PHEV's virtual electric overdrive.

[STS134]

Well, the answer to that is simple: no test drive no sale.
If you gamble you can lose. In your case you lost: you bought the wrong car. Just sell it and buy the right one. I can assure you that no factory in the world is going to change the basic design of their product for the convenience of one customer.

Buy what? The PHEV CUV/SUV market has very few participants right now. Cayenne S E-Hybrid got better for MY 2019 and now has a 27 mi AER. But it still doesn't qualify for the California HOV sticker, which is the other reason I bought the PHEV.

The PHEV is an imperfect car. So is every other car out there. It was a matter of my old car getting totaled, and I had to pick a poison. This just so happens to be the one I chose.

Strangely enough, when climbing, no conventional car gives me a choice. I have to shift down and accept engine revs. Actually climbing is the only time that the PHEV sounds like any other car.

Sure, and I have no problem with hearing engine revs when I'm going uphill. You're climbing. You expect to hear engine noise.

Probably a little bit of my background so we could understand a little bit more about California driving culture.

In 2001, I was transplanted in California from Brazil (Sao Paulo). Three day after I got the California license and my manly Ute, I was showing off my landlord how we drive in Brazil and passed a stop sign sliding. Of course the police was waiting in my blind spot and I got my first of only two traffic tickets up to date. I had to go to traffic school and sit for 8 hrs to relearn. The one of first thing the instructor said to us was the California speed limit culture: 10 mph above the sign, believe or not!

I am civil engineer by trade and have been trained to designing roads. The 70mph sign is usually design for the not so good condition (rain, wear out tires, etc..). So the California road is really acceptable to drive 10mph faster. Probably is why the people do it and CHP (California Highway Patrol) would “allowed” it.

Tai

Yep. If you do up to about 80-85 mph (Posted Speed Limit or PSL = 65 mph) on I-280, CHP won't even bat an eye at you. On I-5 (PSL = 70 mph), up to 85 and probably up to 90 is fine, in clear conditions. Still, I run all sorts of countermeasures on my car (front and rear facing RADAR detectors and LIDAR jammers) just to be sure, because driving back to an area 150-200 miles from home to fight tickets sucks. Also, in California, it is legal to exceed the PSL, under the so-called "Basic Speed Law" https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=22350 but if you do it, the burden of proof is on you to prove it was safe, not on the officer to prove it was unsafe. In other words, exceeding the PSL is presumed unsafe unless you present evidence showing otherwise. My first ticket was for 57/50 on the Bay Bridge, in very light traffic, and was tossed in court by a Judge with common sense. Now maximum speed laws are what you have to watch out for; exceeding 65 or 70 mph on the freeways by even 1 mph is technically illegal even though it's tolerated, and all the officer must do is show a court that you went 66 mph or 71 mph and you'd be found guilty. Statutory maximum speeds are 55 mph for undivided roads, 65 mph for divided roads, and 70 mph for roads specifically designated in CVC 22356 (including Interstate 5) https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=22356.&lawCode=VEH which means that undivided city street that had a 35 PSL, you can technically do up to 55 on under the Basic Speed Law provided you can prove it's safe. That's why I have both front and rear dashcams in my car running at all times as well. And the one you REALLY want to avoid is CVC 22358(b), which applies if you are caught speeding over 100 mph https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=22348. It's 2 points on the license, a $880 fine when all added fees and taxes are thrown in, and you don't get to go to traffic school to hide the points from your insurance company. When I drive Interstate 5, I generally try to keep it under 100 unless I am absolutely SURE there aren't officers around, even if there's no other traffic and I'm running all of my usual countermeasures.

 

[Demon2030]

I can hardly imagine driving outlander phev for even near 100 mph. Even with full battery you cannot go further that 20-30 miles on that speed. And what's then? Just the power of ICE will not be enough to maintain this big car on such speed... (unless you are on i-5 in the middle of SF-LA on flat surface)

 

[STS134]

I can hardly imagine driving outlander phev for even near 100 mph. Even with full battery you cannot go further that 20-30 miles on that speed. And what's then? Just the power of ICE will not be enough to maintain this big car on such speed... (unless you are on i-5 in the middle of SF-LA on flat surface)

ICE will keep the car going indefinitely at that speed...well, until it runs out of fuel. I can even charge the battery at that speed, on a flat and level road, although charge rate is pretty low.

 

[jaapv]

Same here. Even at the limited top speed of 170 the car is able to maintain battery power in most conditions. The top speed is not limited because it runs out of power, but because it runs out of ICE revs.
In tens of thousands of Autobahn kms, of which thousands at high speed and heavy loads, the car only managed to run out of charge once. It had four persons, luggage and a skibox on top. A long autobahn incline and I was driving flat out. I got a dashboard message warning of imminent power loss. I dropped to 150 for the last bit up, maybe 5 minutes, and never saw the message again.

 

[STS134]

Same here. Even at the limited top speed of 170 the car is able to maintain battery power in most conditions. The top speed is not limited because it runs out of power, but because it runs out of ICE revs.
In tens of thousands of Autobahn kms, of which thousands at high speed and heavy loads, the car only managed to run out of charge once. It had four persons, luggage and a skibox on top. A long autobahn incline and I was driving flat out. I got a dashboard message warning of imminent power loss. I dropped to 150 for the last bit up, maybe 5 minutes, and never saw the message again.

