Will soon be cheaper to run my phev on petrol

[Bobbybuttons]

Outlander phev 2014 100k miles on clock .My guessometer says fully charged 14 miles . Taking out the guess work I only got 13 miles before engine kicks in. I do run heating when in the car on 20oc . total daily cost to charge twice is £2.20 a day total . I'm a slow sensible driver.
I do 25 miles a day so it's charged twice. I do the same 25mile journey 5 days a week (school run). The weekends it's not used . So its costing me £2.20 a day x 5 days about £11.00 a week electric currently .
In April when new electric cap comes in it will cost me nearly double to charge £4.40 a day £22 a week .
Say I use petrol at around 0.15p a mile x 25 miles a day £3.75 a day or £18.75 a week .

So come April with new capped electric rates come in it's pointless me even charging my car .

This leads me to the question , will it be ok to just run completly on petrol , no charging or will it completely just wipe my battery out ?

 

[amiralnar]

Its ok not to charge. Even better to stop charge if soh under 50% to save some battery capacity for driving with ICE in power mode. I mean that phev with dead battery cant drive as fast as with good battery.

Wait a little. The petrol price will go higher soon.

 

[greendwarf]

You should be looking at your elecricity tarriff first, if you don't have a cheap rate at night, at present. It is unlikely that this would be more expensive than petrol. Charging during the day is always expensive and close to petrol cost without recent rises - I very rarely do it.

You could do without the heating, particularly for the afternoon run nad the weather is getting warmer.

However, how are you costing your consumption of £1.10 per charge? Don't base this on the theoretical figure for a new battery. If you are down to under half capacity so is the cost. You can only put in (and pay for) as much as you can get out - simples!

 

[Bobbybuttons]

The charge cost is what is based on my utility reading and also the same reading given by the car itself . Set currently to 17kwh which matches my unit price . We do charge overnight but unfortunately don't have an EV tariff or economy 7.

 

[greendwarf]

Where does the 17kwh figure come from? The drive battery in a 2014 model is only 12 and if you are only getting 13 miles out of it, then you are only putting in 6 - or am I missing something here? :?

 

[Bobbybuttons]

The 17kwh i put is actually £. Sorry for confusion . I set my rate on my car at 0.17p.
So £1.10 approx per charge . Car seat at 0.17p means I'm putting in 6.47.

 

[jaapv]

Charging during the day is always expensive and close to petrol cost without recent rises - I very rarely do it.

Not always - Charging during the day runs off my solar panels.

 

[greendwarf]

So having cleared up the Kwh issue, I still don't agree with your calculation. You say it will cost you £2.20 to get 13 miles = £0.17 per mile.

At current petrol price of at least £1.50 per litre, even if you can manage 40mpg = £0.17 per mile

So not cheaper to use petrol but if you run any sort of EV car you should be looking to get cheap overnight electricity anyway and EDF's EV tariff gives you cheap rate all weekend, so you can save in other use as well.

 

[Bobbybuttons]

That's why I said it will soon be cheaper to run on petrol . What I'm saying is when the new electric rates come in April my rate is almost doubling . It's going up to the capped rate of £0.2834 per kWh. So it will be cheaper to run the car using petrol (depending on petrol costs too )

 

[greendwarf]

No - I've used your new figure in the above calculation to give 17p per mile not your current 8p :roll:

 

[Bobbybuttons]

Thanks for all your replies . I'm very confused now . I need to work this out properly and I'm sure you are right and I am wrong but I can't get my head around it .maths was never my thing so really appreciate you helping me .

To charge the car :
I do the same 25 miles a day , 5 days a week .
It currently costs me about £2.20 a day so £11.00 a week

In April electric rates rise it's going to cost me double £4.40 a day £22 a week .

To use petrol .

I used calculation off internet approx cost of 14p per mile x 25 miles a day is £3.50 a day or £17.50 a week .

So now it's costing me £11.00 a week to charge compared to £17.50 it would cost me in fuel. So it's cheaper right now

But after April it's going to cost me £22.00 a week to charge . Fuel will be £17.50 . So it'll be cheaper to use fuel .

I need to run without plugging it in to see how many miles I get to a tank . Last time I filled up from empty it cost me £52.00.

Where am I going wrong in my calculations please , I'm do confused .
Many thanks

 

[Nibbo]

Just curious... why do you think prices will double? I think the cap is changing from an average of £0.21/kWh to £0.28/kWh so it should only go up by about 33% or am I missing something?

 

[Bobbybuttons]

My current unit rate is 14.77p per kWh I've been on a fixed tariff with Scottish power for nearly a year , I'm nearly out of the fixed tariff and will let it move onto variable tariff which is double what I'm paying now

 

[jdsx]

I'd be surprised if you can get 14p per mile. Petrol is currently around £7 per gallon in the UK. This implies you are getting 50mpg, which I think extremely unlikely. For two 12.5 mile journeys, I would expect to get around 25-30mpg, or roughly double what you estimate (so in the region of 28p per mile). Petrol is also very unlikely to stay where it is now if prices carry on going up.

 

[greendwarf]

At current petrol price of at least £1.50 per litre, even if you can manage 40mpg = £0.17 per mile

 

[EssexBoy]

I dunno about 25 -30 mpg jdsx. I have read this sort of claim before and when I have run without plug-in charging, even short trips I find it hard to get less than 40mpg! Of course I don't wear boots, I keep within speed limits and my tyres are always pumped (and sometimes a little over pumped). I accept there are hills up there but they go down as well as up.

Considering this April change to tariffs I have gone to a split tariff (4 hrs at night for 7.5p Kwh Octopus Go). The day rate is higher of course but my calculations are that I will reduce my post April estimated charge by £50 per month. I will also program the washing machine to run at night when I can and get up for a cuppa at 2 am! The charge rates from some public charge points (BP & Shell I notice!) are not cost effective in my view; I guess they would prefer to supply petrol.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

With trips from UK to Switzerland and back, then Austria & Italy and back, we averaged 31mpg. Most of that was cruising on motorways below the speed limit, with the odd trip back and forth between accommodation and ski resort. 40mpg would have been lovely, especially as we were paying over €2 per litre

 

[greendwarf]

At French autoroute speeds of around 80mph I get 27mpg but haven't done that for almost 2 years - just pottering around the Smoke with our enforced 20 mph limit in EV NB. Petrol shortage, what shortage :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[littlescrote]

With trips from UK to Switzerland and back, then Austria & Italy and back, we averaged 31mpg. Most of that was cruising on motorways below the speed limit, with the odd trip back and forth between accommodation and ski resort. 40mpg would have been lovely, especially as we were paying over €2 per litre

I did the same to and from the French alps recently and got 37mpg with no plugging in. Sometimes you have to be a bit clever with Save and Charge to get the best efficiency. If in traffic or towns I'll generally run in EV and build up charge again when cruising when there is excess capacity available and using some of it to charge will be more efficient as it will allow a wider throttle opening.