Driving On Petrol Only ?

[Seawolf]

Given the current price of electricity, the dropping price of petrol and the kind of driving I do, I reckon I would be better off driving on petrol than on electric.

Searched the manual more than once and can't find any reference to doing that, or what happens when the electricity runs out while driving.

Does it revert automatically to petrol, or do you just get stuck somewhere with no electricity ? I'm thinking of just driving on "AUTO" as much as I can, but do I have to worry when the lecky runs out ?

 

[ajw1100]

No need to worry, the car will just go to petrol power. I have run down to zero ev. But the battery will still have power ,if it ever got to actual empty it would be dead. Once you get to 1% on the dash it will revert to petrol and slowly top up the battery which it will use when it can.
Best leave the car to do it's own thing, and enjoy the ride.

 

[Seawolf]

Thankyou My Man ! Appreciate that. I'll not be pushing the EV button too often now, not that it works very much at this time of year in Scotland, as the heating is on all the time !

 

[TWbm]

I drove 230 miles on Thursday to see family. Started off with a full tank of petrol and a full battery - had a good run on the motorway and noted 38mpg for the run, with 16 miles EV left. Ran around locally for a couple of days and had 4 miles EV left yesterday evening when I set off to return, as I'd decided that a £7 charge just wasn't worth it for 31 miles plus I knew I'd be running at motorway speeds for four hours. EV was showing 1 mile after about 20 miles and stayed there.
Mpg for the return run, with one less passenger, was 32mpg, with no EV miles recorded for the trip.
Conclusion being that the EV contributes more to the long runs that I thought, and/or the unavoidable direct recharging from petrol engine to battery drops the mpg enough to be a nuisance.
That said, at 32mpg and £1.43 a litre, that's 2p a mile extra for petrol when compared to the usual 37mpg I get on a run, or £4.60 for the trip. So, I actually saved by not charging, but would have had a few electric miles left if I'd charged it at the commercial rate before I set off.

Those petrol miles were 18p going up, at £1.47 a litre local in Southampton, and 20p coming back at £1.43 in Wigan, on the lower MPG.

My EV-only miles cost 14.51p on my 32.59p per KWh tariff.

I think the lesson is either always charge up at 'sensible' rates, or it doesn't make that much difference on a long run.

 

[Seawolf]

Thanks for that. I appreciate the input, and yours puts my mind at ease even more about running on petrol.

Isn't it ironic ? We buy these cars to be more environmentally responsible, then events take over that make it economically unviable to use them on electric.

I thought about changing to an electric based heating system for my house last year. The outlay cost put me off at the time, and I'm now so glad I stuck with my oil fired heating.

 

[TWbm]

Thanks for that. I appreciate the input, and yours puts my mind at ease even more about running on petrol.

Isn't it ironic ? We buy these cars to be more environmentally responsible, then events take over that make it economically unviable to use them on electric.

I thought about changing to an electric based heating system for my house last year. The outlay cost put me off at the time, and I'm now so glad I stuck with my oil fired heating.

Yep, was very happy running about locally at 7.5p a mile when I bought it.

 

[sky0000547]

If you don’t charge the car you are basically driving a self charging hybrid. When the EV miles down to 0%, the car will drive in auto/hybrid mode only, it won’t allow you to switch to EV. You drive with the petrol engine and at traffic lights or stop/start traffic, the car will likely to switch to EV then back to petrol above 25mph. Regenerative braking will put some EV miles back into the battery but don’t forget even the EV mileage is showing 0%, there are still EV charge in reserve.

 

[Seawolf]

Thank you for that. All the input I am getting from you all is making me more secure in using petrol only ..... at least until we get more sunshine up here in Scotland, and I can charge directly from my solar panels.

Had a bill of £730 for electricity for December, and after eliminating everything else that could have contributed I was left with the charging of the car without solar assistance !

I tended to just leave it plugged in for days at a time, until I checked with my smart meter, and even when the car was showing 100% charge, there was still electricity running into it at times at about 80p an hour !

Roll on a sunny spring !

