New owner MPG concerns

[user 2992]

Hello Everyone,

I am a happy new owner of a 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV GX4h for the past 11 days however I have noticed something a bit troubling. I know the PHEV is advertised as having an MPG of 135 and I know these figures are vastly exagerated by the manufacturers. So before buying I took a look at fuelly and a few forums to try and gauge the approximate milleage users were getting and it seemed to be in between 50 to 70 and even on occasion a bit higher so I happily went ahead with the purchase.

I recently changed jobs and now have a 32 mile drive each way (maybe 5 to 6 miles are back roads, the rest is motorway), part of the reason for buying the Outlander was for the comfort of cruise control and heated seats, also a nice comfortable spacious cab with a half decent sound system, but primarily something that would not break the bank petrol wise.

Anyhow for my first week I was very diligent at charging it every night leaving in the morning on a full charge I would get about 15 to 20 miles on Electric only depending on how many traffic jams I would hit (always using ECO mode), in the evenings however as I am currently not able to charge at the office (no charge points nearby and the office wont let me plugin with the standard socket (to be fair they are getting one installed by one of the parking spaces in the near future)) the whole drive back is on petrol mostly except for the bit of charging i get from regenerative braking. The onboard computer was telling me I was doing about 80 mpg on my way into work and about 35 to 40mpg on the way back, I was quite happy with this as it averaged out to approximately what I expected.

However I then fuelled up and entered the data in Fuelly and on my first fill up I averaged about 30 MPG and the second 26MPG, those are not impressive figures. The below are the distances/mpg, etc...

Miles Litres UK MPG
170.26 29.799 25.97
241.09 35.500 30.87

It has been quite cold here as well which I know does affect it all especially the usage of air conditioning which I have tried to turn off as much as possible and have noticed a drastic increase in range.

Anyway I am just wondering if I am driving this completely wrong or if the fact of not being able to charge it at work is the main issue or if i just had completely unreasonable expectations as to what this car would be able to do. I have a few more days within which I can return it to the dealership if it turns out there is an issue or it is really that bad on petrol and maybe get a diesel instead (I would really rather not have to do this because other than the consumption this car is great!)

Thanks for any advice

UPDATES:
- @greendwarf,@Muddywheels - Measure from Full to Full rather than partial refills
- @Muddywheels - Leave the car in Normal mode which I assume will make the petrol and EV work together therefore extending range on EV and not leaving the petrol engine having to manage all on its own.
- @Muddywheels - Use charge button on dual carriage/motorway stretches of journeys
- @jaapv - Minimise usage of Aircon, hold aircon button for 10 seconds so it defaults to off

Initial WEEK: got 26 to 28MPG
- was unsuccesfull in getting the pre heating (air con) working so this was done in first few miles
- Temperatures were quite low, -5 to 0 degrees max
- Used ECO mode all the time
- Drove EV only from start to battery empty and petrol the rest of the way
- Did not use charge or save button
- used aircon but tried to minimise as much as possible

TEST WEEK 1: got 38.8 MPG
- Temperatures a bit better at 5 to 10 degrees with 1 day down to 0 with snow
- Had the pre heating schedule working correctly so that the car would be warmed up while charging
- Did not use ECO mode
- Used EV only on regional roads at start and end of drive and any transitions from one motorway to the next
- Set the cruise control on at 60mph and press charge unless stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in which case I would go back to EV
- Was able to charge at the office 2 out of 5 days (was at a different office that had a charging point nearby)

TEST WEEK 2: (looking better so far but will update once I have fuelled up, have done about 300 miles this week and still have 1/2 a tank according to the gauge)
- Temperatures a bit better at 5 to 10 degrees with 1 day down to 0 with snow
- Had the pre heating schedule working correctly so that the car would be warmed up while charging
- Used ECO mode every time I drove
- Used EV only on regional roads at start and end of drive and any transitions from one motorway to the next
- Set the cruise control on at 60mph and press charge unless stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in which case I would go back to EV
- Also started turning charge off when hitting large hills on the motorway
- Was not able to charge at the office at all

