Recent content by maby

Certainly so, but I was remarking on Andy's comment that "Being a hybrid, you get most of the advantages, even if the drive battery only holds a small charge." - in most hybrids, the drive battery has got to retain a moderate amount of charge otherwise the petrol engine is worthless. My X-Trail...

While it is possible to buy petrol easily, I'll stick to a petrol car. I don't think I have more than another ten years of safe driving in me and the X-Trail is still less than a year old, so I'm hoping that it will outlast me. My X-Trail is the ePower model - petrol with an electric...

Not a problem for EVs - they don't have an engine to be started. Martin

Admittedly, it's close to a year since our PHEV bit the dust, but Kwikfit Hemel Hempstead told me to go forth and multiply when it needed an Aircon top-up... Martin

The trouble with hybrids like the PHEV and Prius (and I have owned both) is that the engine start is via the high voltage traction battery. A single cell failure will leave your petrol engine useless and there is no option of jump starting it. Martin

We traded ours in and went Nissan - and we are very pleased with the change. I would not have another Mitsubishi unless they make a formal return to this country - particularly a hybrid or EV. The independent workshops are reluctant to do any work on an EV - too much perceived risk from high...

"Imperial Litres"? That reminds me of "metric feet"! Soon after England went metric, my father and I were going to do some building and, being good boys, we measured up in metres. We went along to our local timber yard to buy half a dozen four metre beams and were told that they were now selling...

My 2014 could not do 45km on a charge the day I picked it up new from the factory! Martin

I'm travelling with a cat who gets extremely irate every time my speed drops below 60! Martin

Having pretty much retired, my mileage is down to about 12,000 miles per year. Our PHEV was retired at just under ten years old and had around 100,000 miles on the clock - but we would also have put quite a few miles onto the Landcruiser over that period. The PHEV had lost more than a third of...

It goes as far and as fast as it ever did. It may use a bit more fuel, but not enough to notice. When we bought it, I could do around four hundred miles on a tank, refill in three or four minutes and get off the lights reasonably quickly. I still can - and that is all that matters in the final...

They are being honest. When we took delivery of our new PHEV, I had to drive it like a milk cart to get thirty miles out of it. Eight years later, it was hard work getting twenty out of it. This is a big problem with all EVs. My wife has a twenty five year old diesel landcruiser on our drive way...

Trouble is that even cell replacement is expensive. The headline range of the Explorer on the delivery day was only just enough. The dealer warned us that we should expect no more than 80% of that on the day that we drove it away and that we should expect to lose as much as a third of that range...

We came close to buying a new Ford Explorer EV until I discussed this with the dealer. The car, new and in the road was going to cost around £55k and the dealer was estimating around £40k for a battery replacement. Martin

The point of a non-plugin hybrid it's to use the small battery to even out the load on a typically underpowered petrol engine. A specialist in the field who I used to know described it as an electric turbocharger squeezing acceptable performance out of an underpowered car. Martin