Is electric really the answer

[yeller77]

Interesting phenomenon, this. In the past, at least in the States, a car company was legally obligated to supply replacement parts for any vehicle they sold for at least 10 years to avoid just such a screwing of the consumer. Not sure what's supposed to happen once the EV equivalent of Moore's Law takes hold and our new transportation appliances, or parts thereof, are expected to be renewed or recycled every few years to keep up.  No environmental impact there, I'm sure. 🤦‍♂️

[Bravo73]

2 hours ago, yeller77 said:

Interesting phenomenon, this. In the past, at least in the States, a car company was legally obligated to supply replacement parts for any vehicle they sold for at least 10 years to avoid just such a screwing of the consumer. 

FWIW, the car companies are still supplying the parts. It’s just that those parts cost £17k. 

[pete]

Think we are going to hear a lot more of this:-.                        https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1558041/car-owner-fury-neighbour-ev-parking-space

[Bibs]

My local BMW dealer have been hogging some local free chargers!! 

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/malling/news/viral-tiktok-claims-car-dealership-hogging-electric-chargi-261145/

[exeterjeep]

29 minutes ago, Bibs said:

My local BMW dealer have been hogging some local free chargers!! 

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/malling/news/viral-tiktok-claims-car-dealership-hogging-electric-chargi-261145/

Typical BMW drivers!!!!!!!!!

[pete]

https://thedriven.io/2022/02/08/ev-charger-wars-anger-and-death-threats-as-frustrated-owners-unplug-electric-cars/    seems a code of etiquette needs to be drawn up around charging points

[exeterjeep]

The DeLorean Is Coming Back as an All-Electric Sports Car reported in a number of places.

 

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/delorean-motor-company-dmc-12-battery-powered-ev-1234664073/

The reborn 80s icon could debut as soon as this year - but a different design but still those doors?

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

So I have now owned my new Passat Estate GTE plug-in hybrid for a few months. In that time, I have driven 2391 miles. The fuel tank had about 15 litres in it when I picked it up. Since then I have filled up with 256 litres of petrol, so that’s 271 litres (59.6 gallons) in total. This equates to 40.1 MPG. So that’s all I am getting from a 1.4 litre petrol engine + electric motor in hybrid mode, despite charging the battery at home for 5 hours and using electric only for local trips. With regards to the battery, VW claims 37 miles WLTP max. electric-only range. In reality it barely manages 25 miles and less than 20 miles in winter temperatures.

For comparison my similar model 190 bhp 2.0 litre diesel Passat managed 47.1 MPG over a distance of 17745 miles. No electric charging required.

So apart from helping keep my BIK tax bill down, I really don’t know what advantage this technology offers to the planet.

[Leigh Greenham]

Michael, your petrol consumption figure doesn't sound good.  I've had a Passat Estate GTE PHEV since June 2017 and it's now covered 36,000 miles, a mixture of short electric-only shopping runs and frequent 85-mile roundtrips with occasional longer holiday trips where the consumption might drop to the mid-50s mpg .  I've just calculated the total consumption of petrol from my records and it comes out at 90mpg over its lifetime.  However I don't drive the car as if I was in the Lotus Elite and I do try to be economical to maximise the benefit of having the electricity available, so I change driving modes manually to suit the journey, I actually enjoy that interactive style of driving.  I don't leave the aircon permanently on, I might use the heated seats while on electric drive then only have the cabin heater on when the ICE is running and warm.  

Battery wise, my model has the previous generation battery pack only quoted as a 32 mile range when new which I used to get close to in the summer months on level roads.  Now I get a max of 28 miles from a full charge, but I think that is pretty good after almost 5 years.  Yes on a cold winter day that drops dramatically, and 20-22 miles is what I typically get.

For comparison, my previous car was a Mercedes C180 estate, and the 1.8 litre petrol engine returned 45mpg over the 68,000 miles I did.  So I am pleased with the Passat PHEV, and try to always drive through my village or in town on electric power to minimise noise and pollution.

 

[internets]

 

[exeterjeep]

Which? EV owners' survey ranks Tesla bottom for reliability

https://www.am-online.com/news/car-manufacturer-news/2022/03/03/which-urges-manufacturers-to-improve-ev-reliability

it also says about Kia      @Bibs

However, among cars four-years-old or less, the Kia e-Niro - the AM Awards 2020's New Car of the Year - was found to be the most reliable EV and the most reliable small or compact SUV of any fuel type.