 

[jem111111]

hi seawolf you stated " I tended to just leave it plugged in for days at a time, until I checked with my smart meter, and even when the car was showing 100% charge, there was still electricity running into it at times at about 80p an hour !"

If you are seeing 80p an hour, then depending on your cost of electricity , thats alot of elecrtic.
So if you are on 40p kwh ..that means you are seeing 2kw??
if you are on 80p kwh you are seeing 1kw
I am no expert but that does not seem right to me( if you are at 100%) and not what i see.

On EVs there is a management system on the battery which reduces the charging rate the closer to 100% it gets to protect the battery and im guessing that our phevs also has one.

I leave mine plugged in over night ( to use octopus go cheap rate until 01:30) and when i unplug it at about 07:00 all i see on my electricity ( viewed on my usage meter) is between 200-300 watts ( which is about right for my house usage over night).
So basically when it reached 100% it stops drawing electricity.
I have seen it ( before i had cheap rate electricity) start at 2.4 kw when empty ( i use a granny charger) drop to 1.8kw (when its in the mid 20 mile range approx 80%)then i see it drop the charging rate the closer to 32 miles ( 100%) and when it gets to 100% it stops.

It would be interesting to see what are other peoples thoughts and experiences are.

 

[Seawolf]

I got the figure of 80p an hour from my smart meter. As in how much is the smart meter saying I am using in pounds or pence with the car charging, and how much when I switch the charging off. The difference was where I got the 80p+ from. I tried it several times to be sure it was coming from the charging. Kilowatts and the like are Greek to me. I don't understand lecky jargon. I do understand the cash, though. I am a Scotsman !

 

[jem111111]

Hi Seawolf yes it can be confusing , and we all need to understand cash especially in this economic fuel crisis we are in lol.
So on my smart meter display , i only look at "usage now" , and that shows the amount of electricity the house is using at that time.
Personally i don't look at the cost because when i went on octopus go , im sure i was told don't care about what the price shows as my rate cannot be programmed into the display so will be wrong.
Im hoping this will be the same for you.

Again i am no expert ( there are better people on here who can explain) but here goes lol.

Just think of kilowatts like either litres or gallons of petrol , it a quantity you use and there is a price for that quantity.
So petrol is £1.45 a litre
approx £6.50 a gallon
So you know if you buy a gallon you will go a certain distance in your petrol car for £6.50.

Kilowatts is the same but for your electricity usage . You will see a price on your electricity bill quoted in pence per kwh ( kilowatthour).
So if this is 40p per kilowatt (Kw) hour it means you can run an appliance ( eg a 1kw electric fire) for 1 hour and it will cost you 40p
A kettle can use 2 kwh , which is the amount of energy it uses to heat the water( but only for 3 mins while boiling). If my maths is correct this would cost 4p
So if you look on your display for electric usage ( assuming you can do that) you might see your house at about 300 watts ( 0.3 kw) .
If you turn the kettle ( assuming its a 2kw kettle) on this reading will jump up to 2.3kw and stay like that until the kettle turns off , then it will show 300watts ( 0.3kw).

Its the same when i plug my car in ( via a granny lead) i see the house usage jump by 2.4kw.

I hope this does not come across as teaching my grandmother to suck eggs ( as its not supposed to be)

So it might be an idea to see if when you plug the car in , how much the usage jumps by ( assuming you can see this) then you will know if 80p seems right.

i hope this helps and not hinders lol

 

[Jto]

I got the figure of 80p an hour from my smart meter. As in how much is the smart meter saying I am using in pounds or pence with the car charging, and how much when I switch the charging off. The difference was where I got the 80p+ from. I tried it several times to be sure it was coming from the charging. Kilowatts and the like are Greek to me. I don't understand lecky jargon. I do understand the cash, though. I am a Scotsman !

