Tesla versus the mighty PHEV.

[maby]

Hello there! Both I and the PHEV are ticking along - not sure which of us is going to wear out first!

Objectively, you are right - I would have an EV provided it overcame all the disadvantages of the current generation in terms of short range, long recharging times and questionable battery life leading to an expensive repair before its tenth birthday. My son is driving our old Prius which is now approaching 15 years old, done well on the way to 200,000 miles and seems to run perfectly well. It has needed a variety of minor mechanical repairs, but the engine, electric drive and battery have not had any maintenance apart from scheduled oil changes - that is the way a car should last!

Our PHEV is still running as a hybrid. I'm not aware of any easy way to get the lifetime proportion of EV use, but it must be low. The car has something like 55,000 miles on the clock, does somewhere between 250 and 300 miles most weeks and that consists of two runs of about 100 miles each plus local commuting. There are no charging facilities at our weekday location, so it generally gets charged once per week and I hold it around 60 to 70% charged using Save. The long trips are at motorway speeds, so most of the time in parallel drive mode.

I don't have the gear to get a battery health figure for it, but subjectively the battery range has not changed much since the day it was delivered. But you have to understand that it was never anything like the advertised figure - I have posted my numbers here before. I did a test when the car was a few weeks old and got an EV range of 29 miles driving it like a milkfloat in absolutely ideal conditions with a range of about 24 miles in more realistic driving conditions in summer weather. In the middle of its first winter, I was seeing a range of about 16 miles. These days I reckon that I can get around 22 miles in the summer and 15 in the winter.

So it looks like your drive battery is still going well. To me, with your use, I think you will have no trouble reaching your goal of not having to spend extra money on not having to swap the drive battery out. I will keep my fingers crossed for you.

Following up on another battery condition related thread that has been running, I don't think that the battery's ability to source or sink current has been significantly reduced either. I have a long and relatively steep hill on the entry to our home town which I travel every week. It has a set of traffic lights to the bottom, so I often have to climb it from a standing start. If my battery is close to fully charged, I can floor the accelerator at the bottom and accelerate to the 40mph speed limit smoothly without the engine screaming. If I descend it with the battery around 50% - as is usually the case on my return trip - then regenerative braking is able to keep the speed under control till close to the bottom with the needle on the "energy efficiency" meter coming close to the end stop. There have been owners of second hand PHEVs here complaining that their cars will not push the needle far into the regeneration zone under any circumstances.

I've always tried to minimise battery usage - will be interesting to see what impact that has on battery life. I know that many owners of company PHEVs have a reputation for not charging them, but I guess that many of them simply leave the battery flat most of the time - which may not be good for it either. I do try to manage my battery - primarily to avoid over-revving the engine on power demands - it has spent most of its life around 60 to 70% and has very rarely been allowed to bottom out.

 

[anko]

I've always tried to minimise battery usage - will be interesting to see what impact that has on battery life. I know that many owners of company PHEVs have a reputation for not charging them, but I guess that many of them simply leave the battery flat most of the time - which may not be good for it either. I do try to manage my battery - primarily to avoid over-revving the engine on power demands - it has spent most of its life around 60 to 70% and has very rarely been allowed to bottom out.

So all this time you have been driving around with a few 100s of pounds of dead but very expensive weight in your car? Why care about battery longevity if you don't plan one using your battery anyway?

 

[maby]

I've always tried to minimise battery usage - will be interesting to see what impact that has on battery life. I know that many owners of company PHEVs have a reputation for not charging them, but I guess that many of them simply leave the battery flat most of the time - which may not be good for it either. I do try to manage my battery - primarily to avoid over-revving the engine on power demands - it has spent most of its life around 60 to 70% and has very rarely been allowed to bottom out.

So all this time you have been driving around with a few 100s of pounds of dead but very expensive weight in your car? Why care about battery longevity if you don't plan one using your battery anyway?

Because I intend to keep the car for a long time and, given the degradation that some are reporting in less than five years, it seems possible that the car could become unusable in ten.....

 

[VillageIdiotDan]

unusable in ten.....

Unusable in what sense? From what I can tell you're using the PHEV like a non-plug in hybrid so it won't really battery what the condition of the battery is in ten years, it will still be fit for the purpose your using it for I'd have thought.

 

[maby]

unusable in ten.....

Unusable in what sense? From what I can tell you're using the PHEV like a non-plug in hybrid so it won't really battery what the condition of the battery is in ten years, it will still be fit for the purpose your using it for I'd have thought.

The traction battery is the only starter it has - if that seriously dies, the car is going nowhere.

 

[Trex]

I've always tried to minimise battery usage - will be interesting to see what impact that has on battery life. I know that many owners of company PHEVs have a reputation for not charging them, but I guess that many of them simply leave the battery flat most of the time - which may not be good for it either. I do try to manage my battery - primarily to avoid over-revving the engine on power demands - it has spent most of its life around 60 to 70% and has very rarely been allowed to bottom out.

