Hybrids -- pros and cons.

Grumpy_chap

gzoom said:

@Grumpy_chap

In 5 years of EV ownership I've done 99% of charging at home at a cost of 7-8per kWh overnight. Virtually all EVs do 3-4 miles per kWh so you are looking at 2-3p per mile in electricity costs. Factor in £0 VED, virtuality no servicing costs (I've not serviced our EV in 3 year and 46k miles), the only additional running costs is tyres, which last about 20k and replacing with mid range brands works out at 1.5p per mile.

So total EV running costs excluding insurance (similar to any normal car), and initial purchase is around 5p per mile. You need to achieve about 100mpg in fuel costs on a petrol car just to match that interms of fuel costs.

HOWEVER EVs remain every expensive to buy both new and used. Our Lexus IS300H had a list price £43k, so actually very similar to the price of a Model 3. BUT we all know no one pays list price on a brand new car if its not an EV, we actually paid £34k for our IS as a fresh factory order, so nearly £10k cheaper than an equivalent priced Model 3.

The running costs of our hybrid is as follows:

1: £20/year VED
2: £200/year service
3: 10p per mile in fuel costs - 50mpg using unleaded.
4: 1.5p per mile tyre costs.

Our IS300H does 6000 miles per year so total running cost over a year is £960/year. It would take nearly a decade to make up the difference in £10k brand new asking price.

Ofcourse for our situation it was a case of replacing old with new. Our IS300H is 5.5 years old and worth around £15k, so the total intial cost to change to a brand new Model 3 would have been £30kish, so financially it made zero sense, especially when our IS300H performs 'as new' with no worries about reliability even going fowards another 5 - 10 years. The reliability of the hybrid system in a Toyota/Lexus really is second to none, certainly less worrisome than any TDI, lets also forget the chance of been hit with any future clean air taxes in any diesel is pretty high versus any hybrid.

EVs only really make sense right now if you are looking to spend the equivalent amount on a brand new combustion car, in which case I would say they are a no brainer.

I love our current EV and its low running costs, if I hadn't bought it right now I would be in a BMW M5 or similar wasting 20p+ per mile just in fuel costs . But am also not under any illusions about what a barrier the initial purchase prices of EVs are for most people.

Thank you, very informative and helpful.
And, of course, my assessment before on EV running costs ignored the more favourable flexible tariffs such as Octopus Energy.  They help to make the EV a better financial prospect.
That £10k or more uplift on like-for-like new car still makes a significant impact to the overall balance.

facade

Grumpy_chap said:

nick74 said:
I'm more than a little sceptical of how the UK electricity grid is going to cope with the load of everyone going home in the evenings and plugging in a 100 kWh battery to charge..

According to National Grid, there is no problem.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted 

As long as those interconnects to Europe and Ireland can handle the extra load, we will be ok.

(Don't ask if they will pull the plug on us if it is really cold )

They were investing 25 gigapounds in infrastructure over 5 years last time I read the news, then there is that idea that we can't use gas in the future for heating & cooking- I'm sure we will be ok   )

If you are curious have a look at https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

I'm a bit worried about nuclear, we are only running at 50% output- something is wrong there...

MinuteNoodles

nick74 said:

A lot comes down to driving style. If your wife is managing to get 50 mpg from a Jazz automatic then I would think 60-70 mpg would be fairly easily achievable from a hybrid in the same conditions.

So as we're posting photos of dashboards...here's mine. It's Trip 2, the one that never gets reset and this is what it's done in the last 5864 miles since that was reset following a software update, the vast majority of that being just normal running around, I actually can't think of the last time it went on a motorway run...

So no better than a Ford Focus in normal daily driving then but you have to drive around in a vehicle which is larger and weighs more and takes more slowing down so it uses larger and more expensive tyres and may actually produce more particulate pollution than a Euro 6 diesel from the additional rubber plus brake dust. Also your vehicle takes longer to stop and is less stable on cornering due to the higher centre of gravity.

A full electric vehicle wouldn't have those issues due to a large battery low down massively lowering the centre of gravity and nice chunky electric motors basically attached to the wheels providing lots of lovely "engine" braking.

Not really convincing me hybrids are a good choice.

Scrapit

clive0510 said:

Scrapit said:

clive0510 said:

Scrapit said:

MinuteNoodles said:

daveyjp said:

A diesel Mondeo, Focus or any other make will not do 50+ mpg doing those sort of short hop city trips sat in heavy traffic and at some point the DPF,EGR will start complaining.

Actually they do and as long as they get a run out once every few weeks the DPF will be fine.

Absolutely not.

I have a 5 yr old peugeot diesel . that has a cat and a dpf. I've owned it for 4 yrs. never had a dpf problem, engine management light or anything.I pay zero road tax as its emissions are euro 6.1. I have it serviced once a year, also I put some of that diesel magic in the tank because it helps the injectors and keeps the fuel system in good order. and its fine. never a problem. 
but when it comes time to change, I will of course go for an electric car of some sort.

