Talk to me about PHEV's
Discussion
So Mrs Freak needs a new car, she gets car allowance or a company car through work, she's always opted for car allowance and the freedom that gives with her choice of vehicle (currently driving a Jeep Wrangler 5 door as an example).
Anyway, with the advent of EV's/PHEV's etc the temptation of the company car and the tax breaks have swayed her towards the company car scheme. She doesn't want a full EV but she'll happily consider a PHEV, current favourites being a BMW X3 and LR Evoque, ignoring the brand/choices I have zero knowledge of PHEV's and whether this will be a good option.
We also live in a really rural area, we don't have a home charger and it would be a PITA to have one as it would involve a lot of groundwork to run a cable from the meter to where we park our cars, so any home charging would be via a 3-pin plug.
Do you have to charge the battery, doesn't the regen charge for you? The range of the 2 choices above is around 30-34 miles on EV alone, but it would be hybrid all of the time. She probably does 30 miles per day most days for work and this would be the main weekend vehicle so we would be going on longer journeys occasionally, i.e. 100/200+ miles.
Can anyone share any info on the above?
Anyway, with the advent of EV's/PHEV's etc the temptation of the company car and the tax breaks have swayed her towards the company car scheme. She doesn't want a full EV but she'll happily consider a PHEV, current favourites being a BMW X3 and LR Evoque, ignoring the brand/choices I have zero knowledge of PHEV's and whether this will be a good option.
We also live in a really rural area, we don't have a home charger and it would be a PITA to have one as it would involve a lot of groundwork to run a cable from the meter to where we park our cars, so any home charging would be via a 3-pin plug.
Do you have to charge the battery, doesn't the regen charge for you? The range of the 2 choices above is around 30-34 miles on EV alone, but it would be hybrid all of the time. She probably does 30 miles per day most days for work and this would be the main weekend vehicle so we would be going on longer journeys occasionally, i.e. 100/200+ miles.
Can anyone share any info on the above?
If you have no charger at home then a PHEV will be pointless. They are only really worth the extra battery weight if you are actively charging and using the battery mode to its potential.
Otherwise just get a HEV which will be more efficient.
I did all the maths when I was looking and the added costs of the PHEV made it useless to me compared to the HEV.
I eventully brought a BEV as I can charge at home.
Otherwise just get a HEV which will be more efficient.
I did all the maths when I was looking and the added costs of the PHEV made it useless to me compared to the HEV.
I eventully brought a BEV as I can charge at home.
The problem you’ve got is that to make the benefit in kind tax palatable, you’ve got to go BEV or PHEV. A ‘self charging’ hybrid still incurs quite punitive levels of BIK tax.
Can you not charge a PHEV using what’s called a granny cable or charger? It just plugs into a conventional three pin socket. The PHEVs you’ve mentioned would fully charge in 5-6 hours via a granny cable and you could get a cheaper overnight/EV electricity tariff to make it cost effective.
If you’re not charging a PHEV at all, you’re effectively hauling around the weight of a chunky battery pack for negligible gain.
Can you not charge a PHEV using what’s called a granny cable or charger? It just plugs into a conventional three pin socket. The PHEVs you’ve mentioned would fully charge in 5-6 hours via a granny cable and you could get a cheaper overnight/EV electricity tariff to make it cost effective.
If you’re not charging a PHEV at all, you’re effectively hauling around the weight of a chunky battery pack for negligible gain.
Use this link to help your wife with the tax implication: https://comcar.co.uk/companycar/tax/select/ Although more that a BEV a PHEV is still substantialy less than an ICE equivalent.
With reference to the charging, I ran a PHEV Niro for two years & used a 3 pin with no issues, took about 4.5 hours to charge (8.9KW battery) My commute was a 25 mile round trip & most months used very little fuel.
I run an EV now but still think a PHEV makes a lot of sense.
With reference to the charging, I ran a PHEV Niro for two years & used a 3 pin with no issues, took about 4.5 hours to charge (8.9KW battery) My commute was a 25 mile round trip & most months used very little fuel.
I run an EV now but still think a PHEV makes a lot of sense.
My wife purchased PHEV a couple of months ago.
Only makes sense if you charge it, as above.
Hers has a 40 mile range, charged during the 5 hours 8p kwh period via external 3pin plug I fitted.
The car came with 220 mile range of petrol in the tank. Currently says 217 miles!
EV all the time pretty well.
It does get 40 mile range on the stop start journey most commonly taken.
Steady motorway drive kills it.
In torn between getting a full EV or the about to be released Skoda Superb PHEV with 60 mile range.
Only makes sense if you charge it, as above.
Hers has a 40 mile range, charged during the 5 hours 8p kwh period via external 3pin plug I fitted.
The car came with 220 mile range of petrol in the tank. Currently says 217 miles!
EV all the time pretty well.
It does get 40 mile range on the stop start journey most commonly taken.
Steady motorway drive kills it.
In torn between getting a full EV or the about to be released Skoda Superb PHEV with 60 mile range.
somouk said:
If you have no charger at home then a PHEV will be pointless. They are only really worth the extra battery weight if you are actively charging and using the battery mode to its potential.
This is complete nonsense. We have no charger and charge our PHEV via a 3 pin plug just fine. It’s slow - a full charge takes nearly 8 hours, but gets you a range of up to around 40 miles. A PHEV will not fully charge itself on regen power - regen is a nice efficiency saving but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the power a car needs - most power is lost just pushing your car through the air at speed.
