2015 PHEV fuel economy?

[Skylander]

Hi,

Had a HEV (Lexus) as well as BEV (BMW i3) in the past, before getting the Outlander PHEV just a couple of days ago (2015 GX4hs model) - so not completely new to this type of driving, using regen braking etc.

Would like to ask here what do you guys think and what could I have done better because I think I had very different expectations from the Outlander in terms of mpg.. :|

So today I did a ~60 miles trip, mostly motorway.
Started with 100% battery and an EV range of 24miles (reset all trip stats so I can test it this trip).

Used regen braking (B3-4), no aircon and enabled Eco Mode from start.
In about 8 miles I got on the motorway, which was about 40 miles total, mainly Cruise Control at 60-65mph..
Enabled Save battery when I had about 6 miles battery range left.

It looks like all in all I got 42 UK mpg economy with a lot of care and frankly it's a lot less than expected..

Any thoughts?

 

[DaveL59]

mine's a 2019 2.4 HS so a little different, but as an example, visiting my daughter in S London and so getting as high uphill as Crystal Palace I got around 43MPG setting off with full charge. I did hit save once on the motorway so I'd run electric as far as possible once in town but I can't say I drive for EV range. No eco mode, AC on and using cruise where it suited.

The other day round trip to Reading area so around 85 miles each way, MPG on arrival was also around 43 but once home was down to around 35. The return leg was in darkness with --- showing as range when setting off. I don't charge at the other end nor will I be stopping to top off the battery en route.

For me that's around what I expected so I'm good with that. What were your expectations though?

 

[Skylander]

Thanks Dave, so that seems in line with what I'm getting.

In terms of the expectations, I was really skeptical about the official figure ~140mpg!? but then seeing that multiple people reported ~100mpg possible, I thought if I aim for something like 70mpg in a HEV 'mode', it could be a good option.

However, realising now that that UK MPGs in the hundreds is really just running on the battery and using it as a short-range BEV (in which case reporting mpgs isn't really fair).

To explain, wasn't able to get the home charger installed which was the main reason why I had to let the i3 go. So I looked at the Outlander PHEV as an alternative, thinking it's going to be fairly efficient as a hybrid and without requiring regular charging.

So when I saw the 100mpg figures, I thought I'd be able to get ~60-70mpg equivalent using it as a hybrid and not having to plug-in regularly. Seems that it won't be the case?

Are there any tips on using it as a HEV and getting better mpg ?

 

[SS2115]

Maybe its the 2.0l motor in a heavy vehicle.
I just 6 weeks ago or so took delivery of a 2020 PHEV Exceed - 2.4l motor and slightly heavier 13.8 battery pack. 32,000 kilometres.
I've never owned a EV of any description and elsewhere in this forum I have canvassed owners for information about my EV range as I've come to grips living with it.

But in regards to gas mileage, I picked up the car in Qld and drove it home to Sydney same day - 1050 kilometres. Mostly 110 k/hr freeway, with smaller sections of 100 and some 80 as well as navigating to home once reaching Sydney 8.5 hours later.

I had been playing with charging the battery once I had used the range, and used Charging and Save on/off through the day. The AC was on all the entire drive (summer here - 36 - 38 deg C.

So in the end, I did a half fill about 1/3rd the way, then running on fumes with dire dashboard warnings to "fill up NOW!" filled again at about the 3/4 mark home.
I arrived home with a full battery but also astounded that my petrol use had only been an average of 3.9 l/100k.

This forum has since explained to me how I did just about everything wrong and its all starting to sort itself out for me in regards charging and range etc finally. So it appears I could have decreased that 3.9 l/100k even further.
But I've never seen such consumption as low as that and in anything I ever owned previously.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

We've just come back from a 2,500-mile trip around Europe. Our best mpg was around 39, cruising on the motorways at a limited 64mph. That was mostly without much battery as there usually wasn't a charger near where we stayed and public chargers aren't worth it at those prices. This is on a 98k 2015 with a 70% SOH battery.

Details of our past 5 years economy via the link in my signature

 

[ChrisMiller]

My lifetime average over 7 years, 44,000 miles is 78mpg. I estimate 90% of trips and half my mileage is on electric, so I probably get ~40mpg when the battery is 'empty'. Motorway cruising (70-75mph) usually delivers ~35mpg.

 

[Skylander]

So I think the car's MPG calculation is misleading because it considers EV driving 'free' which is not..

As mentioned above, I wasn't able to install a home charger and with the outrageous energy prices, using the public chargers is actually more expensive than petrol: my closest charger (about 7 min walk from the house) charges 55p/kWh... (and is 7kW not rapid)

Trying to work out the 'petrol equivalent' MPG of driving electric:

EV range ~22miles
Full charge costs about £6 (at 55p/kw)
Asuming the £6 could buy petrol at 145p / litre, covering the same 22mi range comes at 25-26MPG equivalent.

So if the ICE can obtain a 35MPG economy alone, it's actually cheaper to run on petrol.
The car increases the MPG when driving electric, but those miles are actually more expensive, I found this incredibly misleading.

 

[DaveL59]

Yeah unfortunately with energy prices the way they are, the cost/charge has gone up quite a bit, even more I guess if you use public charging points. At the moment a full charge is like having an extra gallon of petrol in the tank and around the same cost. Of course the original marketing was put out back when leccy prices were a lot lower and I guess the EV bit is still used as the selling point as no motor trader will really want to be telling you that a charge is more expensive than the <1 gallon range it'd give you.

I've just done a week of to/from the office miles in rush hour, around 130 mile round trip each day. Battery charged overnight on the granny charger, hit save when joining the motorway where I'm down to say 15 miles range from 26 starting(GOM). AC on and not ECO mode as per usual so range becomes more like 19-22 as soon as I start rolling. Running speeds up to say 80 MPH but more often a lot slower because of traffic and quite a lot of standing/creeping in long tailbacks which is mostly on battery even when at "---". Returning it was getting dark partway home and rained a lot, so wipers and lights adding to the 12V load.

All in, MPG reported at 38-40 which even with a heavy right foot at times was reasonable IMHO. Of course as you say I'm not calculating the 15-20 EV miles in the cost, but in terms of petrol I'd say I used 15 gallons, perhaps closer to 20 for the week. So taking 130/day, 650 miles for the week, that does tally in terms of MPG calculated for the distance, omitting the EV aspect. Worst (20 gallons) would have given 32MPG. If I deduct say 20 miles for EV range, then that means 550 miles on petrol, reducing the 15 gallon MPG to 36MPG and the 20 down to 27MPG. Mine's a 2019 2.4L so the 2.0 figures are likely different but no clue how much.

So I'd guess if I didn't ever charge I'd be getting something between those lower numbers running petrol only, still not so bad for a big heavy vehicle but not as good of course as a ICE only one would get. The PHEV is far less distracting too in stop/start traffic IMHO vs one of those stop-start ICE vehicles, just twitch the throttle and you're quietly rolling, no delay spinning the starter and re-lighting the fires to get moving again... ;-)

 

[niceonejim]

surely you don’t need a charger, just a plug socket, even if it’s on an uncoiled decently rated extension lead.