Hybrid's - to plug or not to plug

[TheDeuce]

Ankh87 said:

TheDeuce said:

Just get a plug in hybrid, you can plug it in if that makes life easier

It's plainly going to be the cheapest to run because you'll never put fuel in it.

Full EV would probably be more costly to buy for an equivalent car, and it sounds like you simply don't need more range than a PHEV offers anyway.

With the Toyota CHR, would that not just work the same way apart from the plug part?

She mostly likes the Toyota but is open to other cars as she isn't really sure what is out there. She saw a blue Toyota CHR and really liked it most recently but I'm sure if she saw another car, then that would lure her in as well.

Whatever car you get will need some fuel if it doesn't have a plug.. and fuel is more expensive than home charging.

[otolith]

paralla said:

otolith said:

A normal hybrid is just a more efficient petrol car. It runs on petrol all the time, even if the engine isn't running, because the energy in the battery came from petrol.

A plug in hybrid runs on mains energy until it runs out, then runs on petrol.

The "self charging hybrid" stuff is marketing bks.

Some of the energy in the battery of PHEV's or normal hybrids also comes from regen when the car is decelerating or braking. When this energy is powering the electric motor to drive the car it's not running on mains energy or petrol.

The energy it gets from regen - where does that come from?

[paralla]

otolith said:

paralla said:

otolith said:

A normal hybrid is just a more efficient petrol car. It runs on petrol all the time, even if the engine isn't running, because the energy in the battery came from petrol.

A plug in hybrid runs on mains energy until it runs out, then runs on petrol.

The "self charging hybrid" stuff is marketing bks.

Some of the energy in the battery of PHEV's or normal hybrids also comes from regen when the car is decelerating or braking. When this energy is powering the electric motor to drive the car it's not running on mains energy or petrol.

The energy it gets from regen - where does that come from?

There's a big hill near my house.

[TheDeuce]

paralla said:

otolith said:

paralla said:

otolith said:

A normal hybrid is just a more efficient petrol car. It runs on petrol all the time, even if the engine isn't running, because the energy in the battery came from petrol.

A plug in hybrid runs on mains energy until it runs out, then runs on petrol.

The "self charging hybrid" stuff is marketing bks.

Some of the energy in the battery of PHEV's or normal hybrids also comes from regen when the car is decelerating or braking. When this energy is powering the electric motor to drive the car it's not running on mains energy or petrol.

The energy it gets from regen - where does that come from?

There's a big hill near my house.

That's a shame, you'd use less fuel going out and back if it was all level roads.

[Pica-Pica]

TheDeuce said:

Whatever car you get will need some fuel if it doesn't have a plug.. and fuel is more expensive than home charging.

That’s marginal costs only. That doesn’t take into account the need to have a driveway, a dearer car, and charging installation. I’ll stick with a cheaper house, and investments making more than house price inflation.

[otolith]

Pica-Pica said:

That’s marginal costs only. That doesn’t take into account the need to have a driveway, a dearer car, and charging installation. I’ll stick with a cheaper house, and investments making more than house price inflation.

Though if he's considering one, he presumably has the means to charge it. An external plug socket installation is cheap, and with a PHEV's tiny battery and frequently lack of faster charging capability is there any point paying for a proper car charger?

[paralla]

otolith said:

Pica-Pica said:

That’s marginal costs only. That doesn’t take into account the need to have a driveway, a dearer car, and charging installation. I’ll stick with a cheaper house, and investments making more than house price inflation.

Though if he's considering one, he presumably has the means to charge it. An external plug socket installation is cheap, and with a PHEV's tiny battery and frequently lack of faster charging capability is there any point paying for a proper car charger?

otolith makes a good point. I bought an expensive Type 2 charger but could easily manage using a 13A 3 pin plug. The 17.8kWh battery in the CX-60 takes 6 about hours to charge on a 3 pin plug. The 13.6kWh battery in the PHEV CH-R took about 4 hours so could be done in the 4 hours of cheap leccy rate overnight just on a 3 pin plug.

Of course none of this matters is she can't be bothered to plug it in.

[Phil.]

otolith said:

Though if he's considering one, he presumably has the means to charge it. An external plug socket installation is cheap, and with aPHEV's tiny battery and frequently lack of faster charging capability is there any point paying for a proper car charger?

A ‘tiny’ PHEV battery weighs between 200kg-300kg. That’s a lot to be carting about for a few miles of electric and impedes the mpg massively when using the engine!

[Jimjimhim]

To me they seem to be best of both worlds and also worst of both worlds, so I really can't decide which it is.