One-in-17 (6%) e-Niro owners reported any kind of fault with their car and one-in-100 (1%) said their car had failed to start or broke down. However, those who had an issue faced an average of around eight and a half days off the road.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

On 23/02/2022 at 20:47, Leigh Greenham said:

Michael, your petrol consumption figure doesn't sound good.  I've had a Passat Estate GTE PHEV since June 2017 and it's now covered 36,000 miles, a mixture of short electric-only shopping runs and frequent 85-mile roundtrips with occasional longer holiday trips where the consumption might drop to the mid-50s mpg .  I've just calculated the total consumption of petrol from my records and it comes out at 90mpg over its lifetime.  However I don't drive the car as if I was in the Lotus Elite and I do try to be economical to maximise the benefit of having the electricity available, so I change driving modes manually to suit the journey, I actually enjoy that interactive style of driving.  I don't leave the aircon permanently on, I might use the heated seats while on electric drive then only have the cabin heater on when the ICE is running and warm.  

Battery wise, my model has the previous generation battery pack only quoted as a 32 mile range when new which I used to get close to in the summer months on level roads.  Now I get a max of 28 miles from a full charge, but I think that is pretty good after almost 5 years.  Yes on a cold winter day that drops dramatically, and 20-22 miles is what I typically get.

For comparison, my previous car was a Mercedes C180 estate, and the 1.8 litre petrol engine returned 45mpg over the 68,000 miles I did.  So I am pleased with the Passat PHEV, and try to always drive through my village or in town on electric power to minimise noise and pollution.

 

90 mpg!? Do you work for Volkswagen? 😉

Honestly though, your driving mix has to be mainly short electric only or medium hybrid trips. You mention frequent 86 mile round trips: do you get to recharge prior to the 43 miles back?
 

I have just done a handful of short electric only trips and topped up my car again and calculated the exact fuel consumption to date at 41.9 mpg after 2602 miles. I always start any journey from home with a full battery. Electric only is still less than 24 miles range, despite VW’s claim of 33/35/37/40 miles, depending what you read.

Crucial to this is my driving mix. 89% of the mileage covered to date involved journeys far in excess of the battery only range, often well over 150 miles and even 370 miles twice. On these occasions the pro rata assistance of the battery would have been pretty negligible.

I think it’s no surprise to that a PHEV is pretty pointless as a long distance vehicle. You can’t just magic up energy from nowhere, unless you only select downhill routes!
 

In fact there is a good long-term fleet test review here. They managed <50mpg overall. Max. 25 mile electric only range. They mention a 167 mile round trip. With full charge they managed 54.5 mpg outbound and with an empty battery just 39.7 mpg on the return journey. That’s pretty rubbish for a modern 1.4 litre engine. Obviously the longer the journey, the worse the fuel consumption.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/reviews/vw-passat-gte

In comparison my 4 previous 2.0 TDi Passats managed the following during their time with me. Similar journey mix.

2008 car (manual, 170 bhp). 18503 miles @ 44.8 mpg 

2011 car (manual, 190 bhp). 13672 miles @ 47.1 mpg

2014 car (All Track 4wd DSG auto, 190 bhp). 19642 miles @ 37.4 mpg (avoid!)

2017 car (manual, 190 bhp). 17742 miles @ 45.7 mpg

So my current hybrid with 41.9 mpg is significantly thirstier than any of the previous 2wd diesel cars and that’s ignoring the rapidly increasing cost of charging the battery.

So in summary, if you only need a car for the shopping and local journeys, a PHEV makes sense, but for regular long distance use, buy something else.

[Bibs]

I'm at over 15,000 miles now in the Kia. I've checked the app and a full third of my power use has been from regen on the brakes so I've paid for 10,000 miles of electricity. At a conservative 250 miles/charge at £2.50/charge (64KwH @ 3.8p/KwH on low rate overnight charging) that's £100 for 15,000 miles and working that into MPG at £6/gallon it's 900 mpg equivalent.

[mg4lotus]

For Michael's 370 mile trips he would have to factor in a fast charge in the journey.

[Bibs]

Very true. Motorway services are up to 70p/KwH, almost 20 times what I pay at home (at the moment, it's going up on April 2nd!). Usual town fast chargers are 30-40p.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

In which case you may as well go full electric like Bibs. I’m not faffing around mid journey looking for a battery charger just for an extra 24 miles of range. 250 miles on the other hand is a different story.

[Bibs]

282 is the factory range. I get 250 this time of year, more like 320 in the summer with local driving. Motorways do tend to hammer it though. 

[Leigh Greenham]

29 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

90 mpg!? Do you work for Volkswagen? 😉

No, I'm a retired electrical/electronic engineer.

30 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

You mention frequent 86 mile round trips: do you get to recharge prior to the 43 miles back?

So I did one of my regular 85 mile round trips to Silverstone yesterday and monitored the consumption, driving the first 11 miles on electric only from my home through B roads to the M40 with just my seat heating on, then petrol on the 17 miles on the motorway with heating/aircon on Auto, then 14 miles on electric on A roads and I got 107 mpg going and 105 mpg returning after a recharge at Silverstone.

One thing worth mentioning is that I fit a set of winter wheels and tyres from Nov to March and these have only a 205 width rather than the excessive 235 tyres fitted as standard.  The reduced width has a surprisingly beneficial effect on consumption of between 5 and 10% and I run them slightly soft due to wife's bad back.

2 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

So in summary, if you only need a car for the shopping and local journeys, a PHEV makes sense, but for regular long distance use, buy something else.

Yep, absolutely, and a full BEV might suit you better, like it does for Bibs. While we can still buy petrol, a PHEV has the other advantage of no range anxiety when I do a long trip. Talking of which, my planned trip to Monaco in the Lotus Elite for the May Historique could be in jeopardy if petrol supplies start to be difficult by then.....

33 minutes ago, Bibs said:

(64KwH @ 3.8p/KwH on low rate overnight charging)

Blimey Bibs, 3.8p per unit overnight! How do you manage to get such cheap electricity?

 

[Bibs]

Octopus Go. It's going up to 7.2p on April 2nd though. 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Thanks Leigh, you’ve put my mind at rest. Your Silverstone trips of 42 miles each way includes the battery’s 25 miles of electric only. So that’s 60% of the entire journey and gave you 106 mpg overall. Therefore the non electric 40% of the journey was at 42.4 mpg. If you were heading home with the empty battery, this would also be at 42.4 mpg and your overall mpg would drop to 74.2. As stated above, the longer the distance between charges, the worse it gets. The fuel tank holds 50 litres (11 gallons), so if you set off on a hypothetical long journey with full tank and battery, your 42.4 mpg for the petrol engine would get you 466 miles + 25 miles battery = 491 miles at 44.6 mpg.

With my kind of primarily long distance usage I will struggle to get near to 50 mpg from my car over its lifetime.

[Kimbers]

On 23/02/2022 at 16:06, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

So I have now owned my new Passat Estate GTE plug-in hybrid for a few months. In that time, I have driven 2391 miles. The fuel tank had about 15 litres in it when I picked it up. Since then I have filled up with 256 litres of petrol, so that’s 271 litres (59.6 gallons) in total. This equates to 40.1 MPG. So that’s all I am getting from a 1.4 litre petrol engine + electric motor in hybrid mode, despite charging the battery at home for 5 hours and using electric only for local trips. With regards to the battery, VW claims 37 miles WLTP max. electric-only range. In reality it barely manages 25 miles and less than 20 miles in winter temperatures.

For comparison my similar model 190 bhp 2.0 litre diesel Passat managed 47.1 MPG over a distance of 17745 miles. No electric charging required.

So apart from helping keep my BIK tax bill down, I really don’t know what advantage this technology offers to the planet.

Sorry for the geeky post but being an industry expert for 25 years and having so many different cars and also monitoring technology for my company I had to comment here.

So. I have had PHEV's for 4 years now. My current Kia XCeed First Ed PHEV goes back next month for a New Sportage PHEV. As I am a total Geek I monitor my Fuel Ec and reset it on collection so I could see my overall useage. 

Firstly I admit I haven't driven long distance as much as normal but even when I do (and I have) I average 57-65mpg. Normally swapping to electric 20 miles before the end of my journey. That always boosts by 5mpg or so.

My average over 8000 miles in just under 12 months is 79.2MPG. This dropped from 91.7 after lending the car to my wife for 4 long journeys and she was "Not gonna mess around pressing buttons". The difference? She used all the electric up straight away set on EV then the petrol engine was just that, a small petrol engine in a big car struggling without the extra boost of EV. There is definately a special way of driving a PHEV over an EV or Self Charging Hybrid. Long journeys I use Hybrid mode straight away. This means If I start with 36 miles of EV I normally get the 150 miles or so with 20 or so left which I then use up on pure EV. 

PHEV's are much more economic in hot weather as the engine needs to be warm to heat the car. Unlike an EV they don't have an Electric Heater. If I am on a journey of 10-50 miles I often heat the car up and then turn the heating off. The engine instantly cuts off and I am on EV. However my car has heated seats and heated steering wheel so TBH I just use those as its rare for me to feel cold (unless it needs defrosting).

Aircon, on the other hand will run on electric so in the summer you can keep cool and not use the motor!

The Moral is to use just Electric at every opportunity. If I am going 3 miles to play poker or 5 miles to the station I never turn on the heating and don't run the engine! Why would you? The car won't be warm in such a short distance anyway and you save loads on fuel over time of going back and forwards!