 

[greendwarf]

Interesting - I don't know if the on board computer stops recording when stationary. If so, then whilst you are sitting in a traffic jam with the heater burning fuel on your way home this might explain the difference. :idea:

Of course, if you didn't measure full tank to full tank then petrol put in won't match the miles driven. In this case then 2 sets of data won't be enough. :idea:

 

[HHL]

Unless you reset the computer the first time the engine starts on a depleted battery, the reading will reflect the distance traveled on battery and petrol.
As for the fuel economy, I thing you probably expected too much. After all, it is a 2t vehicle powered by a petrol motor.
You will find on straight highway driving it is very similar to a normal ICE car of similar size. And a diesel would beat it easily. But that's not the main purpose of the car.....

 

[ChrisMiller]

The 80 mpg and 35 mpg figures are perfectly reasonable and about what I'd expect from my PHEV in similar circumstances. I find the car's reported mpg and actual values from Fuelly match quite well. Once you can charge at work, you should find fuel consumption pretty minimal, certainly in the summer months.

 

[maby]

I think the OP should be getting better fuel economy than he is reporting. He's got a 64 mile round trip and, in these temperatures, his EV range could easily drop to 15 miles (he does report that the bulk of his trip is motorway and the EV range at 70mph is significantly reduced). That could leave him with close to 50 miles to run on petrol. In warm weather at motorway cruising speeds the PHEV will return around 40mpg on petrol, possibly a little better. That figure will certainly drop in cold weather, but still should be around 30mpg. Plug those figures into a spreadsheet and he should be seeing an effective fuel consumption of about 40mpg.

Admittedly, his trip profile is close to as bad as you can get for a PHEV - significantly beyond EV range, but too short for the petrol engine to get up to peak efficiency. Even in the summer, he will be lucky to get better than an effective 65mpg - if he retains this trip profile into the indefinite future, his average fuel economy is likely to be 50mpg more or less - only he can decide if that is acceptable.

Bottom line - if he's seeing much less than 40mpg effective at this time of the year, then he should be talking to the dealer - 25mpg is difficult to explain for that trip profile.

 

[Muddywheels]

Worst tank I've had since Sep 2016 when I got mine is 34mpg in Feb 2017 during a week in Cotswolds with no charge point using country roads so the figures in op seem very low

I never use eco now as it makes no difference imho apart from making phev gutless

This time of year definitely hits mpg due to low temps but preheating off mains helps I find

I've never reset trip B since new and it's almost identical to fuelly so computer seems accurate

I always fill to top for accuracy

After reading a post on here I'm now using charge button on dual carriage/motorway stretches of journeys and so far seems to be helping range and mpg - might be worth a try on your motorway stretch of commute?

 

[jaapv]

Hello Everyone,

I am a happy new owner of a 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV GX4h for the past 11 days however I have noticed something a bit troubling. I know the PHEV is advertised as having an MPG of 135 and I know these figures are vastly exagerated by the manufacturers. So before buying I took a look at fuelly and a few forums to try and gauge the approximate milleage users were getting and it seemed to be in between 50 to 70 and even on occasion a bit higher so I happily went ahead with the purchase.

I recently changed jobs and now have a 32 mile drive each way (maybe 5 to 6 miles are back roads, the rest is motorway), part of the reason for buying the Outlander was for the comfort of cruise control and heated seats, also a nice comfortable spacious cab with a half decent sound system, but primarily something that would not break the bank petrol wise.