Yes IMO with your usage you should have a good life on your drive battery and would be very surprised if you didn't. As for "owners of company PHEVs have a reputation for not charging them, but I guess that many of them simply leave the battery flat most of the time - which may not be good for it either" I would not worry about that as they are still approx 30% SOC when showing empty ie they are not "dead" empty.

 

[Trex]

So all this time you have been driving around with a few 100s of pounds of dead but very expensive weight in your car? Why care about battery longevity if you don't plan one using your battery anyway?

Now I, as some people around here would have noticed, have also had arguments with maby about this. But to his credit I think, from memory, he has stated time and again that he just wanted a better Prius (plus he was subsidised to do it). Well IMO he got what he wanted. As a previous owner of a gen 3 Prius I know which car I prefer and it is NOT the Prius. Even if I did not use the car as a plug-in ie just a hybrid I think the PHEV is a better car. But hey, that is just my opinion.

 

[Trex]

Because I intend to keep the car for a long time and, given the degradation that some are reporting in less than five years, it seems possible that the car could become unusable in ten.....

I do not think they will become "unusable". Just more of a hybrid. ie more H and less PEV.

Anyway, I guess us beta testers will see.

 

[Trex]

unusable in ten.....

Unusable in what sense? From what I can tell you're using the PHEV like a non-plug in hybrid so it won't really battery what the condition of the battery is in ten years, it will still be fit for the purpose your using it for I'd have thought.

The traction battery is the only starter it has - if that seriously dies, the car is going nowhere.

I think the drive battery will have to be seriously degraded for that to happen. I have not checked, but anko might know, how many kW it uses to start the petrol motor but lets say we compare the size of the PHEV battery to say the Prius. From memory I could go a couple of kms EV in the Prius which used the same battery that started the petrol motor. I am sure you can see where I am going with this.

 

[Trex]

He might be mentioning about how the "Falcon" doors have sensors to stop them hitting the roof in car parks and such. It stops them opening as far as they normally would but
it make them more susceptible to hitting your head on the doors from what I can see.

So crawling in and out on your hands and knees must really make you very pleased with your purchase :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

:lol: :lol: Yes I am sure it would make you very pleased. :roll:

 

[maby]

.....

The traction battery is the only starter it has - if that seriously dies, the car is going nowhere.

I think the drive battery will have to be seriously degraded for that to happen. I have not checked, but anko might know, how many kW it uses to start the petrol motor but lets say we compare the size of the PHEV battery to say the Prius. From memory I could go a couple of kms EV in the Prius which used the same battery that started the petrol motor. I am sure you can see where I am going with this.

The big difference between the Prius and the PHEV in this respect is that the Prius decompresses its engine when it stops. I had assumed that the PHEV does too, but someone here assured me that it does not. Hence the Prius engine is far easier to spin up than the PHEV.

 

[Trex]

The big difference between the Prius and the PHEV in this respect is that the Prius decompresses its engine when it stops. I had assumed that the PHEV does too, but someone here assured me that it does not. Hence the Prius engine is far easier to spin up than the PHEV.

Hi maby and Happy New Year.

You sure it decompresses the petrol motor? Been so long since I studied the HSD on Toyota. MG1 which starts the petrol motor was something like 40 kW from memory so I am not sure they needed to decompress unless it was something to do with the gearing or lack of between MG1 and petrol motor.

On the PHEV we have a 70 kW MG (before losses) with a 2.736 ratio gearbox between it and the petrol motor ie petrol motor spins at a max of 4,840 rpm and the MG spins at approx 13,242 rpm (that still blows me out at how fast the MG can spin at) so that would help the PHEV spin up the petrol engine. Mind you from memory Mitsi only need to spin up the petrol motor to 200 rpm on to start it.

 

[mellobob]

A plea to the system admin: Can we stop this spamming????

 

[AndyInOz]

I'm almost certain that I reported these users while they were in the "training" phase for their spam bots.

If the users had been shut down then, we would have avoided all of this.

:evil:

 

[jaapv]

Admin has been absent since Feb. 01, 2018, and only sparsely present before then. To all intents and purposes this is an orphan forum. There are no active moderators, and even if there were, they do not have the tools to stop the spamming.

 

[AndyInOz]

Oh man, that is frustrating.

I mod on another forum, and know exactly what you mean.

(The functions of the admins being almost completely separate from the moderators.)

 

[Phevy]

A plea to the system admin: Can we stop this spamming????

Yes, I'm working on it.
If more members stand up and offer to become Moderator, it would be an easier job.
(I'm doing this in my free time..)

 

[mellobob]

A plea to the system admin: Can we stop this spamming????

Yes, I'm working on it.
If more members stand up and offer to become Moderator, it would be an easier job.
(I'm doing this in my free time..)

That's great to hear! I'd volunteer but am too damned busy in other projects. Sorry.

 

[AndyInOz]

Never PHEAR help is at hand...

:lol: