Electric Hybrib Car lease

born_again

Mildly_Miffed said:

wilkesy1979 said:

WellKnownSid said:

What was the impact on the car? Was it undriveable? Multiple breakdowns? Were you given a courtesy car when the car broke down?

None of the above. The car has never charged to anywhere near the estimated mileage. I would always get 26-28 miles of the batteries on a good day in the summer, down to 13-15 miles in the winter, where as the manufacturer stated 38 miles. So i only ever really got between 60-70% of the manufactures stated battery mileage. I was always told that this was due to 'Other Factors' but I'm beginning to wonder. 

It's illegal for anybody to give range figures other than the official ones - which are generated using the same NEDC cycle as fuel economy figures from petrol and diesel cars.

Nobody drives that exact cycle, of course. So different people's figures can vary widely. My diesel 4x4 gets ~35mpg at most if I use it locally - short journeys, low speeds, steep hills, lots of acceleration and deceleration. But if I use it on a long motorway run, 50mpg is fairly easy.

Same for hybrid range.

But what's your actual complaint? They've identified a problem, and are recalling the car to fix it.
Are you even experiencing the fault identified? What car are you talking about?

You want four year's worth of payments back? Not going to happen.
Even if there was grounds for return due to problems, you'd still have to make a contribution based on a fair rate for the use you've had from the car.

It's been WLTP
From 1 September 2019 all light duty vehicles that are to be registered in EU countries (and also in Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Turkey) must comply with the WLTP standards

Herzlos

What's the nature of the defect(s) in the recall and what loss do you think you've suffered?

The recall is likely to be something like a potential faulty sensor that may do something odd in some conditions, rather than something that'd impact the battery performance to the extent your seeing.

You can always ask if the faults would explain the poor range and see what they say.

WellKnownSid

wilkesy1979 said:

WellKnownSid said:

What was the impact on the car? Was it undriveable? Multiple breakdowns? Were you given a courtesy car when the car broke down?

None of the above. The car has never charged to anywhere near the estimated mileage. I would always get 26-28 miles of the batteries on a good day in the summer, down to 13-15 miles in the winter, where as the manufacturer stated 38 miles. So i only ever really got between 60-70% of the manufactures stated battery mileage. I was always told that this was due to 'Other Factors' but I'm beginning to wonder. 

EV batteries need to be warmed up to give their maximum range.  PHEVs don't normally have any pre-heating so you might need an enthusiastic ten mile drive with lots of regen to get them to a decent operating temperature - by which time you've used quite a chunk of capacity.

If you can garage your car in a steady 23 degrees for 24 hours before your drive you might get closer to WLTP.

Goudy

WellKnownSid said:

wilkesy1979 said:

WellKnownSid said:

What was the impact on the car? Was it undriveable? Multiple breakdowns? Were you given a courtesy car when the car broke down?

None of the above. The car has never charged to anywhere near the estimated mileage. I would always get 26-28 miles of the batteries on a good day in the summer, down to 13-15 miles in the winter, where as the manufacturer stated 38 miles. So i only ever really got between 60-70% of the manufactures stated battery mileage. I was always told that this was due to 'Other Factors' but I'm beginning to wonder. 

EV batteries need to be warmed up to give their maximum range.  PHEVs don't normally have any pre-heating so you might need an enthusiastic ten mile drive with lots of regen to get them to a decent operating temperature - by which time you've used quite a chunk of capacity.

If you can garage your car in a steady 23 degrees for 24 hours before your drive you might get closer to WLTP.

They also need cooling.
Sensors around the battery pack will monitor the battery temps.
These are linked to a cooling system, either a liquid or air system that try and keep it within a reasonable operating temp.

Just like cold batteries, battery performance/life drops off with heat.
Excess heat can lead to wrapping modules and cells leaking.

Batteries are made up of modules with several battery cells in them.
These modules are then connected into blocks, these blocks are usually two modules connected in series.
Then all the blocks are connected up in series to give you one high voltage battery pack.

The middle modules/blocks are prone to excess heat as they are packed tight together and can't dissipate heat as well as the outer modules/blocks.

Not only does this put the middle modules/blocks at risk of damage, it causes poor performance problems often detectable when checking block deltas.
This delta is the difference in charge/discharge of the highest and lowest performing blocks.
A problem with high deltas will usually after shut down the hybrid system as it doesn't like a high delta between blocks and it wants to protect the battery.

Some manufacturers have had troubles with battery heat and are often recalled for new software/coolant control to help it.
(Some of it be self inflicted, certain Prius's air systems are prone to fan clogging. I've seen a few myself and they all tend to be dog owners!)

It's a balancing act to get the right battery performance and battery life, not all cars are used the same way in the same ambient temps.

The software tends to try and protect the battery and battery life.
They won't fully charge, a Toyota hybrid battery won't charge above 80% even though the display on the dash indicates full/100%.

They also won't fully discharge, again Toyotas software will think 40% is it's maximum discharge even though the display states it's completely flat.
This is why batteries have a stated capacity but you can only use a certain amount of it.

The software will also change how they charge/discharge based on battery temps on the fly.
Which is one of the reasons you get different battery performance/range when the ambient temps are different.
One day the battery's temp is ideal when you charge up so you get good range, the next it's hot/cold when you charge and the range drops.