A few questions before going to the dealers

[Envchem]

Hi guys,

First post here; hopefully many more will follow. I recently started looking into the hybrid market and i must admit that i am really impressed from what i have been reading so far regarding the Outlander Phev. Before i go down to the dealers though there a few things that i would love to see if you can help me with based on your experience
The car will be mainly used for my daily commute which is a 65 miles in total trip going from south Liverpool to Chester and back. my current average speed is 35 mph.....(dreaded traffic). I could charge only at home im afraid so could you please give me an approximate mpg value?
Now on the car itself. I am thinking of going for a pcp deal on a used one. I am thinking for a 4xhs. should i go for a 16 plate or wait for a few months and go for a 17 one? Is the difference between them worth the wait?
Just to clarify this will not be a company car; this will be our main family car

Thanks your help guys!

 

[elm70]

Hi guys,

First post here; hopefully many more will follow. I recently started looking into the hybrid market and i must admit that i am really impressed from what i have been reading so far regarding the Outlander Phev. Before i go down to the dealers though there a few things that i would love to see if you can help me with based on your experience
The car will be mainly used for my daily commute which is a 65 miles in total trip going from south Liverpool to Chester and back. my current average speed is 35 mph.....(dreaded traffic). I could charge only at home im afraid so could you please give me an approximate mpg value?
Now on the car itself. I am thinking of going for a pcp deal on a used one. I am thinking for a 4xhs. should i go for a 16 plate or wait for a few months and go for a 17 one? Is the difference between them worth the wait?
Just to clarify this will not be a company car; this will be our main family car

Thanks your help guys!

If you can charge the car at work, you will have very low fuel consumption

Else ... my expedience on 100km trip on a single charge don't show nice consumption figures

I would expect mpg for your case around 45/50mpg if you can charge only at home .. plus .. 9kwh of electricity per day (which is 2 or 3 or more Euro a days in your electric bill) ... figures that does not sound very economical to me .. except you must use a SUV ... as well .. using a Outlander Diesel you will have similar economy .. a lighter and more efficient SUV will have even better economy

But ... yes with PHEV you may be able to win something on road taxes in UK

 

[Tipper]

We only ever charge at home and never when out and about. The hassle and cost is not worth the effort of trying to do it and chasing the chargers is frankly ridiculous to me!

We are currently showing around 70 mpg overall which is for all local driving on EV and occasional motorway trips say once/twice per month. Our visits to the petrol station seem very infrequent even compared to our previous diesel car! We've done around 12000 miles in the last year.
A point to note is that there are two mpg meters, one auto (A) which uselessly resets every 'switch on' and one manual reset (B) which we leave alone as it records the total mpg until reset. My figure above is this figure. Checking the auto mpg an a long trip will show anything down to 30 mpg on the motorway.

To sum up, if your daily journeys are local and short then you're on an EV winner. If daily trips include a longer distance then maybe not. But it's still a great car to drive and you can feel very smug in town not polluting those poor pedestrians!

Oh and if you're used to an auto then you will find conversion to it very very easy. If you're a 'manual' person then you may struggle initially.

 

[geoffshep69]

As a rough guide, you might expect to get c.20 miles EV range at this time of year, so 45 of your 65 miles will be done on petrol. 35mpg is a realistic estimate, so you’ll be using about 1.28 gallons of petrol. Across your full journey of 65 miles, that works out at around 50 mpg. You will also have incurred the cost of a full charge, which is about £1, so when you factor that in and assume that you had spent that £1 on fuel rather than electric, your actual mpg will be around 44mpg.

 

[Envchem]

Hello again

Thanks for coming back to me so fast. Well current car is a 3L diesel with an mpg of 38 so i believe that the outlander will be more efficient. I am trying to figure if it will be better compared to the diesel version of it. Unfortunately where i work at the moment i dont think it will be straightforward to charge the car. Do you think that the dealer will agree to an extended test drive so i can see its performance in action?

thanks again

 

[elm70]

As a rough guide, you might expect to get c.20 miles EV range at this time of year, so 45 of your 65 miles will be done on petrol. 35mpg is a realistic estimate, so you’ll be using about 1.28 gallons of petrol. Across your full journey of 65 miles, that works out at around 50 mpg. You will also have incurred the cost of a full charge, which is about £1, so when you factor that in and assume that you had spent that £1 on fuel rather than electric, your actual mpg will be around 44mpg.

You look inline with my expectation ... 45 to 50mpg is what I wrote above

Definitely using the outloadenr PHEV vs previous diesel will not make the fuel / energy consumption more economical .. since from 38mpg diesel ... vs 45-50mpg benzin + 9kwh daily bill .. the two costs sound almost same to me

At the end is a matter of preference ... which car is more nice to drive for the personal point of view

Also ... car depreciation and tax advantage should be put in the picture for get the full economy of the car ownership ... Outlander PHEV does depreciate quite much compared to other SUV .. but being "green" in UK has quite some advantages

If would have been possible to charge the car at work .. or every 30miles .. then the economy of fuel will be excellent on the outlander PHEV .. for daily trip under 30miles ... this is where the PHEV shine

65miles range .. as far as I know, it is only possible with a pure EV car ... or eventually a REX ... i3 will be in this scenario the economy beast ... but the BMW i3 ... is not really as "big" as the outlander PHEV ... still they may cost quite a similar price

 

[Mitssupplier]

Hello again

Thanks for coming back to me so fast. Well current car is a 3L diesel with an mpg of 38 so i believe that the outlander will be more efficient. I am trying to figure if it will be better compared to the diesel version of it. Unfortunately where i work at the moment i dont think it will be straightforward to charge the car. Do you think that the dealer will agree to an extended test drive so i can see its performance in action?

thanks again

The PHEV has so many variables so no two drivers will have close to the same mpg. If your commute involves motorways/ dual carriage ways etc expect to get a lot less than rolling a/b roads. What the PHEV will do though is make you think more how you drive especially when using the B0-B5 paddles. My commute is only 19 miles but I use all that and sometimes dip into petrol on my commute in as its mainly motorway. But I go home a different way which has lots of ups and downs, country lanes and some A roads and can get home with between 7-10 EV range left.

