Best way to drive

[bubba]

I get my Outlander PHEV in a couple of weeks and I am already thinking about the most economical way to get to and from work.

It is 16 miles door to door (from home to work). I can plug in at work so want to try and do the daily commute to and from work on one charge - potentially not possible but worth a try. My morning commute takes me through a city centre, but at the time I leave the roads are still pretty quiet and apart from traffic lights, I am always moving freely and it takes me about 35mins. On an evening the return journey takes around an hour with there being much more traffic on the roads. Quite a few sections of the route are a crawl.

What advice can people please give me to try get the most out of the car? I dont use the car for much other than the work commute so want to be as economical as possible.

 

[maby]

The answer is broadly the same as it would be for any other car - drive gently, light right foot, brake early and gently. Sixteen miles should be comfortably within EV range most of the year - in the depths of winter, you may be getting close to flat by the time you arrive. Thirty two miles is extremely optimistic - you may just manage it under ideal conditions, but assume that you rarely will. Driving "normally" - for me - I have never got better than about 24 miles out of it even in the summer and I reckon I'm doing well to get 18 miles out of it on an average winter day.

As has been the topic of interminable discussions here over the last several years, the car does like to turn the petrol engine on in cold weather to generate heat. If you find that unacceptable, there are various strategies to avoid it - basically, keep the climate control set to a low temperature and dress up warm. If you have the GX4 version with the pre-heat function built in, that can help to avoid frostbite while minimising petrol consumption!

 

[Daff]

Can you charge at home too, or only at work?

If only at work then you will certainly need to use the engine for part of the trip. If you have a section of open road driving at 45mph plus then it makes sense to out the car in Save mode for this part, where you will have a chance to run largely in parallel hybrid mode, and save the battery for the urban or stop-start parts of the trip. You will get used to how long to use Save for in order to have enough juice to complete the journey with an almost flat battery.

Using the preheat to avoid the engine start only makes sense if you are plugged in.

Steve

 

[DrSlackBladder]

I have a similar commute in terms of time, distance and roads. You'll never get the round trip of 32 miles out of one charge even in summer, in my opinion. But if you charge at home as well as at work, you'll easily do the same as me and not use any petrol during the week.....when the temperatures are above about 7C. Below that and you'll struggle to stop the ICE kicking in on start up.

 

[Daff]

Running the engine for a while at the start of a journey (when you are likely to be driving slowly) is probably a good thing for the health of the engine, so it won't be stone cold it it is suddenly called upon for acceleration.

Steve

 

[maby]

I have a similar commute in terms of time, distance and roads. You'll never get the round trip of 32 miles out of one charge even in summer, in my opinion. But if you charge at home as well as at work, you'll easily do the same as me and not use any petrol during the week.....when the temperatures are above about 7C. Below that and you'll struggle to stop the ICE kicking in on start up.

In really cold weather, even 16 miles isn't "easy" on a charge. If you don't want heating and you are driving at a moderate speed in daylight, you should manage it, but my experience is that if you are driving in stop-start traffic with headlights and an ambient temperature around zero or below, a realistic EV range may be as low as 12 to 14 miles.

 

[anko]

Running the engine for a while at the start of a journey (when you are likely to be driving slowly) is probably a good thing for the health of the engine, so it won't be stone cold it it is suddenly called upon for acceleration.

FWIW: Mitsu claims the engine was specially prepared / designed to deal with these circumstances.

 

[bubba]

Thank you all for your advice. What mode would you have the car in and what about the steering wheel paddles?

 

[maby]

Thank you all for your advice. What mode would you have the car in and what about the steering wheel paddles?

"Eco" theoretically gives you a bit more range, but the difference seems to be very small. For trips of 16 miles, just leave it in "Normal" - you will be within EV range except in very cold weather. Mucking about with the paddles does not seem to make much difference to battery consumption - some users claim that they can extend range by a small amount by driving in "B0", but I'm not convinced. Turning it up to "B5" can reduce wear on your brake pads, but there seems to be a possibility that too much use of B5 can damage your battery since it can push very high reverse currents back into the battery.

Most of my usage is far outside the EV range - there is a lot of controversy over the best way to manage the battery when you are driving hundreds of miles without being able to charge. People here like anko and Trex will tell you that you should allow the battery to discharge early because that gives the car the best scope for optimising petrol consumption - a flat battery will accept charge more readily than an almost full battery and the car is able to implement a cycle of alternate short periods of petrol mode and EV mode. Trex ran some quite detailed tests to evaluate this and seemed to be able to demonstrate improvements of up to 8% in fuel consumption. But he was testing on long, flat and uncongested roads in Australia - I ran similar tests on the UK M25 and M3 and was unable to detect any noticeable difference. Personally, on long journeys, I aim to start off with a fully charged battery and drive in "Save" mode to retain the charge as long as possible. "Save" is not perfect and your charge level will drift down anyway - after about 250 miles, I find that I'm down to 50% charge, more or less. I follow this strategy because, while an Outlander with a flat battery will still perform well enough, it will tend to rev the engine very high in response to demands for acceleration because it is not able to draw so much current from the battery. That sets my teeth on edge so, given that I can detect very little difference in fuel consumption, I prefer to simply drive it as a petrol car. Others here will follow far more active charge management strategies, alternating between "Normal" mode, "Save" mode and, even, dropping in "Charge" mode from time to time. YMMV

 

[Daff]

I tend to think of the B modes as more for adjusting the amount of retardation rather than a way to recover lots of energy. Round town or when tackling, say, a series of bends or roundabouts, the higher B settings are a nice way to simulate engine braking. I think any additional energy recovered is mainly a bonus, unless you are descending a very long hill. Of course, even in a high B setting you can still slow down gently by feathering the accelerator. In this case it regens at a lower strength.

On long journeys I am using Save on the open road, and keeping my charge for round town and traffic jams. And for when nearly home to arrive back close to empty.

Steve

 

[NightPHEVer]

You can use the heated seats to stay warm (assuming you have them) but in my experience cautious use of heat from the heater is not much fun and your windows are going to steam up too, so it's potentially dangerous in that respect. My missus certainly wouldn't countenance any cautious use of the heater! Judging by my fuel costs good electric range is definitely a spring/summer feature.

 

[maby]

You can use the heated seats to stay warm (assuming you have them) but in my experience cautious use of heat from the heater is not much fun and your windows are going to steam up too, so it's potentially dangerous in that respect. My missus certainly wouldn't countenance any cautious use of the heater! Judging by my fuel costs good electric range is definitely a spring/summer feature.

Definitely! My first car didn't have a heater - and it was hell in the winter - but that was more than forty years ago and it cost less than £100.... The PHEV cost well over £30,000 - I have no intention of driving it while wearing three pullovers and with condensation dripping from the roof like rain!