I’m trying to keep an open mind re Bev ice or phev – costs obviously come into the equation, but with my wife’s disability, (the car is in her name, but she doesn’t drive), we want our journeys to be as hassle free as possible. Going back to my original question the Volvo v60 ticks a lot of boxes – space, comfort, and alleged 44 mpg. I shall also look at the enyaq/elroq bevs and the vw Tiguan phev. I believe the Hyundai Tuscan phev is a popular choice as well. Lots of test drives me thinks!
I absolutely get where you are coming from. Like you, having been used to ICE cars with 600 mile ranges, which can be fully replenished from empty in less than 5 minutes, we wouldn’t want the faff of having to make stops that we wouldn’t otherwise make in order to recharge an EV on a longer journey. A 5 minute pee break is as much as we do and we never stop for coffees etc.
PHEVs obviously remove that hassle, as they can run on petrol when the limited EV range is depleted, but they aren’t without their faults. We have a Tucson PHEV and for short round trip journeys from home of up to 35 miles (25 in the winter) they offer cheap motoring. However, due to the considerable extra weight of the battery (in addition to a normal petrol engine), our PHEV is very thirsty on longer journeys.
I do a mix of local and longer journeys totalling around 8,000 miles a year, and the PHEV is only saving me around £20 a month over our previous 2.0i petrol car. Frankly, I’d sacrifice that £20 a month to remove the faff of having to recharge the PHEV after every time that I use it. Your longer journeys are more frequent and much longer than mine. I could therefore easily foresee a scenario where your running costs could increase with a PHEV, possibly substantially, as a considerable proportion of your mileage would not be in EV mode, so you are propelling a very heavy car with a usually modest petrol engine.
In your situation, I’d probably stick with an ICE car and most likely a diesel, but the choice of decent diesels on the scheme is now dire.