Electric car & charging

Kim_kim

I've been looking at the outlander PHEV.
For maximum savings I need to drive in bursts of 30 miles & charge.

At least one day per week I drive 35 miles to another office for work. I have a choice of car parks, one of them has two electric points.

How does that work for parking & charging?

Do people park & charge up all day? How does that work with only two spaces? If I get there & park & charge I'll be blocking a space all day. Likewise I could get there & the spaces could be taken - for the day.
Or are those sorts of spaces time limited? If so that wouldn't work for commuters?

Gloomendoom

Dunno. The ones where I work seem to be first come, first served. Get there too late and it's the bus home and back the next morning.

Kim_kim

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Dunno. The ones where I work seem to be first come, first served. Get there too late and it's the bus home and back the next morning.

The outlander switches to petrol if the charge runs out, but for maximum economy it's great if I can charge at the office.

Spicy_McHaggis

Kim_kim wrote: »

The outlander switches to petrol if the charge runs out, but for maximum economy it's great if I can charge at the office.

Are we talking a hybrid which charges from the petrol engine?

Iceweasel

I wouldn't even think of getting an electric car - on principal.

They are more polluting than a diesel.

Consider the whole effect on the planet.

How and where was the battery produced?

How is the electricity to re-charge it produced?

The whole thing is a con.

And the government know it - but they need to be seen to be doing something.

Doing anything will do - even pulling the wool over our eyes.

Kim_kim

Spicy_McHaggis wrote: »

Are we talking a hybrid which charges from the petrol engine?

I think so, I'm still learning. All very new to me.

patman99

Hybrids are better than fully-electric cars. At least they don't leave you stranded when they run out of charge after 30 miles due to having the lights and heater on because you are driving at night in winter.

If the battery power system can be balanced to work with the petrol engine in such a way as to take-on acceleration and low-speed running, then it is very much a cost-effective system indeed.

bob_a_builder

The PHEV IS a 'normal' hybrid but with a plug in and charge function - thats its selling point !

worried_jim

You may want to wait until a better model is introduced-

No problem, because this morning I give you … drum roll … the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Yes, PHEV. Great name. Sounds as if it could be the weapons system on a Klingon Bird of Prey. Or some kind of CIA drone. “Let’s take the PHEV tonight, darling.” Mmmm. I like the sound of that.
To the casual observer it’s a crossover 4×4 urban sports activity school-run mum-mobile just like all the other crossover 4×4 urban sports activity school-run mum-mobiles. But look carefully, because it appears to have two petrol filler caps: one on either side.
Aha. Wrong. You put the petrol in the one on the left and electricity in the one on the right, because, yup, behind the suburban exterior the four-wheel-drive PHEV is pretty much identical to the Porsche 918 Spyder and the BMW i8.

You climb aboard, you select electric power and, as long as the battery is charged, which it will be if you hooked the car up to the mains overnight, you will have enough juice to do about half what Mitsubishi says is possible. That equates to just over 16 miles, and that’s fine if you are going to work or school, but not so fine if you’re going to Darlington — or Stonehenge, as my Sunday Times colleague Eleanor Mills reported in Driving two weeks ago.
No worries, though, because when the battery is flat you simply start the ordinary 2-litre petrol engine and it will take over the driving duties. Or, and this is the clever bit, you can push the “Charge” button, which causes it not only to do the propulsion but to charge the battery at the same time.
So you are using petrol to give you those 16 miles of electric running. And here’s the big question: how much petrol?
Mitsubishi doesn’t say. And it’s impossible to work out without actually being in the engine, and that’s even more impossible. But look at it this way: to cover 16 miles on the engine alone would use about four pints of petrol. Does it take four pints to charge up that battery? Probably.

There is a solution, and that’s to use the process of slowing down to charge up the cells. But if you engage this system, it feels as though you’ve hit a wall every time you lift your foot off the accelerator. It’s good for the planet, I’m sure, but it’s not good for the chap behind, because you are slowing down very rapidly … and your bloody brake lights haven’t come on!
It’s probably best not to worry about the chap behind and to relax in the knowledge that, theoretically, your big school-run-mobile can do 148mpg. That’s not a misprint. It can also do muddy fields, tow a horse box and keep you entertained on a long run with all its many features.
There are some drawbacks, though. And the main one is this. That if you strip away all the clever-clever running gear, the Outlander isn’t a very good car. The ride is poor, the petrol engine is soulless, the styling is dreadful, the seats are hard and the performance is woeful.

http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-mitsubishi-outlander-phev-gx4hs/

worried_jim

The first plug-in hybrid 4x4 sounded perfect for aspiring eco-driver Eleanor Mills and her family, but the Mitsubishi’s ‘computer says no’ attitude and the difficulties of recharging gave her a nasty shock.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/cars/article1426794.ece

The bad news is, the future is not here yet. The PHEV claims to do “up to 148mpg”. The truth is that most of the time during my test drive the Outlander ended up running on petrol, and it made my X3 look positively frugal. On the motorway down to camp with friends for the summer solstice, it managed about 30mpg — that’s a long way off the vaunted maximum.

I was quite keen on the electric ideal until I tried it. But now I know it’s a nightmare. Electric cars may be the future but, my goodness, we are nowhere near it yet. The entry-level Outlander costs £28,249 after payment of the £5,000 government plug-in grant. My tip is to get a second-hand X3 for half that. In fact I’d almost pay £28,249 never to have to drive the beast again. Sorry.

smitchy73

Depending on your usage other than the commute it may be better looking at other forms of this hybrid. The Outlander doesn't do the 30 miles on electric power as stated, it can do it, depending on the type of roads etc you drive on. Also in this cold weather using the heating it supposedly switches straight to the petrol engine for power. In the good and warmer weather you may well get the electric power for that range but only then and on a good day.
You might want to consider others and if you're interested I can give you some hints on where to look for some good advice, I'm not a salesman or anything but can tell you of other models that might suit you better.

There are so many people who dislike electric cars and talk about the badness of where the batteries come from...of course there are raw materials which are sourced from rare forms and in some weird and wonderful places around the world, but hey wait a minute so is petrol and diesel, some people forget that those two forms of 'fossil' fuel are sourced in some weird and wonderful places too, not all from the North Sea, the oil is pumped out, gases released, then it is pumped on to a ship, a bloody big ship, powered by diesel engines, brought to good ole Blightey and refined then driven on the road by a diesel powered tanker to our filling stations. Yes thats very clean indeed.

Electric Cars and plug in hybrids won't suit everyone, not one driver of an EV will ever tell you it does, it suits most people's requirements but range anxiety worries some but not others.

I can also say that it meets 95% of my needs for travel, maybe even more, and I don't bother with an ICE vehicle either to go the longer distance, I go by public transport. I drive and proud to drive an EV, and if you pair it with a 'green' tariff for your electricity supply you are driving an honestly zero emission vehicle, not in manufacturing, but in driving unlike any ICE vehicle on the road.