[TheDeuce]

Jimjimhim said:

To me they seem to be best of both worlds and also worst of both worlds, so I really can't decide which it is.

It's simple, when the battery is depleted they're a heavier version of an ICE or normal hybrid car. When the battery is full and they're on all electric, they're not as fast as a proper EV.

They're definitely not the best of both worlds, they're a compromise of both.

However, if you have a PHEV with a 60 mile electric range, and that's all you typically need, it's the cheapest way to convert to driving an electric car.

And mostly, being realistic, a lot of people are nervous of a car with no engine so some form of hybrid feels like a sensible initial step. Even if in many cases, a proper EV makes sense.

[Jimjimhim]

TheDeuce said:

Jimjimhim said:

To me they seem to be best of both worlds and also worst of both worlds, so I really can't decide which it is.

It's simple, when the battery is depleted they're a heavier version of an ICE or normal hybrid car. When the battery is full and they're on all electric, they're not as fast as a proper EV.

They're definitely not the best of both worlds, they're a compromise of both.

However, if you have a PHEV with a 60 mile electric range, and that's all you typically need, it's the cheapest way to convert to driving an electric car.

And mostly, being realistic, a lot of people are nervous of a car with no engine so some form of hybrid feels like a sensible initial step. Even if in many cases, a proper EV makes sense.

I don't know, in some ways they seem to be the best of both worlds, obviously this depends on what you need from a car, but in other ways they do seem to be the worst.

[otolith]

Phil. said:

otolith said:

Though if he's considering one, he presumably has the means to charge it. An external plug socket installation is cheap, and with aPHEV's tiny battery and frequently lack of faster charging capability is there any point paying for a proper car charger?

A ‘tiny’ PHEV battery weighs between 200kg-300kg. That’s a lot to be carting about for a few miles of electric and impedes the mpg massively when using the engine!

The "tiny" here is the capacity relative to a full BEV. If you've only got a 15kWh battery which will charge in a few hours on a granny charger and in many cases won't charge any faster on a 7kW or 22kW charger, why pay to have one fitted?

If your normal daily usage is less than the all electric range, you won't give a flying one what mpg is like on the engine because you won't be using it.

I won't be buying one, I'll go straight to full electric next time I change cars, but they have a place.

[RizzoTheRat]

Phil. said:

A ‘tiny’ PHEV battery weighs between 200kg-300kg. That’s a lot to be carting about for a few miles of electric and impedes the mpg massively when using the engine!

Which is offset by the better "mpg" when running on battery. If all your journeys are with a flat battery it's not going to give as good mpg as a petrol only, but the economy gets better the more short journeys you do, which is the opposite for a pure ICE. Of course on short journeys it's lugging around the extra weight of an engine, but then again a pure EV would be lugging around 3 or 4 times the weight of battery so that probably evens out

Jimjimhim said:

To me they seem to be best of both worlds and also worst of both worlds, so I really can't decide which it is.

Agreed, and it's going to depend massively on your useage. Plus there's the "gateway drug" aspect. I'm not sure I'm ready for a BEV as I do quite a few longer trips and don't always stay in places where charging would be easy. But my usage of lots more short trips than long trips could suit a PHEV pretty well, and I might find out that actually a BEV would be fine and go for one next time.

[Jimjimhim]

RizzoTheRat said:

Phil. said:

A ‘tiny’ PHEV battery weighs between 200kg-300kg. That’s a lot to be carting about for a few miles of electric and impedes the mpg massively when using the engine!

Which is offset by the better "mpg" when running on battery. If all your journeys are with a flat battery it's not going to give as good mpg as a petrol only, but the economy gets better the more short journeys you do, which is the opposite for a pure ICE. Of course on short journeys it's lugging around the extra weight of an engine, but then again a pure EV would be lugging around 3 or 4 times the weight of battery so that probably evens out

Jimjimhim said:

To me they seem to be best of both worlds and also worst of both worlds, so I really can't decide which it is.

Agreed, and it's going to depend massively on your useage. Plus there's the "gateway drug" aspect. I'm not sure I'm ready for a BEV as I do quite a few longer trips and don't always stay in places where charging would be easy. But my usage of lots more short trips than long trips could suit a PHEV pretty well, and I might find out that actually a BEV would be fine and go for one next time.

I've been looking at cars up to £20k and EVs for that money don't really interest me, Polestar is a maybe but I'm worried I'd get bored of it, Ipace would worry me with reliability and dealer. The BMW 330e seems to be a nice drive, nice interior, nice performance and plenty of choice. The battery would do most of my journeys with the petrol when I need to go further.

