Consumer poo-poos claimed PHEV and Hybrid fuel consumption figures

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Mad Scientist
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#3050539 15-Mar-2023 17:15

At the moment my plan is simple.

EV for town, ICE for out of town. 95% of my travel is within town.

Everyone is different, how many chargers they have access to is different, ability to plan is different (mine is hopeless).

danielparker

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#3050540 15-Mar-2023 17:17

Honestly have never done the maths. It would almost have to be a very deliberate test.. as we always start a trip with approx 80km of Battery charge, so would need to drain that first and then test.

It still runs on battery only on a motorway at 100Km/hr.. so battery would have to be flat first. I would *guess* 8 - 9 litres per 100Km.. but that literally would be a guess.

Juicytree

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#3050594 15-Mar-2023 17:48

For reference, I have a PHEV Prius Prime and a hybrid RAV4. We are retired (no commuting). The Prius is used for shorter journeys to our nearest city - 70kms return and as a shopping basket in the village we live in. it is regularly plugged in at home. The RAV4 for longer journeys, usually greater than 200 kms. The Prius is presently running at 1.9 litres per 100 km and the RAV is fairly stable at 5.4 litres / 100 k.

eonsim

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#3050616 15-Mar-2023 18:32

Have a second hand Outlander PHEV with ~42km battery range, 95% of our driving is occurring within that range. We just plug it in and charge to around 90% each night.

The car does use some petrol, especially if you really put your foot down hard when accelerating though typically it switches the petrol engine off a few minutes later once we reach cruising speed, or when we stop at the next traffic light. It will also switch to petrol only if you've not filled the tank with at least 15L of petrol in a 90 day period. It did that too us a few weeks ago as we had last refilled the tank in November, so we had to drive around for a few days on petrol before the tank was low enough we could but 16L in. It's certainly not the most efficient petrol engine when running on fuel (especially compared to my previous prius), but with our use cases we've gone from filling up a tank every 4 weeks or so (and having a second car for the trailer) to filling up every 2-3 months. So net petrol use has dropped by at least 50-75% and been replaced with charging it up over night for between $0.6-1.2 per day, down from probably $3-4 a day in petrol. If we go on a >100km trip then we will end up using a bit more petrol than we would have with the Prius (maybe 10L/100km after the first 40km vs 4.5L/100km), but even then there is a decent chance we could charge the car at the hotel/bach/friends place which would be another 40km less of petrol not used.

It depends on how you use the car, I'd agree though that the current way of marketing PHEVs for stupid values like 2-3L/100km (first 100km, first 50km were on electric) is a load of crap. As others have said they should be advertising the actual fuel efficiency of the petrol engine not the combined one, or at least it should be listed next to the combined one.

Geektastic

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#3053514 22-Mar-2023 22:39

My wife has a Honda Jazz hybrid (latest one) and according to the internal computer we get about 4.8l/100.

I have no idea what it is supposed to do. We only need to fill it once a month usually.

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#3053578 23-Mar-2023 07:04

Geektastic:

My wife has a Honda Jazz hybrid (latest one) and according to the internal computer we get about 4.8l/100.

I have no idea what it is supposed to do. We only need to fill it once a month usually.

assuming most of your commute is open road being rural, that figure is very close to pure ICE jazz. had one before the CVT gave up.

heapsort

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#3053583 23-Mar-2023 07:28

Late to this thread, but I'll mention my experience and reply to a couple of comments. For context: I've owned a PHEV Outlander for five years, driven 60,000 km (mostly suburb driving, some city, occasional longer trips) and the lifetime petrol consumption has been 1.5 L/100km.

Silvrav:

PHEV (taking specifically the outlander) are excellent in town, short distance cars, but once you do long distance and the battery has drained, the fuel economy is horrendous.

