I need to replace my car. Happily, I’m changing jobs and will have a company car as part of my package. I’m considering a plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) because here in the UK the tax we pay on company cars is much less for hybrids than for petrol or diesel cars (fully electric vehicles are basically tax-free, but I’m not convinced that a full EV would make sense for my use case).
Most of my driving would be short local trips (a couple of miles into town plus maybe a 15 mile round-trip commute a few days per week). However I also do occasional longer trips, where there might not be the opportunity to charge the car. What I’m wondering is, for those longer trips, can I treat a PHEV like a regular petrol vehicle, and ignore the electric component - or do I always need to worry about battery charge even if the tank is full of gas?
Short answer, yes. You don’t ever have to charge them if you don’t want. And they drive like a hybrid. However, gas mode varies with car. For example, the Prius Prime drives beautifully on gas, and gets very good mileage. The Chevy Volt (at least my 2012 version) drove rough on gas and wasn’t fun to drive after you exceed the 30-40 miles of all EV range.
Yes, you can run on the internal combustion engine (ICE) only. My '21 Audi Q5 PHEV has three driving modes for battery usage. The default is to use 100% battery until it’s depleted, then ICE. The second is 100% ICE in which you can save the battery charge for later. The third mode is “hybrid” where the vehicle selects the battery/ICE combination according to driving conditions. If you enter a destination into the GPS the vehicle will plan the battery/ICE combination so the battery is depleted when you reach the destination. In all modes the system will simultaneously use the battery and ICE if there is a lot if demand.
My battery is good for about 30 miles in the summer and 20 miles in the winter which for my driving habits is about all I need for a typical day. I rarely use any gasoline.
But be careful when in the opposite situation - recently my manager and I both had (and unfortunately, no longer have) Renault Plug-In hybrid vehicles (and very impressive things they are too).
When delivered, my managers vehicle had no petrol but full battery charge (about 40 miles range, similar to the Audi of @Yosh99). So he (incorrectly) thought he could put it in full EV (‘Pure’) mode to drive on the battery alone to get to a petrol station less than a mile away.
cue a stranded vehicle, a walk to the petrol station and back, purchasing both a fuel can and 5 litres of petrol!!
The operating strategy of the Renault E-Tech system is such that it always pulls away in electric mode (hence it is known as a ‘strong’ hybrid (‘mild’ hybrids require initial pull-away with the combustion motor before an electric motor can assist or drive once a requisite momentum has been gained)).
Therefore it is essential that the battery is prevented from discharging completely (cell damage can occur). So it is therefore also essential that the vehicle is capable of recharging the battery. The battery is recharged by running a generator that runs of the engine that runs of the petrol.
No petrol, no engine. No engine, no charge. No charge, possible battery damage (if you keep driving).
Therefore, ‘no petrol’ = ‘no vehicle start’ (or stops if you’re driving!) to prevent battery damage.
Which, lets face it, is not different to a conventional ICE vehicle that runs out of juice (and any regular user of the Blackwall Tunnel will attest to that fact that those idiots are still out there…)
Thanks all, these are useful replies. I’m not sure yet exactly what cars will be available to choose from, but in general what I’ve taken from this thread is that should I find myself driving a PHEV in areas with no opportunity to charge it’s fine as long as I don’t run out of gas. Have I got that right?
@TwoCarrotSnowman yes - Renault have a Hybrid (currently the Clio and Arkana models) and a Plug-In Hybrid (Megane and Captur models) option.
The Clio and Arkana only recharge whilst driving, and the Plug-In models and be plugged in or driven to recharge. (incidentally, there is no difference in the Hybrid propulsion system between the two, just the operating voltage (280V for Hybrid and 400V for Plug-In) and the addition of a charger for the Plug-In. The 400V is a bit quicker pulling away but they’re both fun).
But both have the same strategy with regard to fuel level. They’ll both stop when the fuel runs out.
And yes, narky emails were sent following this. But he should’ve read the book, to be fair…
I had an '08 Camry Hybrid - not plug-in. It almost always ran on gas. It was a weird felling to be backing out of the garage on electric and halfway down the driveway the car would rumble as the engine started by itself.
From what I read at the time, Toyota made sure the vehicle’s battery did not degrade by not allowing the charge to go below 80%. Not sure where that’s at nowadays. Regardless, it ran file for 10 years, the only major work was from end suspension. It was still going strong when I traded it in for a Tesla. the thing I liked about it, the engine was 1600cc for a big car, about the same engine as my old (1990) Honda Civic. For acceleration and passing, the electric motor usually helped so a big engine was not necessary. I used to tell people, the car’s computer micromanages energy, recapturing much of it when slowing down so it would get highway gas mileage in city driving. I assume the vehicle charged the battery while driving since it was not plug-in, but left room for energy re-capture via braking.
I assume most PHEV’s have the same feature, that the ICE will recharge the battery as needed during the drive as well as moving the vehicle? Or is that task left to the plug-in?
The other advantage with the Camry (and I assume Prius) was the Continuous Variable transmission, so the engine tended to run at a few sweet spots rather than regularly changing speed with the vehicle (allegedly also more fuel efficient and less polluting).
We have a Prius Prime that we use just as the OP and Chronos outline. The car is always, seamlessly, switching from electric to gas, charging and discharging. It means we get about 3.3 litres/100 kilometres, about 70 US mpg. We will get better mileage when we can charge it at home. On long trips, we get between 4-5 liters/100 kilometres, or 58-47 mpg, depending on hills and speed
