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The lack of a gearbox - and virtual lack of a clutch - was one of my primary reasons for going for the PHEV. I hate mechanical transmissions and have had many problems with them over the years. My ideal car is one fitted with the Toyota hybrid drive train - no clutch at all and all the gears...

I'm talking about charging from a low SOC - the only time I use the Charge button is if I'm away from home and have accidentally allowed the battery to discharge. I have driven long distances at 70mph on "charge" with little increase in the SOC - much as greendwarf reports.

I would agree that cruising at (UK) motorway speeds the Charge button has little effect. Clearly the car does have the power output to cruise for prolonged periods at significantly higher speeds - I have always assumed that the designers took the decision to reduce the charge rate to a trickle...

That most of us are self-employed, directors of our own one (or two) man band companies and able to benefit to the absolute maximum from the various tax breaks that have been on offer for PHEVs?

I think it depends on what kind of Tesla charger you are talking about. The chargers in motorway service areas are rapid (as in 30 minutes) type chargers and I don't think the PHEV can use them. There are also Tesla fast chargers (as in a few hours) dotted around - the marina where we used to...

As I said above, the London Congestion Charging system does reference the DVLA database for some charging decisions - I never had to do anything to make my big old Landrover exempt. I think they just see the fee they charge for registration of hybrids as a source of income.

Seems to me that that is equally likely to happen irrespective of the make and model you buy!

The rules relating to the London Congestion Charge used to be a bit arcane. For a long time I drove a 12 seat Long Wheel Base Landrover into London every day - I never had to register that for Congestion Charge exemption - it was legally a bus and was automatically exempt. Then we bought a Prius...

Speaking personally, if I'm still capable of driving when my PHEV is incapable of being driven, I think I'll buy a SEAT Ateca - nice car and pretty cheap.

I doubt it - they depreciate very quickly! We've just bought a second hand PHEV - just over three years old and 41,000 on the clock - £12,500. It does look remarkably like the company car that we had - even down to the scratches and small dents!

Indeed... Also, the PHEV does not have any battery heating system installed, just a fairly basic battery cooling system. It was not designed with really cold climates in mind.

... and there are suspicions, at least, that it could shorten the life expectancy of your battery!

You should have been here three years ago when the car was recently launched - this forum is getting a bit slow these days.

My son's Prius was written off following a relatively minor front-end collision. I lent him a car while he was looking for a replacement. He wanted another Prius and was surprised to find his old car back on the market with some new panels on the wings...

And, possibly, battery life expectancy?

The trip profile has an enormous effect on the running costs of a plugin hybrid. It is easy enough to predict what you are going to get if you can drive Excel reasonably well. First plug in your EV range - and be realistic about it. In the middle of winter, you will not get 20 miles - with...

Don't get me wrong - I'm not defending it, just observing that it is difficult to avoid these days.

| don't like it much either, but it is difficult to avoid these days. I have an Android phone - went to a local pub for refreshments following a funeral service last week and later in the afternoon my phone popped up a message asking me to review the pub. Mine also remembers where I've parked...

I think the OP should be getting better fuel economy than he is reporting. He's got a 64 mile round trip and, in these temperatures, his EV range could easily drop to 15 miles (he does report that the bulk of his trip is motorway and the EV range at 70mph is significantly reduced). That could...

I don't have the instrumentation to do the measurements that you are making, but you don't surprise me. Even when it was just a few months old with a virtually unused battery, the EV range of our PHEV was significantly reduced in the winter - and I'm talking about southern England winters, not...