100+ miles a day, diesel or petrol in 2019?

Hunter_Jaeger

Cars driving at 55/57mph are the ones that cause all the grief.

iwb100

Buy a new diesel that hits the Euro 6 emissions target and you won't be subject to the city of London charge or likely any other city charges....

For that mileage I'd go diesel though you seem to indicate its only for a few months....what happens then? Diesel cars nowadays are intended for people who mainly do longer motorway journeys (25 miles plus). If in 6 months you might mainly do short journeys then a petrol will be better as the diesel's have filters that can get blocked if used only for short journeys (mind some petrols are adding similar filters now too).

AdrianC

iwb100 wrote: »

Buy a new diesel that hits the Euro 6 emissions target and you won't be subject to the city of London charge

The London ULEZ isn't "city of London".

It's currently the CC Zone, a small part of which is the City. In October 2021, it moves out to the circulars.

Oh, and Euro4 petrol is good, as well as Euro6 diesel.

iwb100

AdrianC wrote: »

The London ULEZ isn't "city of London".

It's currently the CC Zone, a small part of which is the City. In October 2021, it moves out to the circulars.

Oh, and Euro4 petrol is good, as well as Euro6 diesel.

Good point. I was just showing that a new diesel will not be subject to that charge....

shinytop

AdrianC wrote: »

No, it isn't. Not unless your observation and awareness is utterly appalling. I've done tens of thousands of motorway miles in cars that don't cruise any faster than 65, often even lower - and it really isn't "dangerous".

Doing 65, you're still 9mph faster than trucks can physically go, and 5mph faster than coaches or anybody towing should be going.

Are you the one in the Nissan Micra with a trilby I see every morning?
My observation is excellent, thanks.

Londoner_1

1.4 tsi act 148bhp skoda superb.

forget diesel.

AdrianC

shinytop wrote: »

Are you the one in the Nissan Micra with a trilby I see every morning?

No, I'm the one in the variety of old, low-powered classics.

There was a clue in "cars that don't cruise any faster than 65" - rather than cars that will, but simply aren't.

agrinnall

Tarambor wrote: »

I've been looking at a new(er) car too. I get 55-60MPG on average out of my 9 year old 143,000 mile Mondeo 2 litre TDCi 140 as almost all mileage is A road/DC/motorway. Looking at the Ford Focus 1.0 125BHP Ecoboost petrol it looks like it would return the same fuel economy, possibly slightly better.

Where are you getting your Focus data from? I've been driving a Fiesta with that engine for the last 3.5 years and have never got anywhere near those figures, about the best I've had was 50MPG on a long motorway journey that had a lot of speed restrictions, in general use (which does include a lot of urban journeys) I get low 40s and sometimes it dips below 40. I'd be surprised if the real world figures for a heavier car can get close to your Mondeo's figures.

almillar

(Apologies to the OP, this has gone a bit off topic!)

I hope you don't mind me a slight hijack here, but this has often puzzled me about electric cars - how do the heaters work ?

In an ICE, there is loads of heat produced as a by-product, so you've got more than enough on tap, it just needs diverting into the cockpit. But an electric heater (at least, a normal domestic electric radiator) uses a load of electricity. I'd have thought using a heater in an electric car would deplete the battery to a very large extent. I'm probably missing something, and I don't pretend to know much about electric cars, but it's always puzzled me.

Even those that claim to have a range of 180 miles or whatever, I bet that's halved if the heater is on full belt constantly ?

Not at all, much better to ask than to just make stuff up!!
Yes, there's very little excess heat, so you have to make some. Early electric cars (first Leaf, some i3) just had traditional electric heating, AFAI understand, heating thin metal like your rear heated windscreen, or like a toaster, and blowing through, but much more sophisticated! This used plenty of electric. Many electric cars have heat exchangers now, in amongst air con, like efficient houses have - taking the warm air and rejecting the cold. More efficient, but still uses ~ 3kW when they really need to - of course, once the car is warmed, that settles down. Now, consider that the motors are 80kW odd, and you'll realise that by far the most expensive thing for the battery, is motion and speed. Lose 5mph, instead of turning the heating off!

You either wear a coat or suffer reduced range. Heating uses a lot of the battery power. The double whammy is that when it's cold the range is down anyway

That's the sort of made up rubbish I was talking about!

And that's before we consider other heat sources - reusing battery heat, or heat generated by the regenerative braking, that sort of thing.

Yes. On my Soul EV, the battery is 'air conditioned' like the cabin is - batteries like to be the same temperature as us. I wouldn't imagine there's any heat from regen braking - it would be in the battery compartment from 'charging' the batteries (and they also produce heat when discharging), and the above system would capture that. The only problem is, that at the same time that passengers want heat, the batteries also do, and when the batteries need cooled, the passengers often will too.

Air conditioning must take a fair bit out of a battery on a hot summer's day.

No. up to 3kw as above - very small in the grand scheme of things.

When you hear about range being reduced in the winter, it's TRUE. It's not because of lights, heating, wipers, stereo, it's simply because the chemistry of the battery not working as well. It works well at room temperature, that's why it's such a good companion for humans. You'll go two thirds to three quarters as far in winter as you do in summer, in the UK, in my experience, as a rough guide.

That's the clincher for me - going less than 65 on a motorway unless you're in a lorry is dangerous. I'm a fan of EVs but I do too many long journeys. And I keep saying to people, it's not the range that's the problem, it's the several hours to charge. I did my 120 mile round trip on motorcycles with a 120 mile range for several years and that was fine

Do 70 then. Plenty of cars (Renault Zoe 40kWh) will do your 120 mile round trip all year round. Charge whilst you're doing something else, or rapid charge - that won't take 'several hours'.

System

agrinnall wrote: »

Where are you getting your Focus data from?

The data I'm getting is from the manufacturer. Given that in every car I've had in the last 20 years I've exceeded the official figures I'm confident in using those as a milestone for comparisons.

I've been driving a Fiesta with that engine for the last 3.5 years and have never got anywhere near those figures, about the best I've had was 50MPG on a long motorway journey that had a lot of speed restrictions, in general use (which does include a lot of urban journeys) I get low 40s and sometimes it dips below 40. I'd be surprised if the real world figures for a heavier car can get close to your Mondeo's figures.

Irrelevant what you're getting, I don't drive like you do, I don't do the types of journeys you normally do. I would hazard a guess I'd easily beat what you're getting, partly due to the types of journey I do, partly due to the fact I did an economic driving course with a former employer which incidentally didn't teach you to drive slower to achieve it and in fact the opposite was expected out of the test route at the end of the week course - being expected to not only return higher MPG but do the route with fewer gear changes and in a quicker time.

As you say, you do a lot of urban journeys. In a typical week the amount of mileage my car does in 30 limits is about 10 miles out of the 300+ miles per week I do and mostly done on an evening and in the wee hours of the morning when there is next to no traffic on the road. What I get is calculated by brim to brim refuels, not the trip computer which reads an additional 5%. I was on the Ford Mondeo Owners Club and there were people on there posting they were getting 10MPG or more less than I was getting doing my normal weekly driving, it all depends on how you drive and where you drive. When I did my annual run to France with two adults, two kids and a boot full of luggage I got an average of 70MPG driving at the speed limits on UK motorways and France's exceptionally good Autoroute/major road network.