Evoque MHEV, what's the benefit?

[Yex GTR]

I have owned a P250 MHEV Evoque for 2 years now and just cannot see the benefit the MHEV claims to provide. The Land Rover website claims the battery is used at speeds below 11mph but even when I have had the MHEV active as soon as I try to accelerate the engine kicks in and I can feel no real benefit of any battery power. Despite the claim of an extra 140nm being made available from the battery all I hear is a rather under powered engine struggling to get the vehicle rolling.

https://www.landrover.com/landrovermagazine/hybrid...

When I have tried to keep speeds below 11mph (parking for instance) the engine still kicks in as soon as I use the throttle so I am at a loss as to how the MHEV battery adds any value. All I can figure out it does is act as a big weight to carry around that impacts MPG returns.

Am I misunderstanding how an MHEV car should work or are they all really just a bit "meh" and marketing?

[Lodelaner]

Probably better if you think of MHEV being a big starter motor attached to the flywheel as a way of reducing emissions by a smidge and smoothing out stop-start traffic.

Putting the 140Nm of marketing BS aside for a moment - its more honest to describe it as being a 10hp (7kW) motor drawing on a 48volt 200wh battery that is designed to give the car a little shove from a standstill before running out of power. (That's about enough energy to boil 2 litres of water).

In comparison - the Plug in Hybrid has a 109 hp (80kW) motor powered by a 300 volt 15kWh battery - about 11x times the power, 2x times the torque with 75x times the battery capacity of the MHEV.

[MesoForm]

When a Land Rover engineer came to me to perform a software upgrade (it was a recall so they sent the LR guys round instead of clogging up dealers) he told me it was just glorified stop-start.

[911wise]

The benefit probably lies with JLR for its emissions targets across the fleet. Benefits for user are probably minimal.

[goddo]

Extract from Google definition of MHEV

""It's a hybrid car which is also known as an MHEV (Mild Hybrid Electric Vehicle). Cleverly it combines Land Rover's efficient Ingenium petrol and diesel engines with a powerful underfloor battery so the engine can be turned off when coasting, braking, or stationary.""

Looks like the JLR engineer was telling the truth....

[Crumpet]

I always thought it filled that annoying gap from planting your foot on the throttle to the point where the turbo builds enough boost to pull away smoothly. I.e. It reduces lag.

Certainly all the cars I’ve driven with it have had snappier throttle response without any lag and a more linear power delivery.

[Yex GTR]

Cheers folks, it appears my thoughts were right and it is just more marketing BS than actual real world benefit.

I have had 2 Freelander's before now and this is my 2nd Evoque so have had LR's for 20 years now, but will be my last Land Rover product. I'm all for engineering progress (currently stopping well short of full EV mind) but marketing BS I can do without.

[JonnyVTEC]

Start stop is much smoother than a starter motor clatter!