I also have to point out my other bugbear and this is no criticising you Mike. Why choose a German car when you can have something else with much better proven PHEV records, if all you bought it for was to save BIK? Japanese and Korean have often been much better at this than others. Plus they are cheaper (so less in BIK), have better range and have more kit on them?? If I had the choice of any PHEV or electric the VW, BMW or Audi offerings would be very last on my list. Alternatively the Peugeot PHEV's are bloody awesome with 225 to 300BHP, 4x4 on the 300hp model, under £30k and with a decent range, but they don't make many! 

Technology has come on a pace just this year. The Kia EV6 pure Electric has taken normal production cars to a new EV level normally only found in the luxury market like Top range Teslas. It has 316 miles range instead of most family hatch 170-225. It does 0-60 in 3.5 secs on some models (5.3 on others) and more importantly it has taken mass production EV's from 45 minutes for an 80% charge to 17 minutes for a full charge.

Most PHEV's have a Co2 of 27-35G/km and a "claimed" miles of 25-35 miles. I often find my current Kia manages the full 36 miles it shows. But the next PHEV's coming through are a whole new ball game. The new Sportage has 262HP, 4x4 with a range of 35 miles and a Co2 of 25. The biggest step up is the HP without any loss in mileage or Co2. The Co2 is below 27 which makes it just 7% BIK as a company car. I will be handing my 139BHP XCeed back and collecting my 4x4 262BHP Sportage and paying the same tax. I am confident of the Electric system so am pretty sure I can get similar overall mileages of 70-90MPG.

This sounds like an advert for Kia and in a way it is. They have their finger on the pulse where many (especially German Brands) just follow. 

I am available for advice   and when my new car finally arrives I will let everyone know what its like..

 

 

[Bibs]

20 minutes ago, Kimbers said:

Unlike an EV they don't have an Electric Heater.

Mine (and I'm sure a good number of others) actually have coolant which cools the motor, invertor and battery pack. It uses this heat to heat the cabin so the mileage isn't so bad in the winter as ones without. The other benefit is that it can also heat the battery when you first plug in to a fast charger to get optimum charging then cool it when it's charging at full speed. There's also another cool feature where I can press 'driver only' and the climate only heats/cools my seat rather than the rest of the car to save energy.

Having the electric heater is ace though. I can warm/cool/defrost the car from my phone before I need to use it and better still, the heater works at full heat within a few seconds of starting the car. 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Thanks for the post @Kimbers. The easy bit to answer is why a VW. It’s because I work for a German company and they base their company car policy around German cars. I have now had 7 consecutive Passats in the past 20 years! Just a bit of an update, I did a 161 mile hybrid mode trip on Tuesday. It was a combination of A road, dual carriageway, motorway and suburban driving. I started with full battery and brim full petrol and refilled what I used at the end of the journey. The battery emptied about 2 miles from the end. The fuel used was 13.79 litres, so that equates to 53 mpg + a full battery recharge. After a couple of local electric only trips, my overall fuel consumption is now 44 mpg.

[ramjet]

Or you can buy a Porsche Taycan Turbo, which I have been told, is a full electric vehicle le.

And so, since you have no need for the turbo, you can onsell it and the lesser weight will also assist your mpg.

The Lotus Forums. The place where everyone has a 'glass half full' attitude.

1 minute ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Thanks for the post @Kimbers. The easy bit to answer is why a VW. It’s because I work for a German company and they base their company car policy around German cars. I have now had 7 consecutive Passats in the past 20 years! Just a bit of an update, I did a 161 mile hybrid mode trip on Tuesday. It was a combination of A road, dual carriageway, motorway and suburban driving. I started with full battery and brim full petrol and refilled what I used at the end of the journey. The battery emptied about 2 miles from the end. The fuel used was 13.79 litres, so that equates to 53 mpg + a full battery recharge. After a couple of local electric only trips, my overall fuel consumption is now 44 mpg.

If you did electric only trips, shouldn't your mpg get better?

[Kimbers]

23 minutes ago, ramjet said:

If you did electric only trips, shouldn't your mpg get better?

Yes but the VW's are particularly poor on electric use and get nowhere near their stated 33 miles. 

@LotusLeftLotusRightwhereas my Kia on a 155 mile journey to head office will end up with 20 miles left around 20 miles before I get there (Lower end of the A41). At this point going the A11, M11, M25 I will likely be around 57mpg to the gallon. On swapping with 20 miles left I normally end up around 65mpg. if I go Royston and Baldock, A1 route I will be close to 70MPG (Its slower but avoids the M25 if I am going in rush hour).