Best set up to get best mileage

[mjmeachen]

Forum newcomer.
What is the best set up for my Mitsubishi PHEV, I currently travel 80 miles per day, I'm getting terrible returns on my fuel.
Should I have the charge switch on off, eco mode turned on. I can only charge the car during the day at work.
I've only had the car for 2 weeks, so still getting used to it, but seriously considering returning to using my C Class Mrec, as I was getting way better return.
Any help gratefully received.

 

[user 816]

You can only charge at work? why not at home?

I wouldn't have considered the car without home charging.

Leave the charge button alone, its only of use in certain unusual circumstance. The car will always keep some 'hidden reserve' so its no problem to let it run until the battery 'appears' empty and carry on as it never really is and you will have quick acceleration when you need it. The Eco button has very little effect really, not worth worrying about.

Main thing is keep your speed down a bit, if your doing 40 miles each way dropping 10mph off your speed say from 70 to 60 and relaxing will add just 6 minutes to your journey time but may add 5 - 10mpg

 

[mjmeachen]

You can only charge at work? why not at home?

I wouldn't have considered the car without home charging.

Leave the charge button alone, its only of use in certain unusual circumstance. The car will always keep some 'hidden reserve' so its no problem to let it run until the battery 'appears' empty and carry on as it never really is and you will have quick acceleration when you need it. The Eco button has very little effect really, not worth worrying about.

Main thing is keep your speed down a bit, if your doing 40 miles each way dropping 10mph off your speed say from 70 to 60 and relaxing will add just 6 minutes to your journey time but may add 5 - 10mpg

Bob,
I cant get the car close enough to a mains socket, and the manual says not to charge with an extension lead?

 

[ChrisMiller]

What do you consider 'terrible'? Assuming you can get a full charge at work, that should provide enough energy to travel ~25 miles on electric only, so 2/3 of your journey will be in hybrid mode. If your journey is a mixture of A-roads, you might expect to get 35 mpg (better if you drive very gently), which with the electric thrown in to the mix should work out around 55mpg, but if it's nearly all motorway and you drive at 80mph, you'll get less than 30mpg for an overall average of ~45mpg.

Eco mode makes little difference, the main effect is to change the responsiveness of the throttle, so you have to press harder on the loud pedal to get the same amount of 'oomph'. It may (I'm not certain) also turn down the power to the climate control system - do you need to use aircon where you are (because that won't help your fuel economy)?

 

[mjmeachen]

What do you consider 'terrible'? Assuming you can get a full charge at work, that should provide enough energy to travel ~25 miles on electric only, so 2/3 of your journey will be in hybrid mode. If your journey is a mixture of A-roads, you might expect to get 35 mpg (better if you drive very gently), which with the electric thrown in to the mix should work out around 55mpg, but if it's nearly all motorway and you drive at 80mph, you'll get less than 30mpg for an overall average of ~45mpg.

Eco mode makes little difference, the main effect is to change the responsiveness of the throttle, so you have to press harder on the loud pedal to get the same amount of 'oomph'. It may (I'm not certain) also turn down the power to the climate control system - do you need to use aircon where you are (because that won't help your fuel economy)?[/quote


I'm down at 38 MPG, journey to work is mostly a and b roads with 10 miles on a dual carriageway. I'll turn aircon off and see if this improves things.

 

[user 816]

You can only charge at work? why not at home?

I wouldn't have considered the car without home charging.

Leave the charge button alone, its only of use in certain unusual circumstance. The car will always keep some 'hidden reserve' so its no problem to let it run until the battery 'appears' empty and carry on as it never really is and you will have quick acceleration when you need it. The Eco button has very little effect really, not worth worrying about.

Main thing is keep your speed down a bit, if your doing 40 miles each way dropping 10mph off your speed say from 70 to 60 and relaxing will add just 6 minutes to your journey time but may add 5 - 10mpg

Bob,
I cant get the car close enough to a mains socket, and the manual says not to charge with an extension lead?

