Hi Bruce, thanks for the welcome.
We get about 85-90 kms out of a 100% charge, but we only charge it fully a couple of times per month. The rest of the time we charge to between 80% and 90% and this gives us a 70 to 80 km range on electric only with the car set to EV and ECO mode.
Contrary to PHEV07, I first push the start button, then push the EV button, Then push the brake and start the car. This method stops the ICE from coming on unless you accelerate hard or apparently if you use the heater, but I haven't personally tested the heater thing yet.
When I start the car as PHEV07 does, full on first, the ICE keeps kicking in to charge the battery or whatever. Both PHEV07 and myself are impressed by the EV mileage we get, as the brochure said we would only get 61kms on electric only. I think the system must read and store our driving style info and then adjust the range accordingly, but I'm just guessing on this.
Hope this helps.
Dave
It sound mysterious to me. I am 2 months of owning Outlander PHEV. So, I am eager to learn about this car, not for gas mileage but for "Know more, Less trouble". Frankly speaking, the numbers in spec sheet is data from the lab equipment or computer simulation result, to get the final approval from authority for formal announcement. Government is deeply involved in the safe and envirnmental issues of the cars. So, it becomes a just reference data, compare to each individual's actual real number. I envy you have such high EV miles and I guess it is the result of your personal driving habit or the conditon of the road and journey, including the temperature where you live. However, we can compare the quality of the driving battery at lab, by the calculated numbers under same lab condition. According to those numbers, each battery, which is used for a certain model of the car, has different miles per kwh and different DC voltage (High voltage has better electric motor efficiency). Mit battery uses 292 DV, Ioniq battery uses 595 - 695 v DC Also, those battery capacity will be changed by the weight of the car installed. Those numbers should be considered when we buy the EV car, as if we care about gas mileage when we buy ICE cars.
There are official EV mileage data camparision on each cars, not each battery part number, because battery is company confidential. The lowest is 1.5 mile per kwh. The highest is Tesla, 5 miles per kwh, same level is Hyundai EV 4.9 miles per kwh. The reason of different EV miles per each battery is that they have been built in different battery tech level by different battery manufacturers. So, the price of the battery is jumping ups and downs. That is the secret of battery industry. Some car manufacturer design and develop the battery by themselves for their car model but usually they buy from battery manufacturer. Mitsubishi has 2..0 miles per kwh (unknown battery manufacturer). This number shows total EV distance of each model. 12kwh battery will have 24 miles as official EV distance, 13.4 kwh battery will have 26.8 miles and 20kwh battery will have 40 miles. The battery quality is one of the most important factor for sales of the cars. But we do not know the quality of the battery by its mile per kwh only.
The number shown in display cluster is not exact pure EV capacity distance. Capacity and actual run is different concept. Because actual EV run distance is including regen amout while driving. The regen amount is different by the habit of driving. Slow start and slow and steay speed also extends the EV distance. If you drive other cars, you still have higher EV distance than spec sheet because you will drive in the same road and same way of driving. I somehow believe that Setting EV in the beginning has no relation of you high EV distance. According to my knowledge of HEV and PHEV mechanism, not sure it is correct or not, EV motor is the main power source of the moving cars, all the time. After charging at home, disregarding 80% or 100% or 50% of charged level, the car uses Electric motor for moving power source, solely, until the bettery level goes to the bottom. However, there are some exceptions when the car uses ICE for driving power source. ICE has 2 functions. One is for charging the battery and the other is for driving the car. These are separate functions. Sometimes only for generator, sometimes for moving car and sometimes for both. Every case is determined by the main computer software, disregarding whatsoever we select our choices to control the car, even Air Conditioner and heater. In ICE cars, there are not much parts to be protected because it uses 12V system. On the contrary, EV, HWV, PHWV cars have too many part to be protected. 300 VDC - 800 VDC of electricity is very dangerous level and it is beyond of drivers control for safety. Thus, computer software controls all the flow of electricity at every corner of the circuit. It does not allow to exesive use of electricity in certain parts, like heater, cooler, motor and considers the level of charge in the battery.
The car uses the Electric motor for driving the car when you left the garage(Automatically the car engaged in EV driving). If the battery level goes bottom, ICE moves generator to charge the battey. It will stop to charge when computer decides the charged battery is good enough for next one mile of driving. E-motor uses battery continuously. Regen also charge the battery, too. After a certain time, when the battery level goes again to the bottom, ICE starts the charge again. This sequeance will be continued until the end of journey. EV distance will be changed according to the driving style and regen effict.
Then, when is the computer allow us to use ICE for driving? There are so many misunderstanding of this phynomina. If someone want to know correctly, please leave comment. It will be a long story.
Good luck to you.
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