[clockworks]

I charge my XC40 PHEV using a granny charger and a Toughleads extension cable. Takes less than 4 hours to charge from empty, which is the cheap rate period on Octopus Go. Costs around 80p, and will do 20 miles in winter, at least 25 in summer.

Car drives perfectly well just on the battery, easily keeping up with A road traffic. For overtaking, just "boot it" and the ICE fires up for the full 260bhp.

There's always some battery held in reserve for adding the 90bhp motor to the 170bhp ICE when a fast overtake is needed. It'll also trickle along on the battery in traffic, even if the range is down to zero.

The T5 plug-in version offered the best blend of economy/power/price when I bought it secondhand.

It is my first EV of any kind, and it has convinced me that a full BEV could make sense as my next car.

[Ankh87]

To clarify, we can run a 3 pin via the letter box opening of the front door during the day as my partner works from home, worst case, through the window until we get an out door charger.

My partner only really does say 5-10 miles a day, unless she gets a call-out during the evening or night which is then 20 miles one way. So usual day-to-day a plug-in hybrid with even a small range of 20-25 miles would be fine. Then while still charging, if she is called out, there is zero stress if she has enough range/charge. She knows she has the petrol to keep her going.

To me it's sensible looking at it that way, even though a BEV with 200 mile range would work as well. I've explained that to her but she doesn't want an EV for XYZ reasons. So she's asked me questions about the different hybrids which I'm fairly clueless as they all seem to be different.

[paralla]

My guess is that a granny charger through the letterbox is more hassle than she will be willing to deal with, she will just put petrol in it because it's easier. Also to get the most benefit from a PHEV you want to charge it at cheap overnight electricity rates rather than during the saytime.

Like I said earlier, unless plugging it in is super convenient, it won't get plugged in. If it doesn't get plugged in save your money and get a non-plug in hybrid.

[clockworks]

I agree with the last post - make it as easy as possible to plug in, or it will rarely get done. In which case, a non-plug-in is cheaper and simpler.

I was lucky, as my attached garage already had a decent mains ring (relatively new wiring and sockets), and I could run the Toughleads extension cable out though the tumble drier vent pipe (unused, as we replaced the vented drier with a heatpump model a year ago).

I leave the granny charger plugged in to the mains, so it just takes a few seconds to plug into the car when I get home. The car's app makes sure it only charges during the off-peak period.

Each time I charge, it saves me 2 or 3 quids' worth of petrol, so there's an incentive to spend the 10 seconds doing it.
Eventually I will get a proper wall charger, but it isn't really needed until I go full BEV.

[paralla]

Phil. said:

otolith said:

Though if he's considering one, he presumably has the means to charge it. An external plug socket installation is cheap, and with aPHEV's tiny battery and frequently lack of faster charging capability is there any point paying for a proper car charger?

A ‘tiny’ PHEV battery weighs between 200kg-300kg. That’s a lot to be carting about for a few miles of electric and impedes the mpg massively when using the engine!

The 13.6kWh battery used extensively in Toyota PHEV's weighs 128.8kg. In conjunction with the electric motor, it facilitates recovering, storing and deploying the energy that would otherwise be lost to heat via friction when braking. When the hybrid battery is "flat" it's not just 128.8kg of dead weight being carried about, it's still being used to improve the efficency of the petrol engine even though it might be indicating 0% state of charge.

Edited by paralla on Wednesday 19th June 17:58

[Phil.]

RizzoTheRat said:

Phil. said:

A ‘tiny’ PHEV battery weighs between 200kg-300kg. That’s a lot to be carting about for a few miles of electric and impedes the mpg massively when using the engine!

Which is offset by the better "mpg" when running on battery. If all your journeys are with a flat battery it's not going to give as good mpg as a petrol only, but the economy gets better the more short journeys you do, which is the opposite for a pure ICE. Of course on short journeys it's lugging around the extra weight of an engine, but then again a pure EV would be lugging around 3 or 4 times the weight of battery so that probably evens out

Jimjimhim said:

To me they seem to be best of both worlds and also worst of both worlds, so I really can't decide which it is.

Agreed, and it's going to depend massively on your useage. Plus there's the "gateway drug" aspect. I'm not sure I'm ready for a BEV as I do quite a few longer trips and don't always stay in places where charging would be easy. But my usage of lots more short trips than long trips could suit a PHEV pretty well, and I might find out that actually a BEV would be fine and go for one next time.

The latest Toyota hybrid tech beats the compromised PHEV hands down, plus the weight of its battery is less than half of any PHEV. I’d go as far to say that the Toyota hybrid far exceeds the capability and convenience of any pure EV, especially over a 10 year period of use.