I agree a PHEV Outlander does not fit your use case, but "horrendous" is definitely not how I'd describe its fuel economy when there's no electric capacity left.

eonsim:

Have a second hand Outlander PHEV ... If we go on a >100km trip then we will end up using a bit more petrol than we would have with the Prius (maybe 10L/100km after the first 40km vs 4.5L/100km) ....

I'd be very surprised if it as high as 10 L/100km.

There seems to be a common misconception (I'm referring not just to the above comments, but many comments I've read and heard over time) that a PHEV operating with the battery drained will have an equal or higher fuel consumption (due to battery weight) than an equivalent non-hybrid petrol vehicle. In my experience, that's not so. In this use case, a PHEV doesn't become a petrol vehicle with a completely useless battery; it is still a plugin hybrid - albeit with a larger heavier battery than is useful in that moment - and it's still more efficient than an equivalent non-hybrid vehicle. How much more efficient, depends on many factors. My experience is that on days where I've forgotten to charge the night before and start out with no electric capacity, suburban driving has been around 5.5 to 6.5 L/100km. City-mode fuel economy ratings indicate a non-hybrid petrol Outlander might use around 9-10 L/100km for the same conditions. So even uncharged, the PHEV is still saving about a third of fuel consumption in the driving conditions most common for me.

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johno1234

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#3053633 23-Mar-2023 08:10

heapsort:

I'd be very surprised if it as high as 10 L/100km.

There seems to be a common misconception (I'm referring not just to the above comments, but many comments I've read and heard over time) that a PHEV operating with the battery drained will have an equal or higher fuel consumption (due to battery weight) than an equivalent non-hybrid petrol vehicle. In my experience, that's not so. In this use case, a PHEV doesn't become a petrol vehicle with a completely useless battery; it is still a plugin hybrid - albeit with a larger heavier battery than is useful in that moment - and it's still more efficient than an equivalent non-hybrid vehicle. How much more efficient, depends on many factors. My experience is that on days where I've forgotten to charge the night before and start out with no electric capacity, suburban driving has been around 5.5 to 6.5 L/100km. City-mode fuel economy ratings indicate a non-hybrid petrol Outlander might use around 9-10 L/100km for the same conditions. So even uncharged, the PHEV is still saving about a third of fuel consumption in the driving conditions most common for me.

This has always been counter-intuitive to me. If the battery is empty then how is it more efficient that a straight petrol version? The energy has all come from the gas tank one way or another. Potential savings in regenerative braking - which would be very small if you drive efficiently and don't have to use the brakes a lot. On the down side there is the extra weight, and any charging of batteries from engine power suffers efficiency losses.

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#3053634 23-Mar-2023 08:24

johno1234:

This has always been counter-intuitive to me. If the battery is empty then how is it more efficient that a straight petrol version? The energy has all come from the gas tank one way or another. Potential savings in regenerative braking - which would be very small if you drive efficiently and don't have to use the brakes a lot. On the down side there is the extra weight, and any charging of batteries from engine power suffers efficiency losses.

Because the battery is never completely empty. Before the battery gets that low the car will change driving modes and essentially act like a non plug-in hybrid. Reserving battery power to supplement the ICE engine just like a Prius or any other non plug-in hybrid would.

Azzura

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#3053637 23-Mar-2023 08:36

This was a really good tank below. Been averaging 2.2L/100. Went from 60 to 70 tanks a year in a little Mazda 2 1.5L engine to 8 to 12 tanks a year.

heapsort

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#3053653 23-Mar-2023 09:15

johno1234:

heapsort:

I'd be very surprised if it as high as 10 L/100km.

There seems to be a common misconception (I'm referring not just to the above comments, but many comments I've read and heard over time) that a PHEV operating with the battery drained will have an equal or higher fuel consumption (due to battery weight) than an equivalent non-hybrid petrol vehicle. In my experience, that's not so. In this use case, a PHEV doesn't become a petrol vehicle with a completely useless battery; it is still a plugin hybrid - albeit with a larger heavier battery than is useful in that moment - and it's still more efficient than an equivalent non-hybrid vehicle. How much more efficient, depends on many factors. My experience is that on days where I've forgotten to charge the night before and start out with no electric capacity, suburban driving has been around 5.5 to 6.5 L/100km. City-mode fuel economy ratings indicate a non-hybrid petrol Outlander might use around 9-10 L/100km for the same conditions. So even uncharged, the PHEV is still saving about a third of fuel consumption in the driving conditions most common for me.