Thats all well and good but a diesel focus/mondeo simply will not return 50mpg around town

I'm getting 52mpg back n forward to work. about 12 miles each way. on a good long trip I get between 60 and 62mph. I'm not unhappy with that. 

So? Thats not a around town journey. I've managed a fleet of Ford focus 1.6 tdci, all mk3 some hatch, some estate none averaged more than 45 mpg in London. I did personally get one to 70mpg, 4 mpg off the claimed 74mpg but that was following a lorry up the a12 at 56mph to ipswich.

gzoom

@MinuteNoodles
Alot of us don't want to own diesels, I've had one before and never want another, hybrids offer diesel levels of economy without having to be a diesel.

The tyres on our hybrid lasted 27k miles and cost £70 each to replace with OEM spec, how much cheaper are the tyres on your TDI?

Hybrids DON'T produce more brake dust, the majority of braking is done by the electric motor so brakes last alot longer than normal.

Full EVs are great but our Tesla cost £70k, the cheapest Model 3 is £40k, realistic how many people can afford full EVs versus used Toyota hybrids??

Whilst I don't love our Lexus hybrid, I do appreciate how well Toyota has engineered it, and how efficient it is for a 2.2l petrol car stuffed full of gadgets.

Hoof_Hearted

Thank you for all your comments. I think I will try to hire a hybrid for a weekend to see what I think. With regard to full EVs, can you plug them in to Economy 7 meters to reduce the costs? Never had Economy 7, so know little about it, but I think it works off-peak.

gzoom

Hoof_Hearted said:

Never had Economy 7, so know little about it, but I think it woks off-peak.

With Bulb I pay 8p per kWh between 1-8am and 15.5p per kWh all other times. Bulb standard rate is 14p per kWh. Standing charge the same.

There are also other interesting tariffs around now including Octopus agile etc.

But what ever tariff you go for EV fuel cars are much lower than combustion cars, even on standard electricity tariff.

If you than add in things like solar/home battery storage the figures go nuts.....This is our home electricity bill for the last few months including charging the EV.

The days when you have to rely on a company like Shell or BP to fuel your car is limited when EV adoption becomes more main stream .

nick74

MinuteNoodles said:

nick74 said:

A lot comes down to driving style. If your wife is managing to get 50 mpg from a Jazz automatic then I would think 60-70 mpg would be fairly easily achievable from a hybrid in the same conditions.

So as we're posting photos of dashboards...here's mine. It's Trip 2, the one that never gets reset and this is what it's done in the last 5864 miles since that was reset following a software update, the vast majority of that being just normal running around, I actually can't think of the last time it went on a motorway run...

So no better than a Ford Focus in normal daily driving then but you have to drive around in a vehicle which is larger and weighs more and takes more slowing down so it uses larger and more expensive tyres and may actually produce more particulate pollution than a Euro 6 diesel from the additional rubber plus brake dust. Also your vehicle takes longer to stop and is less stable on cornering due to the higher centre of gravity.

A full electric vehicle wouldn't have those issues due to a large battery low down massively lowering the centre of gravity and nice chunky electric motors basically attached to the wheels providing lots of lovely "engine" braking.

Not really convincing me hybrids are a good choice.

Why would a hybrid produce more brake dust when they hardly use the friction brakes at all? Why would the battery on a hybrid give the car a higher centre of gravity and poorer handling whereas the battery on an EV apparently gives it a lower centre of gravity and better handling? The batteries on both are generally underneath?

ontheroad1970

gzoom said:

Hoof_Hearted said:

Never had Economy 7, so know little about it, but I think it woks off-peak.

With Bulb I pay 8p per kWh between 1-8am and 15.5p per kWh all other times. Bulb standard rate is 14p per kWh. Standing charge the same.

There are also other interesting tariffs around now including Octopus agile etc.

But what ever tariff you go for EV fuel cars are much lower than combustion cars, even on standard electricity tariff.

If you than add in things like solar/home battery storage the figures go nuts.....This is our home electricity bill for the last few months including charging the EV.

The days when you have to rely on a company like Shell or BP to fuel your car is limited when EV adoption becomes more main stream .

Shell do home energy now.  Awful they are...

NaughtiusMaximus

MinuteNoodles said:

Full electric or nothing. Hybrids are literally the worst of both worlds. Very short range on electric only, partly due to battery size constraints because of fuel tanks and additional weight penalty from the ICE engine, running on fuel the economy worse than a conventional petrol/diesel engined vehicle due to the additional weight penalty of the battery, fuel economy is actually worse than an equivalent size ICE engined vehicle. For example the above Prius the long term MPG is 50MPG which even my 10 year old 155,000 mile 2 litre Mondeo diesel which is larger managed to beat, my current Ford Focus is doing 64/65MPG going up to over 70MPG on a run.

In terms of economy it all depends on the type of driving you do. I've owned a Niro for 2 months, around town I get 57mpg, no diesel car I've ever owned (ie every car I've owned for the previous 20 years) comes close to that. For motorway driving the figure drops closer to 50mpg which is generally worse than diesel. 

Fuel isn't the only running cost to take into account though, the regenerative braking in a hybrid greatly reduces brake wear over the long term.