 

[elm70]

The PHEV has so many variables so no two drivers will have close to the same mpg. If your commute involves motorways/ dual carriage ways etc expect to get a lot less than rolling a/b roads. What the PHEV will do though is make you think more how you drive especially when using the B0-B5 paddles. My commute is only 19 miles but I use all that and sometimes dip into petrol on my commute in as its mainly motorway. But I go home a different way which has lots of ups and downs, country lanes and some A roads and can get home with between 7-10 EV range left.

Absolutely ...

Driving style has an impact ... but if people drive for avoid the ICE to kick in .. the driving style is already good enough and will make little difference from one user to the other.

Yes ... car speed ... has mayor impact on how much EV range and once battery flat out, it has huge impact on fuel consumption too (much more then what we can see on normal petrol/diesel car) .. EV range at 120km/h is about the half if not less when driving at 60km/h ... per my understanding the "approved" 32miles range are possible only driving at constant speed less then 50km/h

Anyhow ... the mpg I did report .. I think they are manageable without driving too slow, but as well without ever exceeding the ICE level of 60kw power

Anyhow .. expect over 50mpg ... for 65miles trip on a single charge does require to drive extremely slow .. I believe already 45mpg for such type of usage require careful driving

Personally .... I don't see any value on fuel saving with this Outlander PHEV for this type of usage .. this PHEv should be used up to 30-35 miles maximum on a single charge ... ideally the daily commute should always happen in full EV mode .. else it is not a fuel efficient car.

 

[Envchem]

Thanks for the responses guys. So if i am getting this right unless i plug at work it will not make that much of a difference compared to what i drive at the moment. I do want to point out though that although my daily commute does get me through motorway and double carriage my average mph is really low (35) so i dont think that it will be depleted that fast.

 

[Gilbo]

Get the dealer to let you have one for a day or two.. I have been doing a 160 mile round trip commute recently and can average between 38 - 49 mpg depending on traffic conditions, motorway speeds etc.. The mpg on these cars is very sensitive to the way it is used.

 

[maby]

Thanks for the responses guys. So if i am getting this right unless i plug at work it will not make that much of a difference compared to what i drive at the moment. I do want to point out though that although my daily commute does get me through motorway and double carriage my average mph is really low (35) so i dont think that it will be depleted that fast.

There are, or at least were, some strong incentives to buy and run a PHEV as a company vehicle - those incentives are beginning to erode now. If it will be a private purchase, then you really need to like it as a car - given its price, few will actually save money by owning one. If the vast majority of your usage fits within the EV range - which is realistically between 20 and 25 miles - then you can pretty much avoid burning petrol and, taking into account the cost of electricity in Britain, you will get a running cost equivalent to something like 200mpg. Once you go beyond the EV range, then it becomes a reasonable performance, large petrol estate car - driven gently it will give you a little over 40mpg, but it is quite feasible to get it down to 30mpg or lower if you have a heavy right foot.

It's not hard to find a perfectly serviceable car for £10,000 less than a PHEV - and that price difference buys you enough petrol to do at least 80,000 miles - hence my contention that you need to like the PHEV for features other than the fuel consumption to justify buying it. Ask yourself if you would consider the diesel version? If the answer is "no", then you probably should not be buying the PHEV unless the vast majority of your trips really will be no more than 30 miles between charging opportunities.

 

[Muddywheels]

Worst mpg I've seen is 35 on a 200 mile trip starting with a full charge and returning on petrol - I drive to avoid ICE, usually in battery range during week and around 60 mile trip weekends - you can see my overall mpg in Fuelly below :?

I was a diesel driver for over 20 years before buying the PHEV and most of that time I drove diesel SUVs - best I ever saw on them was 35 but usually 25-30 so I look at the PHEV has being no worse than the diesels, better than a petrol, free VED and importantly diesel is facing a very uncertain future right now - considering diesel needs a lot of thought https://www.petrolprices.com/diesel-drivers-2017/ :?

 

[anko]

Having a daily commute beyond EV range does not necessarily kill the business case for a PHEV. In winter time, I cannot reach the office on electricity alone. Typically, I end up with about 140 MPG. Even after factoring in the cost of electricity, I don't think that is easily beaten. Obviously, the further you drive beyond EV range the further down that MPG number goes. But my guess is that, with a trip length (between full recharges) of 65 miles, you are probably still better of than with any other SUV.

 

[maby]

Having a daily commute beyond EV range does not necessarily kill the business case for a PHEV. In winter time, I cannot reach the office on electricity alone. Typically, I end up with about 140 MPG. Even after factoring in the cost of electricity, I don't think that is easily beaten. Obviously, the further you drive beyond EV range the further down that MPG number goes. But my guess is that, with a trip length (between full recharges) of 65 miles, you are probably still better of than with any other SUV.

My point is that anyone buying a PHEV simply to save money is likely to be disappointed. You can buy a perfectly good diesel or petrol estate car for at least £10,000 less and the fuel economy of the PHEV, even primarily limited to short trips, is not good enough to recoup that. Quite simply, you need to like the car for its other qualities in order to justify it - and those qualities may include its environmental credentials, of course. The OP appears to be primarily interested in saving money and I doubt he will relative to his overall cost of ownership with an alternative estate car.