Further real mpg questions

[Mutley66]

hi, a couple of further questions I'm hoping I can get some answers to please -
When driving in charge mode, does this reduce the mpg of the engine?
On a long journey, ie 5 hrs on the motorway, in charge mode, how much could you charge the battery? Is it possible to fully charge it??

 

[anko]

It will increase the MGP of the engine, but it may reduce the MGP of the car a bit

I have been able to gain 20 km EV range over as distance of 30 km, so I would think YES. That is, up to 80%. I don't think it will allow you to charge all the way to 100%.

 

[Neverfuel]

Yes the MPG is affected by charge mode when driving as it requires more power from the engine to charge. It will charge up to 80% but the last bit takes longer. You are better switching to save or turning charge off when it is near complete rather than keeping it on for 5 hours though. It depends on your speed etc as to how long it takes to charge, but I was in a long section of 50 mph motorway roadworks the other day and had to use charge as I was going into Derbyshire with some serious hills and I got 1 mile EV charge for every 2.5 miles. When I got on the dual carriageway and increased speed to 70 I was only getting 1 EV mile to every 4 or 5 miles.

From tests that Gwatpe did whilst the car was stationery - it took just over an hour to charge upto 80% and took 3.2 litres of fuel.

 

[MinimalMayhem]

So is there a break even point for using charge mode and speed? Say you're driving on a long run (say 150 or 200 miles) at 80mph or 90mph (128km/h or 145km/h), does it make sense to run in normal mode or flip between charge and normal modes?

 

[Neverfuel]

So is there a break even point for using charge mode and speed? Say you're driving on a long run (say 150 or 200 miles) at 80mph or 90mph (128km/h or 145km/h), does it make sense to run in normal mode or flip between charge and normal modes?

It's hard to say but there have been several discussions on the forum. I tend to use charge if I need EV later on and the engine is running anyway, never really bothered with the save mode.

 

[maby]

It will increase the MGP of the engine, but it may reduce the MGP of the car a bit

I have been able to gain 20 km EV range over as distance of 30 km, so I would think YES. That is, up to 80%. I don't think it will allow you to charge all the way to 100%.

I think it can charge up to 100%, but the last bar on the screen takes a long time to fill up!

In terms of effect on mpg and benefits gained, I think the answer is not very clear. If you are stationary, or moving sufficiently slowly that the car is in serial hybrid mode, then pressing charge will significantly increase your fuel consumption - in the worst case, you may be burning fuel, but not moving at all, so your instantaneous fuel consumption is zero mpg. OK - the fuel is being used to generate electricity that will subsequently move you, but it does not seem to be a very efficient method of moving the car. If you are driving at serial hybrid speeds, then the engine speed is decoupled from the car speed and it can still run faster and longer in charge mode than it would in normal mode - which will increase the instantaneous fuel consumption.

Once you get into parallel mode, over 45mph or thereabouts, the engine speed becomes coupled to the car speed and it has a lot less freedom to vary charging rate. When your speed gets up to 70mph more or less, the output of the engine is almost all directed to the wheels and there is little spare capacity to charge the battery, so the impact on fuel consumption of Charge mode is likely to be small.