Anyhow for my first week I was very diligent at charging it every night leaving in the morning on a full charge I would get about 15 to 20 miles on Electric only depending on how many traffic jams I would hit (always using ECO mode), in the evenings however as I am currently not able to charge at the office (no charge points nearby and the office wont let me plugin with the standard socket (to be fair they are getting one installed by one of the parking spaces in the near future)) the whole drive back is on petrol mostly except for the bit of charging i get from regenerative braking. The onboard computer was telling me I was doing about 80 mpg on my way into work and about 35 to 40mpg on the way back, I was quite happy with this as it averaged out to approximately what I expected.

However I then fuelled up and entered the data in Fuelly and on my first fill up I averaged about 30 MPG and the second 26MPG, those are not impressive figures. The below are the distances/mpg, etc...

Miles Litres UK MPG
170.26 29.799 25.97
241.09 35.500 30.87

It has been quite cold here as well which I know does affect it all especially the usage of air conditioning which I have tried to turn off as much as possible and have noticed a drastic increase in range.

Anyway I am just wondering if I am driving this completely wrong or if the fact of not being able to charge it at work is the main issue or if i just had completely unreasonable expectations as to what this car would be able to do. I have a few more days within which I can return it to the dealership if it turns out there is an issue or it is really that bad on petrol and maybe get a diesel instead (I would really rather not have to do this because other than the consumption this car is great!)

Thanks for any advice

If you push and hold the aircon button for ten seconds it will default to off. The way you drive the car has a strong influence on consumption. For the PHEV the way to use the accelerator is a bit of a learning curve.

 

[user 2992]

Thanks everyone, I will update the main post with suggestions and let you know how I get on in the next few weeks. I think part of the issue is certainly that I have never had a Hybrid before now and therefore there is a certain learning curve. Hopefully there is no issue with the vehicle itself but I guess we will find out soon.

 

[david1972]

Don't mess around with the settings - the car was developed to maximise mpg so just let it do its thing

 

[maby]

Thanks everyone, I will update the main post with suggestions and let you know how I get on in the next few weeks. I think part of the issue is certainly that I have never had a Hybrid before now and therefore there is a certain learning curve. Hopefully there is no issue with the vehicle itself but I guess we will find out soon.

The trip profile has an enormous effect on the running costs of a plugin hybrid. It is easy enough to predict what you are going to get if you can drive Excel reasonably well. First plug in your EV range - and be realistic about it. In the middle of winter, you will not get 20 miles - with temperatures down to minus 4 or five, I reckon I'm doing ok to get 15 miles. In the summer, this can approach 30 miles - but only if you drive slowly and steadily. As soon as you go over about 40mph, that EV range begins to drop off. In the summer, driving motorways and dual carriageways, I am happy with 24 miles EV.

Once you have run out of battery, you are driving a fairly heavy and un-aerodynamic 2 litre petrol car. Under ideal conditions it can turn in close to 44mpg, but that drops off in cold weather, at high speeds and in stop-start traffic. It certainly can get as low as 30mpg and some have reported 25mpg. If you plug those numbers into a spreadsheet with your trip profile, you should get a reasonably accurate estimate of likely performance.

We've had the car for just over three years and done about 40,000 miles - mostly motorway with a trip profile of runs of about 100 miles at speeds between 60 and 70 mph. We have a lifetime average of about 42mpg.

 

[robdickinson]

31mpg is 9L/100km

Its really cold in the UK now right? And your doing 80-90mph on the m62 I bet too... ?

32mile round trip = 64 miles.
10-12miles back roads.
Battery lasts 15-20 miles.

I suggest save on the motorway and using battery for the back roads and then the rest on motorway to use up.

The battery is at its worst on motorways really.

 

[anko]

Don't mess around with the settings - the car was developed to maximise mpg so just let it do its thing

If it was, it would be doing pure EV on short trips, even when it was cold. But it doesn't. According to Mitsubishi (in the Netherlands) they are more concerned with driver comfort :?

 

[maby]

Don't mess around with the settings - the car was developed to maximise mpg so just let it do its thing

If it was, it would be doing pure EV on short trips, even when it was cold. But it doesn't. According to Mitsubishi (in the Netherlands) they are more concerned with driver comfort :?

