EV/petrol then it is embarrassingly quick (but hardly refined, so actually not much fun to drive). I've no real idea what mpg I get in petrol only mode - the car offers a wide range of mpg/efficiency displays, most of which don't seem very plausible. I'd guess about 50-60 mpg - but I never use it in that mode, because of my limited mileage.

Would I recommend it? Hmm, not sure. The engineering is great - the finish is lovely, the battery does not take up too much room in the boot, and it is all bolted together very nicely. But the car is stuffed full of electronickery that `i don't really want. There are literally hundreds of different possible display symbols on the dash, most of which I can't remember. The parking sensors are way too fussy, and actually are probably faulty on my particular car, which keeps reporting 'drive fault - visit a workshop' -because it can't operate the traffic assist-don't bump into things feature - however the Seat service garage can't identify a fault, and have not been able to get any useful response from Seat after two months as to what might be wrong. I don't think these faults are related to the phev aspect of the car so could well appear on any modern car. And most modern cars are stuffed full of similar electronic/computer gizmos, which despite being a computer engineer I find abhorent. So I'd probably dislike most modern cars, not just this one. The nuts and bolts engineering on the Seat Leon is pretty good though, as I imagine it is on other modern tin tops.

So what's the bottom line? I like the EV/PHEV driving aspects of the car, and my petrol consumption is pretty negligible. But I pretty much hate the user interface. I'd buy another PHEV but not a Seat if I had to replace it.

I've just reread your posts and realise I misread your first. I read that you were getting 53 miles RANGE which I couldn't understand if you never plugged in to recharge the battery. As Dave (above) says charging the battery from your electric supply is far cheaper than petrol. You may not be on a special rate but even at 30p/kW is only £5.40 for which you will get say 50miles range (10p/mile). You say you are getting 53mpg. Assuming 150p/l or £6.75 per gallon that would give you 13p/mile. Obviously the cheaper the electric rate is the more benficial it is to keep the battery charged.

I pay 3.49 p per kWh to charge my EV. It delivers 3.6 mle plus per kWh so under 1 p per mile.

Same for lots of company car users, don't bother charging but it's attraction is (or used to be) much reduced Benefit in Kind ££tax

You'd be surprised how much Manufacturers develop models and engine options to follow trends in BiK tax, this then effects retail buyers with limited choice as the Mfr ain't bothered about your tiny purchase volume

Ive got a Smart EQ Fortwo which has a 17.6kW battery that costs me £1.18 to fully charge and gives me 100 miles of range this time of year if driven with some anticipation and the higher brake regen switched on.

Whilst some people take the p... out of the car it gets used more frequently than any other car we have as it is absolutely the right tool for the job for any local trips.

With the price of petrol running at about £7/gallon it gives me the cost equivalent of about 590mpg which is a bit hard to ignore.