Hi
I use electric to go and from work much as possible and do 10 to 11 miles out of the 14 miles per day at this time of year. I know that the house uses 80p of electricity per night from midnight to 7 am, I have my granny charger set up on a socket that I can control from my phone and has a timer function on it so that it charges the car at 5 minutes past midnight. In the morning I look at my displays ( which is set up with the tariff cost on it.) then I deduct the 80p from that and gives me the cost to charge the car back up. It is around £1 to £1.40. The cost over the month is £30 to £40 depending on what I do at the weekend. As the weather warms up you get better miles in the EV and can get to and from work on EV totally for around £1.40.
in my last car I would spend up to £30 a week on petrol and at this time it’s £12 to £15 depending on how cold it is.

 

[Billym44]

I drove 230 miles on Thursday to see family. Started off with a full tank of petrol and a full battery - had a good run on the motorway and noted 38mpg for the run, with 16 miles EV left. Ran around locally for a couple of days and had 4 miles EV left yesterday evening when I set off to return, as I'd decided that a £7 charge just wasn't worth it for 31 miles plus I knew I'd be running at motorway speeds for four hours. EV was showing 1 mile after about 20 miles and stayed there.
Mpg for the return run, with one less passenger, was 32mpg, with no EV miles recorded for the trip.
Conclusion being that the EV contributes more to the long runs that I thought, and/or the unavoidable direct recharging from petrol engine to battery drops the mpg enough to be a nuisance.
That said, at 32mpg and £1.43 a litre, that's 2p a mile extra for petrol when compared to the usual 37mpg I get on a run, or £4.60 for the trip. So, I actually saved by not charging, but would have had a few electric miles left if I'd charged it at the commercial rate before I set off.

Those petrol miles were 18p going up, at £1.47 a litre local in Southampton, and 20p coming back at £1.43 in Wigan, on the lower MPG.

My EV-only miles cost 14.51p on my 32.59p per KWh tariff.

I think the lesson is either always charge up at 'sensible' rates, or it doesn't make that much difference on a long run.

Been wondering about this sort of situation. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[BarryH]

I got the figure of 80p an hour from my smart meter. As in how much is the smart meter saying I am using in pounds or pence with the car charging, and how much when I switch the charging off. The difference was where I got the 80p+ from. I tried it several times to be sure it was coming from the charging. Kilowatts and the like are Greek to me. I don't understand lecky jargon. I do understand the cash, though. I am a Scotsman !

I'd suggest that if you're a Scotsman and want to save money you start learning about KWh then which sometimes are referred to as "Units of electricity". Essentially what you were saying is that if your electricity company were charging you 40p for each kilowatt-hour (kWh) and you said that the car was using electricity at a rate of 80p an hour that's using electricity at 2 kW or 2 Units per hour equivalent as they used to say, to a 2 Bar electric fire or 2 kW fan heater. The only way your fully charged Hybrid could be using that much electrical power I would think would be if it was turned on and the heater was on max and the lights and heated rear screen etc were all on. Even a long-range Pure Battery EV with a large EV Traction Battery when fully charged and running an essential battery maintenance routine called Cell Equalization Charge would only draw 200-300 watts (0.2-0.3 kW) for a maximum of about 3 to 4 hours before switching off.

 

[roisin]

Given the current price of electricity, the dropping price of petrol and the kind of driving I do, I reckon I would be better off driving on petrol than on electric.

Searched the manual more than once and can't find any reference to doing that, or what happens when the electricity runs out while driving.

Does it revert automatically to petrol, or do you just get stuck somewhere with no electricity ? I'm thinking of just driving on "AUTO" as much as I can, but do I have to worry when the lecky runs out ?

No, the car will change automatically to petrol and it may charge 2% or 3% of electricity while driving but it won"t stop if you have petrol in your tank.

 

[Jto]

Given the current price of electricity, the dropping price of petrol and the kind of driving I do, I reckon I would be better off driving on petrol than on electric.

Searched the manual more than once and can't find any reference to doing that, or what happens when the electricity runs out while driving.

Does it revert automatically to petrol, or do you just get stuck somewhere with no electricity ? I'm thinking of just driving on "AUTO" as much as I can, but do I have to worry when the lecky runs out ?

Hi
just to let you know I have spent £7.00 on electric in total this week to charge the car going to and from work and toped up petrol which cost £6.00 for the week.