And, possibly, battery life expectancy?

 

[anko]

Don't mess around with the settings - the car was developed to maximise mpg so just let it do its thing

If it was, it would be doing pure EV on short trips, even when it was cold. But it doesn't. According to Mitsubishi (in the Netherlands) they are more concerned with driver comfort :?

And, possibly, battery life expectancy?

Is not what they said :lol: On the other hand, the fact that is starts in B2 and not B5 (or whatever you leave it at) might suggest something like that.

 

[Steel188]

Typical day today, Sheffield and back, around 300 miles on the M1 and no more than 10 to get from there to my appointment, then back on the M1 afterwards..

My standard procedure- Save, B4 and cruise control set at a Sat Nav regulated 72 mph.

The end result, petrol the entire time on the motorway and 34mpg.

I have seen 40mpg once in 63000 miles, when I passed through a 20 miles section of roadworks at 50 mpg having filled up about 500 yards from where they started. Life is too short to try and eek the last drop out of everything and I will never sacrifice the heating to stop the engine from starting even though I pre heat every work day, and the aircon is always on to keep the cabin air dry.

After all, it is an 1800Kg brick with only one gear, at 70+ what do you expect?

 

[HHL]

Anko said:
And, possibly, battery life expectancy? Is not what they said :lol: On the other hand, the fact that is starts in B2 and not B5 (or whatever you leave it at) might suggest something like that.

Maybe B2 is the default because it makes it decelerate like a normal car when you take your foot off.
I can imagine B5 being a bit rough on the battery when you go down a mountain and put 8 kWh back into it in 20 mins, but in normal driving it should make little difference.

 

[anko]

I can imagine B5 being a bit rough on the battery when you go down a mountain and put 8 kWh back into it in 20 mins, but in normal driving it should make little difference.

I can imagine it is not just about energy, but also about current.

 

[jaapv]

Anko said:
And, possibly, battery life expectancy? Is not what they said :lol: On the other hand, the fact that is starts in B2 and not B5 (or whatever you leave it at) might suggest something like that.

Maybe B2 is the default because it makes it decelerate like a normal car when you take your foot off.
I can imagine B5 being a bit rough on the battery when you go down a mountain and put 8 kWh back into it in 20 mins, but in normal driving it should make little difference.

I remember Mitsubishi saying something about B2 a few years ago. The setting B2 was chosen because it mimics a "normal" car.

 

[Wobblydeb]

The 80 mpg and 35 mpg figures are perfectly reasonable and about what I'd expect from my PHEV in similar circumstances. I find the car's reported mpg and actual values from Fuelly match quite well. Once you can charge at work, you should find fuel consumption pretty minimal, certainly in the summer months.

<< THIS.

My fuelly readings match our car very well, and 80mph and 35mpg sounds about right for your commute.

Perhaps you can campaign for a charge point where you work? It would make a big difference. I would also use Eco mode and press the "charge" button on the dual carriageway stretches to try and stay electric only in town/stop-start traffic.

 

[Hypermiler]

I do wish manufacturers would change the way they report economy on these cars. What people need to know is the realistic ev range - perhaps quoted at zero deg c and at 20 say and then mpg figures (which we all know are wildly wrong generally) with a flat battery. I am so fed up with people on Facebook saying "what mpg do you get" - well clearly some people get infinite mpg pretty much (ignoring elec cost) whilst others get sub 30. It is such a personal thing that all the parameters must be stated before any meaningful comparison can be made. Trouble is prospective owners don't understand this at all so it is leading to many disgruntled owners which is a shame.

Anyway, rant over.
Op - the fuelly info sounds wrong. The car sounds reasonable. You need to charge at work if at all possible. Your commute is not ideal for this car but hopefully your local weekend trips will make up for it. It will get better as weather warms up! Keeping motorway speed down will help.