If you haven't - Look Under the Bonnet

[ccomley]

I see that had high level intake too. But I'm not sure I'd want to go wading given the drive battery pack and motors are all down quite low... anyone tried using one as a submarine yet? I know my Disco can go in up to just below the bonnet, due to raised breathers for the gearboxes, even without a raised air intake. (The air intake is above the left wheel arch) but I don't think it'd be smart to be the first person to take a PHEV in that deep...

People here have claimed a maximum wading depth of 40cm - which must be getting quite a lot of technical gear underneath significantly wet!

Mitsi website official specs say 40cm. I hope they would know. That;s actually MORE than the official spec for the Discovery, though that's to do with the breathers and stuff which are easily raised up.

 

[anko]

You would expect additional power from the battery primarily to go to the rear e-motor, but at low speeds that could result in more electric power being sent to the rear wheels than mechanical power to the front wheels. I can imagine they don't want that to happen (under normal road conditions) and battery power therefor can also be sent to the front e-motor.

I guess that depends on your view of how 4WD should work. For lots of modern "Softroaders", 2WD is standard and adding power to the back wheels is what happens when things get out of hand. But for some of us, permanent four wheel power is the norm, and it seems entirely reasonable to push the back wheels with the motor when the front wheels are being pushed by the engine. The battery output can't drive both front and rear motor at full capacity, so if I had to choose which motor to drive, when the engine is doing the hard work up front, it'd be the back!

(Land Rover driver)

When accelerating fast while driving in parallel mode at 45 mph you may end up in a situation where you are using 90 kW. There will be no need to switch back to series mode, as the engine and battery together can provide that amount of power at that speed. But about 30 kW would be coming from the ICE and 60 kW would be coming from the battery. If all battery power was sent to the rear wheels, the power distribution would be about 33:67. This would mean the car would start to behave more and more like a RWD. Perhaps not something they want. If so, this could be prevented by distributing the available battery power, 15 kW to the front, 45 kW to the back, resulting in a total of 45 kW at the front and 45 kW at the back, or a nice 50:50 distribution.

I am not saying this is what happens, but I could imagine it would.

 

[anko]

Below that, drive is always electrical and applied to both axles since neither motor on its own really has the power to drive such a heavy car.

I agree with your observation (although most of us have never really observed it, I guess ;-) ) but not with the reason you provide. Although not sustained, each individual motor is capable of converting 60 kW of electrical power into mechanical power and on my daily commute I very seldom use more than 40 - 50 kW. Most of the time, it is far less than that, especially at low speeds.

Also, from personal experience, I know that two motors can drive my loaded car + loaded caravan (totalling at 3700 - 3800 kg). Even at illegal speeds. So, I am pretty convinced one motor would be able to drive just the car