This has always been counter-intuitive to me. If the battery is empty then how is it more efficient that a straight petrol version? The energy has all come from the gas tank one way or another. Potential savings in regenerative braking - which would be very small if you drive efficiently and don't have to use the brakes a lot. On the down side there is the extra weight, and any charging of batteries from engine power suffers efficiency losses.

I know, it does seem counter-intuitive. I'm no expert but my understanding is that there are multiple reasons why a (non-plugin) hybrid can have substantially better fuel economy than a comparable non-hybrid in city driving: no idling at lights, better torque with less power use during acceleration, engine runs within a narrower more efficient rpm range, etc. These all apply to a PHEV and outweigh the efficiency losses of electric conversion, even with the extra weight of a PHEV battery compared to a non-plugin hybrid battery.

MikeAqua

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#3053680 23-Mar-2023 10:40

Every vehicle I've owned achieved poorer than advertised fuel economy. Not surprising, if you look at the standard test conditions.

The only exception (IME) is diesel vehicles on long trips. The economy seems to be excellent during long trips at open road speeds.

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#3053754 23-Mar-2023 12:02

We have owned our Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV for eight months. I checked the log for it and we have put dinosaur juice in it four times. Around Te Whanganui-a-Tara it runs on pure EV mode. On trips out of the area we let the car manage the motive power options. Our average fuel consumption is circa 2L/100KM.
Granted this is not our only vehicle but the fuel use is impressive for the vehicle type. It will be interesting what we achieve when we get the van to carry around my mobility scooter, hoping for an EV for that but it won’t be replacing the Mitsi.

openmedia

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#3053791 23-Mar-2023 13:59

Juicytree:

For reference, I have a PHEV Prius Prime and a hybrid RAV4. We are retired (no commuting). The Prius is used for shorter journeys to our nearest city - 70kms return and as a shopping basket in the village we live in. it is regularly plugged in at home. The RAV4 for longer journeys, usually greater than 200 kms. The Prius is presently running at 1.9 litres per 100 km and the RAV is fairly stable at 5.4 litres / 100 k.

We recently rented a Hybrid RAV4 in Oz and I was very impressed. We had a mix of distance and local driving which averaged 5.4 l/100k, and needed roughly 1/2 a tank for our ~500km usage. I loved the fact the engine wouldn't start when you we're initially reversing out of a parking bay etc. My ICE CX-5 is currently averaging 8l/100k as we're not doing as much distance driving these days.

Based on typical usage at home a 50-80K capable PHEV would reduce our petrol use to nearly zero except for longer trips away, so I'm keeping an eye on some newer vehicles. It would be great is a PHEV could run a lot closer to the battery limit before cutting over. We tested a KIA PHEV a couple of years ago and we could only get about 60% of the battery range before the engine would automatically cut back in.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

johno1234

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#3053805 23-Mar-2023 14:56

Senecio:

johno1234:

This has always been counter-intuitive to me. If the battery is empty then how is it more efficient that a straight petrol version? The energy has all come from the gas tank one way or another. Potential savings in regenerative braking - which would be very small if you drive efficiently and don't have to use the brakes a lot. On the down side there is the extra weight, and any charging of batteries from engine power suffers efficiency losses.

Because the battery is never completely empty. Before the battery gets that low the car will change driving modes and essentially act like a non plug-in hybrid. Reserving battery power to supplement the ICE engine just like a Prius or any other non plug-in hybrid would.

This won't really hold true if you are driving from Auckland to Taupo though, will it? The amount of battery assistance would be vanishingly small?

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