My new Citroen Hybrid is too expensive to charge and cheaper to run on petrol? Yeap, it's bizarre.

Gobsh

My new Citroen Hybrid is too expensive to charge and cheaper to run on petrol?

Yeap, it's bizarre.

My Citroen C5 Air cross is just coming up to 3 years old. 

Citroen advertise it gets 30-40 miles on a full charge, but I've never had 30, usually around 25 miles but currently get less than 20, a miserable 19 miles this morning. Each time I raise this, Citroen just think it's funny that I believed the guff. I'm confident that this is just typical performance for a Citroen C5 going by feedback from others.

The battery is 13.5 KW, std rate electricity is about 25p per kwatt, it manages about 58 miles per gallon of petrol on the motorway and unless my maths are wrong, it's cheaper to run the Citroen on petrol???? Hybrids are obviously much more expensive to buy than straight petrol, but it seems we are wasting our money on Citroen Hybrid Technology. I'm not sure how Citroen finds this acceptable or even legal? I understand the battery performance claims are based purely on statistics, but surely Citroen are obligated to get somewhere near, maybe half??

What do you think?

LightFlare

Gobsh said:

My new Citroen Hybrid is too expensive to charge and cheaper to run on petrol?

Yeap, it's bizarre.

My Citroen C5 Air cross is just coming up to 3 years old. 

Citroen advertise it gets 30-40 miles on a full charge, but I've never had 30, usually around 25 miles but currently get less than 20, a miserable 19 miles this morning. Each time I raise this, Citroen just think it's funny that I believed the guff. I'm confident that this is just typical performance for a Citroen C5 going by feedback from others.

The battery is 13.5 KW, std rate electricity is about 25p per kwatt, it manages about 58 miles per gallon of petrol on the motorway and unless my maths are wrong, it's cheaper to run the Citroen on petrol???? Hybrids are obviously much more expensive to buy than straight petrol, but it seems we are wasting our money on Citroen Hybrid Technology. I'm not sure how Citroen finds this acceptable or even legal? I understand the battery performance claims are based purely on statistics, but surely Citroen are obligated to get somewhere near, maybe half??

What do you think?

considering the outside temp is now into single digits 

and you admit you have gotten close to 85% of their lower range

- I think you are doing quite well and are easily meeting your expectation of 50%

Gobsh

Electric mumbo jumbo aside. So you think it's ok that a hybrid is cheaper to run on petrol?

flaneurs_lobster

Marketing mumbo jumbo aside, this is why my next car will be petrol.

Mildly_Miffed

The hybrid battery is 13.2kWh, but you aren't putting that much into it when you plug in. You're probably using 80% of the capacity at most - so 10.5kWh, so 2.4 miles/kWh, so at 25p/kWh, a gnat under 10p/mile, worst case.

58mpg is 12.8 miles/litre.
£1.40/litre is 10.8p/mile.

But if you have an E7 meter, and charge overnight at 14.5p/kWh, that per mile rate comes down to 6p. Other tariffs may reduce that further, or it can be free from domestic solar.

Also, you say you are getting 58mpg on the motorway - but that's your best case, where you're going to be assisted by using the hybridisation to assist acceleration and climbing hills, while regenerating from deceleration and descents. And what economy if you were 100% on petrol in town, where the hybrid would be running purely on electricity most of the time?

Hybrid ranges are calculated using the exact same process as official fuel consumption figures - the WLTP test cycle. You say you don't know how it's "legal" to make their claims... it would be illegal to use any other figures in marketing.

Rodders53

My Volvo EV over the summer has been doing around 4 miles per kWh (25 kWh/100miles).  Now it's colder that will decrease...  (Current average is showing at 27.5 kWh/100 miles since I reset the trip meter on the 7th Nov = 3.6 miles/kWh).  I'm expecting nearer to 3 miles/kWh over winter (further will be a bonus).  I mostly charge at home on an EV tariff though.  Public chargers are much more expensive than peak rate home electric!

AIUI PHEVs (plug-in Hybrids) don't always fully discharge the traction battery so your 13.5kWh may only use some of that (likely leaving a good bit in reserve, perhaps circa 10-20%?).  Do you charge to 100%, or less? = lower electric range.

https://www.speakev.com/threads/i-want-to-maximise-the-hybrid-battery-functions-on-my-citroen-c5-aircross.186280 may be of interest? 

Citroen (Stellantis group?) forums and PHEV specific ones may have more info to help inform you - and how to challenge the Dealer if necessary.

Peter999_2

Hybrids are the worst of both worlds.   Not a large enough battery to get enough miles and still with the petrol engine and it's thousands of moving parts that can go wrong.    I have never understood the purpose of hybrids - either get a full electric (so long as you can charge at home on the cheap 7-8p per kWh rate) or buy a petrol/diesel car.

born_again

Gobsh said:

My new Citroen Hybrid is too expensive to charge and cheaper to run on petrol?

Yeap, it's bizarre.

My Citroen C5 Air cross is just coming up to 3 years old. 

Citroen advertise it gets 30-40 miles on a full charge, but I've never had 30, usually around 25 miles but currently get less than 20, a miserable 19 miles this morning. Each time I raise this, Citroen just think it's funny that I believed the guff. I'm confident that this is just typical performance for a Citroen C5 going by feedback from others.

The battery is 13.5 KW, std rate electricity is about 25p per kwatt, it manages about 58 miles per gallon of petrol on the motorway and unless my maths are wrong, it's cheaper to run the Citroen on petrol???? Hybrids are obviously much more expensive to buy than straight petrol, but it seems we are wasting our money on Citroen Hybrid Technology. I'm not sure how Citroen finds this acceptable or even legal? I understand the battery performance claims are based purely on statistics, but surely Citroen are obligated to get somewhere near, maybe half??

What do you think?

You are aware that the range figures given are not from Citroen, But set by WLTP a independent organization. These are not real world figures in the main. They are there to allow you to see the difference between various cars as it is a harmonised test.
Just the same as ICE cars will not get the quoted MPG most of the time.

Citroen just think it's funny that I believed the guff. Not surprised.

You are getting half the range even @19 miles. 

Herzlos

The difficultly with the comparison is that you can presumably be running with pure battery, pure petrol, or a mix of the 2. You may not really notice when the battery is helping the petrol, so it may look like petrol is doing better than it is. 

WellKnownSid

The problem is that hybrid mpg drops to that of a straight petrol in Winter, and a PHEV will have a much more basic battery setup - just some cooling.

Without preheating, a stone cold battery might take 20 miles to warm up to a level where you're getting reasonable mileage - by which time you've already run out of juice.  Cabin heat might also knock a couple of kWh from your battery in that distance.

When it hit -5 last week our Zoe dropped to 2.7m/kWh for the early morning school run - that included 10 minutes of de-icing (3kW) via the app followed by a 20 mile round trip via the motorway with the speed pegged at 70mph + 3kW of heat pump + seats and steering wheel on full - which is about 2.8 pence per mile.

AI suggests your battery is about 11.5kWh usable which means you're seeing around 1.65m/KWh which is bad but not surprising for a car which is part petrol / part EV

Ectophile

The WLTP test is the only official one that manufacturers can quote.  It includes very little motorway speed driving.  It's mostly simulating urban travel.

EVs are great for urban travel, with its stop-start driving and low maximum speeds.  They run the battery flat quite quick at motorway speeds (wind resistance is proportional to speed cubed).

The reverse is true for petrol cars.