@Glos Guy and @kezo, sorry to interrupt but I went to Hyundai today, test drove a Tucson hybrid and then placed an order for the PHEV (Ultimate). They have it on site so it’d be next week. I still don’t have a driveway as Highways and the council are being really difficult with OT. The salesman told me that the PHEV will be the same as the hybrid, shouldn’t need charging all the time, giving me enough time to get the drive and home charging sorted. I then agreed to go ahead but now I’m wondering if I made a mistake that could be impactful in the future if no home parking is possible. Can I ask: have you driven your Tucsons on little to no electric charge in the batteries? Seeing how you both have the car, what would either of you advise may be the best thing I do? Cheers.
With hybrids in general, you take a bigger hit with fuel economy on motorways, because the system can’t naturally regenerate due to travelling at a higher constant speed, this then makes an ICE more economical, as its not lumping around a empt(ish) battery. The opposite occurs Driving locally and on A/B roads, you can regenerate most of this energy into miles,so its not wasted energy and it becomes more econicall than ICE, therefore, as this type of driving is more frequent, economy is greater. The other thing thats often overlooked, is Hybrids were born to get diesel like economy, not better them.
A PHEV, is just a hybrid and based on the same principle as above, but with a much bigger (heavier) battery, to enable more electric driving range once charged. If you don’t or can’t charge the battery, its like carrying 400 weight of coal for no reason, so a self charging hybrid becomes more economical.
I have neighbours/friends with either the Sportage/Tucson Hybrid (same car) and they average 44 – 50 mpg depending on whether they have FWD or AWD. The hybrid AP though is £1000 more and the PHEV would be more econimical, If you can find a tempory solution (below) untill your drive is hopefully sorted.
However, my economy is better than @Glos-Guy ‘s, which is mainly down to me avoiding the motorways (m4, m5, m6) on longer runs and opting to go via A roads (mainly because its quicker), so I can recoup more energy back into the battery on long journeys, I take every 3 weeks. The rest of the time, I’m pottering more locally on electric and sometimes in Hybrid (HEV) mode, as I don’t charge untill, I have finished driving for the day or the battery has run out after taking my daughter to school and, I don’t charge untill the battery is flat.
The other day, I did a 25mile round trip, to pick something up, in Hybrid mode at speeds of 30-40mph. The GOM showed 57.8mpg and especially at lower speeds it did drive in electric at times. When I got to the bottom of a large hill/mountain to climb for the final leg home, it dropped from 57.8 to an average of 31.5mpg. Whils’t on face value that is not bad, it is important to note real world mpg was probably much lower, if an accurate calculation was done.
A while ago now, when spoke about your drive, I mentioned plastic like kerb ramps. If you could use those or even drive over the kerb in the short term, if only when the car needs to be charged. Or consider D-Line’s cable cover solution for on-street EV charging, as hopefully a tempory measure. Its mutch lower than the average cable mat and would get you out of a sticky situation in the first instance. You could run an extension lead from the house, to use the granny charger.