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

Herzlos

shinytop said:

Peter999_2 said:

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.

I get enough E miles to do all my local city driving/commuting at 2-3p per mile and with zero tailpipe emissions.  Then at the weekend I can go as far as I like without having to recharge.  I'm fairly confident my petrol engine isn't going to go wrong.   

A pure petrol or diesel would cost me more to run and be more polluting. An EV would stop me driving where and when I want to go. 

Why is my hybrid the worst of both worlds?  

My usage is more or less the same, and I think that's about the only use case where a PHEV makes sense.
I easily do 100 miles a day on the out of town days, but otherwise 10 miles would be enough. 

Back when an EV only did 50 miles, a PHEV would have been ideal, but now I can do the 100 mile day on battery too without having to carry and maintain a combustion engine. 

Now mild/self-charging hybrids make some sense to bring the petrol emissions down in low speed areas, but the use case for a small battery with a petrol engine needs fairly extreme mileages to make sense. 

You're always going to get the people who need to drive 300 miles without stopping or going near electricity but outside of really niche cases like organ deliveries or long distance multi-driver deliveries, it's not really a concern for most people. 

born_again

facade said:

Probably the reason why they cripple the alternator except during engine warmup, which wouldn't be tested in WLTP, then just don't turn the steering or use the aircon for minimum fuel consumption.

Hybrids do not have a alternator. They have a motor generator. With the EV motor doing both. 

facade

born_again said:

facade said:

Probably the reason why they cripple the alternator except during engine warmup, which wouldn't be tested in WLTP, then just don't turn the steering or use the aircon for minimum fuel consumption.

Hybrids do not have a alternator. They have a motor generator. With the EV motor doing both. 

Sorry, I meant ICE cars in general. Fords have crippled the alternator for years, people pull the control wire out to get it to work properly. My Suzuki does it too, and doesn't charge the battery properly so it needs a top-up from the charger every few weeks.

Goudy

born_again said:

facade said:

Probably the reason why they cripple the alternator except during engine warmup, which wouldn't be tested in WLTP, then just don't turn the steering or use the aircon for minimum fuel consumption.

Hybrids do not have a alternator. They have a motor generator. With the EV motor doing both. 

Yes, it's quite common for Hybrids to have two motor generators.

One will handle propulsion forward.
The other will usually be used for charging of the battery, either by the ICE or though regenerative braking.
This second motor generator will also usually handle reverse gear as well.

shinytop

Grumpy_chap said:

shinytop said:

Grumpy_chap said:

shinytop said:

 An EV would stop me driving where and when I want to go. 
 

Why?
In 2 1/2 years, I struggled finding enough need to charge away from home to use the free charging miles provided at purchase.

Because I regularly do a near 300 mile round trip all year round without destination charging and I don't want to add time to that journey by stopping to charge.  I could manage with an EV but I'm doing about 70% of my miles in EV mode now (and near 100% of my urban driving) so I think I'm doing OK emissions-wise.

You do know that there are many EVs that will easily do 300 miles real world on a single charge and plenty to spare?
In fact, that's the very reason I struggled to use up the free charging included as part of the package when I bought the car.

Your 300 mile trip is - obviously - 150 miles each way so (unless you start and end on the motorway junction) at least 3 hours each way in which a comfort break would be recommended.  A "splash and dash" charge during that comfort break would not add anything to your journey time.

Yes I do but they cost more than I want to pay or are bigger/heavier cars than I want.  And real world, dark, winter, heating on; I'm not sure there are that many. 

It's under 3 hours and I don't need a comfort break in a sub-3 hour journey (I'm aware of what the Highway Code says and also know the HGV rules).  At the risk of repeating myself, an EV would stop me driving where and when I want to go.