I think the ICE can rev even higher. At 90 mph, it's at around 3700 RPM, which means that at 105 mph (170 km/h), it's at around 4300-4400 RPM. On most cars, the ICE redline does not occur until over 5500 RPM, perhaps as high as 6000-7000 RPM on some vehicles.

Not sure why they have a hard limit of 105 mph/170 km/h. The PHEV actually gets up to that speed, with boost from the motors, quite easily. My old car really accelerated slowly above 90 mph and took a LONG time to get from 95-105 mph. Absolute maximum speed (not electronically controlled) was around 112-115 mph, due to air drag equaling engine power output. The PHEV will blow right past 100 mph with boost from the motors assisting the ICE like it's nothing and keep going, and it's only the electronic limiter that stops it.

 

[Trex]

Not sure why they have a hard limit of 105 mph/170 km/h.

If people actually read those graphs and pictures I spent in the heaps of time putting into that sticky at the top of the page.. :roll: :lol:



It tells you at the bottom of that of comparison that the ICE has been reduced from 6000 RPM ( shown in table ) to 4500 RPM to prevent damage to generator and front electric motor.

Below you can see the speeds the Generator and Front electric motor can get to.

 

[nils944]

If you are regularly driving at higher speeds you should consider upgrading the brakes. The PHEV's brakes are pretty meager for such a heavy vehicle.

 

[greendwarf]

If you are regularly driving at higher speeds you should consider upgrading the brakes. The PHEV's brakes are pretty meager for such a heavy vehicle.

Are you including the "reverse thrusters" in this?

 

[ThudnBlundr]

If you are regularly driving at higher speeds you should consider upgrading the brakes. The PHEV's brakes are pretty meager for such a heavy vehicle.

If you're regularly driving at that speed, the battery will seldom be full, so the regen available in B5 is over 40kW before the brakes are needed. I think that's more than enough combined with the brakes.

 

[STS134]

It tells you at the bottom of that of comparison that the ICE has been reduced from 6000 RPM ( shown in table ) to 4500 RPM to prevent damage to generator and front electric motor.

Below you can see the speeds the Generator and Front electric motor can get to.

Interesting. I wonder if this is why most of the German PHEVs put a full mechanical tranny between the combination of engine and motor/generator and the wheels. They can thus prevent the motors from overrevving by varying the gear ratio. But then again, all of the Teslas, including the Model 3, have no problem reaching speeds of over 130 mph (the Model 3 Performance can reach a top speed of 155 mph) and those are direct drive, so there's nothing inherent to electric motors that prevents them from spinning that fast. I think Mitsubishi needs to improve on their motor technology; GM has the same issue in the Bolt, where they electronically limited its speed to around 92 mph, allegedly to prevent the motors from overrevving.

If you are regularly driving at higher speeds you should consider upgrading the brakes. The PHEV's brakes are pretty meager for such a heavy vehicle.

If you're regularly driving at that speed, the battery will seldom be full, so the regen available in B5 is over 40kW before the brakes are needed. I think that's more than enough combined with the brakes.

That's not the biggest issue here. The even bigger issue is: what happens on a long downhill stretch, if the batteries are already full? Say you drove halfway up a mountain and charged the car to 100% at your cabin, and you intended to continue up and over the summit. But instead, something comes up and you have to go down, and the downhill slope is long and the battery CANNOT absorb any more energy. You MUST have a way to dissipate the excess kinetic energy, whether by oversizing the brakes, or spinning the ICE and generating heat that goes into the cooling system. Doing neither of the above is very unsafe.

The system must be designed to be able to dissipate the PEAK amount of energy it can possibly have to deal with. It should never rely on the battery because in some cases, that is not an option.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

I'm not sure what you mean by "direct drive", as I don't know any EVs that don't have a gearset between motor output shaft and driveshaft. So the maximum rotational speed of the motor is dictated by the gear ratios chosen for the designed maximum speed. Our Zoe's governed maximum is 84mph, at which point the motor is doing 12,000rpm

 

[STS134]

I'm not sure what you mean by "direct drive", as I don't know any EVs that don't have a gearset between motor output shaft and driveshaft. So the maximum rotational speed of the motor is dictated by the gear ratios chosen for the designed maximum speed. Our Zoe's governed maximum is 84mph, at which point the motor is doing 12,000rpm

I should have said "fixed drive ratio". I was simply referring to a system where the motors are connected to the wheels via a gearing ratio that cannot be changed.

If the maximum speed of the motor is 12,000 rpm @ 84 mph, how do the motors assist the ICE when speeds are over 84 mph?

 

[greendwarf]

I'm not sure what you mean by "direct drive", as I don't know any EVs that don't have a gearset between motor output shaft and driveshaft. So the maximum rotational speed of the motor is dictated by the gear ratios chosen for the designed maximum speed. Our Zoe's governed maximum is 84mph, at which point the motor is doing 12,000rpm

I should have said "fixed drive ratio". I was simply referring to a system where the motors are connected to the wheels via a gearing ratio that cannot be changed.

If the maximum speed of the motor is 12,000 rpm @ 84 mph, how do the motors assist the ICE when speeds are over 84 mph?

Not sure I'd want to be in a Zoe at above 84mph :lol:

 

[ThudnBlundr]

I think they were worried in case it reached 88mph

The Zoe's a BEV