Hi @gilders Glad to hear that you’ve found the thread to be useful. It’s certainly been a learning curve and even though @kezo and myself have different driving patterns, it’s interesting that we both seem to be in the same place, in that we aren’t sure whether we’d get another PHEV. Both of us are disappointed with the mpg when the battery is depleted and personally I’d sacrifice the £20 a month that I’m saving versus my last petrol car in order not to have the faff of charging it after every time that I use it. I’d rather go back to one quick 5 minute visit to a petrol station every 3 weeks or so and then that’s it – never touch it other than to drive it!
Given your comments about the engaging drive of BMWs, I must also say that I am missing my last BMW for that exact reason. There is no doubting that the Tucson Ultimate has virtually everything you need and more (kit wise) and much of the tech works as well as BMW systems and certainly far better than the systems that we had on previous VWs, but it is not an engaging drive – at all. I would describe it as a very good car for people who aren’t in to cars, whereas BMWs are very much drivers cars.
To address your two questions, I have zero knowledge about PPF issues but @kezo will, so I’ll leave that to him. I can answer the other question though. Basically, don’t worry about the engine idling when the heater is on. It’s not a fast idle, it’s only 1100 rpm and other than when it kicks in at start up (on cold days) you don’t notice it. Unlike when the battery is depleted (when mpg plummets), the idling engine doesn’t seem to affect mpg. Obviously it must to some degree, but not enough to be noticeable. As for going up hills, it’s very accelerator dependent on whether or not the engine kicks in. If you are using a light throttle, it will go up even fairly steep hills in EV only. If you accelerate up the hill the engine is likely to kick in. The good news is that the switch from EV to petrol is virtually imperceptible and very impressive. There are no lurches and you don’t even hear the engine kick in when driving, unless you are giving it some beans. The engine is quiet and refined up to 2,500 rpm but whereas a BMW sounds great at higher revs, the Hyundai doesn’t! Hope that helps. Happy to answer any other questions.