Hi @kezo Update so far. Only done 3 short journeys so far. Journey 1 home from dealership. Journey 2 out for 20 mins playing with the regenerative braking (more on that later) and journey 3 out for lunch with our daughters yesterday. All trips in EV mode, so the petrol engine hasn’t been used yet. After the first trip I recharged at 6 amps, upped it to 8 amps for the second trip recharge and 10 amps after yesterday’s journey. No power trips and the plug was just very slightly warm, but certainly not hot. It was only a 3 hour charge though, not a full one from 15%. If I ever charge overnight I’ll charge at 6 amps as there’s no rush, but I’m now happy to charge at 10 amps if it will finish before I go to bed, which will be the case in the vast majority of situations.
I’ve had a good play with regenerative braking. I’m still amazed that this is not referred to at all in the owners manual, so I’d bet a large sum of money that the vast majority of Tucson PHEV drivers are completely unaware of it and never use it. Thanks to your advice, I’ve tried levels 1, 2 and 3 (activated by pulling and holding the left paddle to turn it on, then using the left or right paddle to increase or decrease) plus ‘max’ which I now realise is only activated when level 1, 2 or 3 are active and then the ‘max’ mode is only applied for the time that you hold the left paddle in (that’s quite severe, so only advisable when there’s no traffic behind you)! Like you, level 1 is ok but I found the higher levels resulted in a more EV like drive, which I don’t like.
What I discovered by accident (I don’t think you’d mentioned it) is that if you pull and hold the right paddle you activate ‘Auto’ regenerative braking. As with normal regenerative braking, it has 3 levels but it seems to react differently. I think it works in the same way that the BMW adaptive regen braking works I.e. in conjunction with the Sat nav (possibly only if guidance is selected) and reacts to bends in the road, approaching junctions & roundabouts etc. Again, level 1 is bearable.
I’m doing the first journey tomorrow that is beyond the EV only range, so the petrol engine will be used for the first time! I shall use ‘Auto’ mode from the off and then switch to EV mode on the return journey once the remaining EV only range equals the miles left to reach home. My aim will be to get home with just the 15% minimum charge, therefore using the petrol engine as little as possible. I won’t do any proper mileage costs (and therefore ‘true’ mpg equivalent figures) until I first fill up with petrol, but a quick back of a fag packet calculation shows that the EV only trips are, as expected, around half the cost of doing those trips in the BMW. Longer trips will be the acid test though, as I could easily get 50 mpg in the BMW with no charging costs. I’ll let you know, but I think it will be another month until I get a really good handle on it, especially after our holiday (when I won’t be charging).
Only problem so far is the Bluelink App. I have set it to display values in miles, yet it persists in using kilometres on the range figures. There’s obviously a glitch, because whilst the current electric range (38 miles) is showing as the km equivalent (61 km), the current petrol range of 350 miles is showing on the app as 350 km 🤔