@kezo Having now (finally) worked out how I can accurately work out the ‘true’ mpg equivalent economy of the PHEV, so that I can compare it to an ICE car, can I just run this past you? Obviously the mileage driven on electric is much less per mile than the mileage driven on petrol, so my aim will be to ensure that I maximise the EV mileage. Having test driven the Tucson PHEV over 2 days and tried all 3 driving modes, my plan is as follows (all assume starting the journey with a full charge).
Round trips of 40 miles or less – Run the car in ‘EV’ mode for the whole journey, letting the car switch into Hybrid (HEV) for the last few miles.
Longer journeys over 40 miles round trip – Run the car in ‘Auto’ mode from the outset. On the return journey, keep an eye on the remaining ‘EV only’ range (if any) and when the distance to home equals the remaining EV range switch to ‘EV’ mode.
The aim of the above is to never arrive home with unused ‘EV only’ range if the car has used petrol at any time, and to absolutely minimise time in Hybrid ‘HEV’ mode, which we both worked out was the most cost inefficient of the 3 modes. Does that all sound sensible?
Also, the car is being supplied with 2 charging cables – a 3 pin granny charger (which I’ll use at home) and a public charging cable. I’ve never considered charging away from home as my thoughts are that the time (and potentially costs) far outweigh the minor benefit of the small amount of electric range, and I might as well do those few miles on petrol. However, when we are on holiday in a few weeks time and we park up somewhere where we are going to be for a few hours and there are chargers, my questions would be;
1) Is it worth the effort or don’t even bother?
2) Will the charger (or car) automatically set the correct charge rate? (don’t PHEVs charge at a very low / slow rate compared to proper EVs?)
3) Assuming it’s easy to do for a complete EV novice like me, and it’s worth the effort, how long would it take to charge from 15-100%?
Many thanks