It would not make sense spending the extra on a PHEV if you don’t intend to charge it. It does make sense if the majority of your journeys can be completed on battery, but you occasionally need to do longer journeys that would require petrol.
MrTrilby said:
This is complete nonsense. We have no charger and charge our PHEV via a 3 pin plug just fine.
I think you are taking my wording too literally, you are still charging it and using the battery to its potential which was the other caveat I mentioned. There is no requirement for a 3.6/7.2 KW dedicate home charging point but you still need to charge the thing.
Thanks all,
She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
Get a charger at home mate it will make all the difference we have the same PHEV in LR Discovery Sport and charge up and use the 30 miles on the daily driving. We are so used to not visiting petrol stations this has been the perfect middle step now to go full EV which is arriving soon.
You can get OHME charger for about £500 now which I paid £750 for with fitting with the UK grant (which i think is now done?)
You can get OHME charger for about £500 now which I paid £750 for with fitting with the UK grant (which i think is now done?)
I've only had my plug-in hybrid Volvo XC40 T5 a week, but all my driving so far has been purely on electric. 4 trips to local towns, between 10 and 20 miles.
I only have the supplied granny charger cable, plugged into a waterproof extension cable from Toughleads, while I decide whether to get a proper charger box fitted. All works fine as it is though.
Currently waiting to switch from EDF to Octopus EV tariff, so I'm paying full price for the electricity. It's costing me between 10 and 11p a mile. At the current petrol price, that's the equivalent of 65 to 70mpg. Running purely on petrol, I'd be lucky to get 35mpg on short trips. Be even cheaper on the Octopus EV tariff.
I was a concerned that it would be a bit slow running on just electric, but it's proved perfectly capable of keeping up with normal traffic on A roads.
Definitely worth taking advantage of electric running whenever possible, but not if you have to pay to charge at a public charger. No savings if the electric is costing 55p or more, might as well stick with petrol once the battery has run down.
I only have the supplied granny charger cable, plugged into a waterproof extension cable from Toughleads, while I decide whether to get a proper charger box fitted. All works fine as it is though.
Currently waiting to switch from EDF to Octopus EV tariff, so I'm paying full price for the electricity. It's costing me between 10 and 11p a mile. At the current petrol price, that's the equivalent of 65 to 70mpg. Running purely on petrol, I'd be lucky to get 35mpg on short trips. Be even cheaper on the Octopus EV tariff.
I was a concerned that it would be a bit slow running on just electric, but it's proved perfectly capable of keeping up with normal traffic on A roads.
Definitely worth taking advantage of electric running whenever possible, but not if you have to pay to charge at a public charger. No savings if the electric is costing 55p or more, might as well stick with petrol once the battery has run down.
Yeh good point raised above that I forgot to add I am on Octopus Intelligent Tariff now so I charge overnight for 7.5pkw which results in around 4/5 pence per mile. That used to be 5p on their Agile tariff so i was charging my battery for around 78p now about £1 for those 30 miles. Not accurate figures but always made me feel better with my man months as filling a Land Rover up and watching that fuel tank dissapear in local driving was never a goer for me!
jgrewal said:
Get a charger at home mate it will make all the difference we have the same PHEV in LR Discovery Sport and charge up and use the 30 miles on the daily driving. We are so used to not visiting petrol stations this has been the perfect middle step now to go full EV which is arriving soon.
You can get OHME charger for about £500 now which I paid £750 for with fitting with the UK grant (which i think is now done?)
I hear you, but it's not that easy power comes in at the front and the cars are parked at the rear. This would require quite a lot of groundwork to run a cable to the rear of the house to get to where the car in question would be parked. Plus we live in a really rural area, power comes to the property from an overhead cable across lots of fields, I'm not sure there's enough juice or the right setup to get much better charge times.You can get OHME charger for about £500 now which I paid £750 for with fitting with the UK grant (which i think is now done?)
We'll never go electric ultimately, so that also plays against spending money on something I see no value in for us.
Freakuk said:
Thanks all,
She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
How is she being paid for home charging?She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
JD said:
Freakuk said:
Thanks all,
She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
How is she being paid for home charging?She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
Freakuk said:
No idea if I am honest, I'd have to ask.
That's actually a very good question.If her work give her a fully-expensed fuel card, just run it on petrol.
If work give her a "reimburse" fuel card, where she has to pay them back for any personal miles, it's probably worth charging at home for the weekend/holidays.
If she pays for all her fuel, but then claims business miles from her employer, charge at home every day - unless she has to supply petrol receipts that match up with the miles claimed.
You need to do the maths and work out the best strategy.
Freakuk said:
JD said:
Freakuk said:
Thanks all,
She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
How is she being paid for home charging?She's plumbed for the Evoque and placed an order, we have no charger at home so we would just use the standard 3-pin from an outside/external socket.
Her current car gets around 25 mpg so even if we didn't charge it I'm going to say it would be more economical even with the extra weight. She travels around to around 5-6 locations with work all within a 20 mile radius so there could be charging at one or two I guess if she was really lucky.
Looks like it won't be here until Feb 2024 (at the earliest) so maybe they'll be a new charger somewhere.
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