Well they would say that as someone using a cheap or dodgy extension lead will be a risk and you probably noticed the PHEV manual is 80% written by lawyers filling it with liability warnings lightly interspersed with the odd useful technical detail!! :lol:

Many people here have charged, and often do with extensions. Just get a decent one and it will be fine, the car actually only draws about 2kW during charging so its no worse than running a fan heater! (not some great big current as you might easily imagine)

You only real issue is water proofing the charger/extension connection. If you got a simple single socket extension lead, not one on a reel, of just sufficient length you can get outdoor boxes you can put the plugs in to protect from the weather. I would also plug it in via a RCD circuit breaker in the house to protect yourself worst case.

Something like this makes life easy, heavy duty and it has a weather proof socket you can plug the charger plug into and leave outside.

http://www.diy.com/departments/masterplug-1-socket-13-a-external-extension-lead-15m-orange/260800_BQ.prd

 

[Tipper]

The appalling mpg you are seeing is probably with it left on 'auto' which resets every journey.

You need to select the 'manual' trip reading rather than leaving it on 'auto' so as to see what your real continuous mpg is running at. Don't 'reset' it otherwise you loose your historical data!

Unfortunately the above needs to be set to manual every time you want to review your overall mpg..poor design by Mitsubishi.

 

[Bladevane]

mjmeachen - My advice is to wear lighter shoes and use the regenerative braking to maximum effect by anticipating the need to slow down and stop.

 

[Kesto]

Definitely charge at home you may seek advice from electrician regarding cable number weather proof box or get him to extend the line to a all weather box. If charge at home and work you can get 28 miles EV each way with regen or B0 ( hypermiling) as when appropriate. I am sure you can manage 60 mpg . X5 Q5 Q7 will give you 28mpg.

 

[Kesto]

I got my extension done with outside thick PVC ducting fixed to boundary wall with a all weather box which is lockable.

 

[Kesto]

I got my extension done with outside thick PVC ducting fixed to boundary wall with a all weather box which is lockable.

 

[ChrisMiller]

I only mentioned air conditioning because some posters are living in hotter climes (like Queensland or Southern Spain), here in the UK over the last couple of months, aircon hasn't really had to work too hard . In any case, running with or without aircon is only going to change consumption figures by a few percent - not by a factor of 1.5x, which is what you seem to need.

Tipper has a good point about the difference between auto (which resets after the car is off for four hours) and manual (which only resets when you choose to do so) figures. On your journey from home to work, you're starting with an 'empty' battery, and 38mpg for the trip would be quite normal. On your way back home, you're starting with a full charge, and I think you should aim to achieve > 100 mpg for the trip (unless you work in a valley and your home is up a 3,000 feet climb).

 

[jaapv]

I simply bought a 20 meter charging cable.

 

[Steel188]

Before taking on the car, I assume you had done your research and realised that only being able to charge at work would effect your EV capability by restricting you to only starting your homeward journey with a full charge?

I note that you are getting 38mpg from your PHEV which, personally speaking, is about where I am.

When I leave the office with a full charge to drive the 12 miles home (twice a week if I'm lucky) the petrol engine kicks in for about 500 yards and I achieve around 800mpg. But for the rest of the time, I drive all over the country, such as the 800 miles to Cornwall and back in two days that I did last week, mostly on petrol, and find 38mpg for an 1800Kg brick pretty good.

I'll be honest, I never turn my aircon off (heating or cooling) and use my satnav to regulate road speed rather than the speedo, and yes, if I'm on the motorway and the road is clear, that does mean cruising at a true 70mph (about 74 on the speedo)

Using the analogy from a previous post, dropping 10mph from your speed for 40 miles does only add 6 minutes to your journey time, but work that up to my 800 mile trip and it equates to an extra 2 hours driving time and I'm sorry, but I have meetings to attend, deals to complete and a family that wants to see me and if that means 38mpg in my calm, quiet and very comfortable 'brick', then so be it.

 

[maby]

...
I'm down at 38 MPG, journey to work is mostly a and b roads with 10 miles on a dual carriageway. I'll turn aircon off and see if this improves things.

You should be able to do better than 38mpg provided your right foot is not too heavy. My pattern of usage is a lot less PHEV friendly than yours - 3 days per week at about 5 miles per day plus a 200 mile round trip the other days with no possibility of charging - I still get over 40mpg. Charging at home as well as at work will make a big difference for you - half your round trip will be on battery with something approaching 40mpg for the other half - which is around 40 miles - so you should be able to approach 80mpg overall.