Hi. We are considering buying an Outlander PHEV, but I’m wondering about how often we would have to charge the battery to keep using electric mode. If a full charge gives you 40km and you only drive a fraction of that a day, would you be able to go a few days without charging, or does the charge go down even when the vehicle is not being used?
My partner and I do residential house cleaning and drive about 10-15km a day, so a PHEV with a low electric range seems ideal for us. The problem is, we live in the downtown core of Vancouver, BC in an older apartment building with no charging station. We park on the street, so would be using public chargers. In Vancouver, many of these chargers are free, but you are charged to park at a cost of $3.50 per hour (there are also a couple of curbside chargers with free street parking but the parking spaces are open to anyone and almost always are filled). Our current ICE vehicle uses maybe $40-50 of gas a month (more when we take a long trip). So, if we have to pay $3.50 a day to charge a PHEV then our vehicle costs will be far higher than our current ICE, never mind the added inconvenience of having to spend 1.5 hours each day charging our car so we can use the electric motor. On the other hand, having to only charge every 3-4 days makes more sense for a PHEV. Just trying to get my head around whether this is a wise decision for us given our situation. We’ve thought about a regular hybrid too, of course. We like the Outlander for the EV part but also the bigger size and awd, but maybe a Prius or RAV4 hybrid is better.
My partner and I do residential house cleaning and drive about 10-15km a day, so a PHEV with a low electric range seems ideal for us. The problem is, we live in the downtown core of Vancouver, BC in an older apartment building with no charging station. We park on the street, so would be using public chargers. In Vancouver, many of these chargers are free, but you are charged to park at a cost of $3.50 per hour (there are also a couple of curbside chargers with free street parking but the parking spaces are open to anyone and almost always are filled). Our current ICE vehicle uses maybe $40-50 of gas a month (more when we take a long trip). So, if we have to pay $3.50 a day to charge a PHEV then our vehicle costs will be far higher than our current ICE, never mind the added inconvenience of having to spend 1.5 hours each day charging our car so we can use the electric motor. On the other hand, having to only charge every 3-4 days makes more sense for a PHEV. Just trying to get my head around whether this is a wise decision for us given our situation. We’ve thought about a regular hybrid too, of course. We like the Outlander for the EV part but also the bigger size and awd, but maybe a Prius or RAV4 hybrid is better.
