Going electric or hybrid

shinytop

PHEVs are great.  I had a Golf GTE.  It was a really nice car and I enjoyed driving it in EV mode. I charged it every day for the three years I had it and used most of the charge most days.  Say 900 days at 20 miles a day.  That's 18,000 tailpipe-emission-free miles which is  more than a lot of EVs do.  If the BiK deal wasn't so good, all 130,000 of my miles over the three years would have been using diesel. 

Stubod

.self charging hybrids are a complete mystery to me....could never see the logic of using an IC engine to charge a battery to power a car???..surely just a means to meet some arbitrary emissions target with no real world benefits. Probably costs more to manufacture than will ever be saved?....a bit like "stop start" technology...another waste of time?...IMHO. All electric is the only real option assuming you don't need a massive range in one go...  

peter3hg

Stubod said:

.self charging hybrids are a complete mystery to me....could never see the logic of using an IC engine to charge a battery to power a car???..surely just a means to meet some arbitrary emissions target with no real world benefits. Probably costs more to manufacture than will ever be saved?....a bit like "stop start" technology...another waste of time?...IMHO. All electric is the only real option assuming you don't need a massive range in one go...  

Self charging hybrids are primarily charged through regenerative braking, therefore reusing some of the energy that would normally be lost through heat in the brakes of a normal car.
They don't use the engine to charge the batteries in that sense.

They give the biggest boost to efficiency where there is a lot of braking and accelerating such as in a town.
They provide almost no benefit on something like a long motorway drive.

benbay001

Stubod said:

.self charging hybrids are a complete mystery to me....could never see the logic of using an IC engine to charge a battery to power a car???..surely just a means to meet some arbitrary emissions target with no real world benefits. Probably costs more to manufacture than will ever be saved?....a bit like "stop start" technology...another waste of time?...IMHO. All electric is the only real option assuming you don't need a massive range in one go...  

Says someone who really doesnt know what they are talking about.

A "self charging" hybrid isnt like having a diesel generator sat in your garden to charge your Tesla at night, instead its all about making the most efficient use of the fuel that gets burnt.

My (new to me 2010 Auris) hybrid is basically a Prius in a frock. It gets 55 mpg no matter what type of driving i am doing, town of motorway. Try to get that from an equivalent conventional petrol and you simply wont.

https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/search.html suggest that a conventional petrol 1.6 Auris will achieve 37mpg average. Thats one massive fuel saving without the driver having to do anything different than they would with a normal petrol.

Buy an EV if you want an EV, but for most people its makes far more sense to have a "self charging" hybrid.

Stubod

..yea right...lots of "free energy" generated by braking. We use Honda CRV hybrides for work, they just about get to the end of the road before the IC kicks in and then on a good day return about 33mpg which is less than I used to get out of a petrol version. +higher initial cost for batteries/tech and more stuff to (eventually) go wrong and cost yet more money to put right. I will not be getting a self charging hybrid...

AdrianC

Stubod said:

..yea right...lots of "free energy" generated by braking. We use Honda CRV hybrides for work, they just about get to the end of the road before the IC kicks in and then on a good day return about 33mpg which is less than I used to get out of a petrol version. +higher initial cost for batteries/tech and more stuff to (eventually) go wrong and cost yet more money to put right. I will not be getting a self charging hybrid...

This was certainly my experience putting a couple of thousand km on a hired, virtually brand-new Auris hybrid estate a few years ago.

Quite probably the dullest car I've ever driven, as well as several glaring design issues - the boot was ridiculously shallow, thanks to the battery, and anything but bone-dry roads left the reversing camera unusable unless you got out and cleaned the lens before selecting reverse.

And a few electrical shenanigans - the dash went off completely while driving, only coming back on restarting.

Stubod

The Honda CRV has a CV Transmission that seems to completely sap any energy and provides a truly awful driving experience. (like continually slipping the clutch).

Regarding economy we currently have a 1.4 petrol (AWD) that achieves and average of 44mpg, and a 1.5 petrol Mazda that returns 55mpg, I am not sure fitting a battery system to either would significantly improve economy which is largely down to your style of driving and type of journey, but each to there own?

AdrianC

Stubod said:

The Honda CRV has a CV Transmission that seems to completely sap any energy and provides a truly awful driving experience. (like continually slipping the clutch).

Most hybrids do, because it's the easiest way to balance power inputs from two sources, one of which can be reversible to be a power output for regeneration.

There used to be some good working animations of how the Toyota planetary box worked - but a quick google suggests they've fallen foul to the demise of Flash.

rmg1

Wow, didn't think this thread would garner this much attention!!!

Like a previous poster said, my daily "commute" is around the 20 mile mark with longer journeys here and there.
It sounds like a self-charging hybrid would be the way to go for me.  I did have a look at the i3REX and the Ampera but they all seem to be (comparatively) quite old.

I'm currently driving a 2015 Mokka so I'd prefer something about the same size (the boot is a bit short for my liking but that's just personal preference).  I've seen the comments about hybrids having smaller (i.e. shallower) boots but I suppose that's just something I'd have to get used to).

From looking at the prices of second hand cars, guess I'd better start saving up 

AdrianC

rmg1 said:

Like a previous poster said, my daily "commute" is around the 20 mile mark with longer journeys here and there.
It sounds like a self-charging hybrid would be the way to go for me.

A non-plug-in hybrid won't do that on battery alone.

I did have a look at the i3REX and the Ampera but they all seem to be (comparatively) quite old.

The i3 REx was discontinued in 2018, when they increased the battery size. The Ampera was only briefly available from 2012-2016.
I'm currently driving a 2015 Mokka so I'd prefer something about the same size The Mokka was an old-shape Corsa on stilts. There's a new Corsa (same thing as the Pug 208 and Citroen C3, because Vauxhall/Opel is owned by Peugeot/Fiat now) - available in a very highly regarded EV version. If you prefer that extra height, then there's an electric SUV equivalent with both badges, Pug 2008 and Vx Mokka.