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Hi. Has anybody any experience of running the V60? It’s on my short list when I replace Q3 this year. I still haven’t decided whether to stay with an ice car, or move to phev or Bev. I can charge from home, but I do long journeys 2 or 3 times a month (about 500 miles round trip) and range anxiety would be a worry.
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There’s a lot of nonsense around range anxiety based on cars that could manage 80-100 miles per charge. Most decent EVs will get you more than 200 miles with ease. When you do those long journeys, realistically, do you have a break on route or just stop at the end destination? Are there any chargers near where you go that you can plug in a leave for an hour?
I know nothing about the Volvo, sorry.
I'm Autistic, if I say something you find offensive, please let me know, I can guarantee it was unintentional.
I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.Mark
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’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.
PHEV ain’t really the answer, So the decision is really Ice or BEV. Longer trips ain’t such the issue they used to be. If you adapt. Yes the odds are on those 500 mile journeys you’ll need to charge even if you have the biggest range on the scheme. It will take probably 30 to 45 mins and often make 2 stops as it can be better than one.
Yes it’s different to filling up an ICE.
The night/day (depending on your EV tariff) before you do your longer journey you charge up to 100%. The skoda Enyaq for example has an 82kwh battery but only 77kwh is useable.
So in theory at 6.7p per kwh on eon next drive it will cost around £5.60 to charge with losses.
In winter at -10 doing 70mph you can get 205 mi, in summer at 23 degrees you’ll get 265 mi from 100% according to evdatabase.org/uk. If you do 65mph you’ll get more range..
So then you use super rapid chargers 150kw and above to utilise the 135 kW DC max speed of the Enyaq.
Also as as your doing a few trips a month. A Telsa or Ionity subscriptions, would certainly work for you and reduce the charging costs over using many other CPO. But that also means you need to stop maybe before you need to as there might be no Tesla or Ionity site later enroute and then stop on the way back to put in only enough to get you home. Plus that they actually where you are going.
I often don’t charge at my destination, I stop before and charge to 80% or at least enough to get me back to the Telsa site again on the way back home.
My car the Volvo ex30 even tell me how much I’ll arrive with at each stop on the built in google maps. It certainly helps cure range anxiety and personally the longest I’ve stopped at any one timer so far is 20 mins.
I always put in enough to get me home with 10% and each time I have arrived with 10%
Then it depend on your other driving the rest of the month based on winter combined you’d get 240 miles worst case those are real world figures not wltp and it will cost £5.60. So for most people those low cost subsidise the bigger costs of longer journeys. Only you can work that all out. For me it’s crazy how much a bev is saving me over ice. Charging at home is so cheap and for me it’s no big deal. I quite like the fact I need to stop to charge and give myself a nice rest on those longer trips. Before in an ice I wouldn’t and it’s kind of refreshing. Something I thought I wouldn’t say.
EX30 SMER Ultra
Volvo V60 is also on my short list. I can I order from mid June.
Although this last 10 days I’ve done 2 return trips to Manchester airport and a return trip from West Yorkshire to Cambridge, we mostly do short journeys and our current car, mild hybrid Sportage, is very unsuitable for short trips (terrible mpg and clogging of particulate filter).
I’m also hoping that there’s somebody that could advise on general running costs and potential issues of many short journeys with the Volvo V60 mild hybrid.
Many thanks for your replies. It staggers me that you all take the time to respond with such knowledgeable answers. This forum is one of the best! I will certainly let you know what decision we make and if I have any further questions – I know where to get answers!
- Closest to Volvo V60, I had Volvo XC-90 at a time (2010 model from new, outside of Motability scheme). 22 times in a garage (again, from new). Sold it after 5 years to the likes of Webuyanycar and never touched since. But I guess I was simply unlucky.
- Recently we had Mazda CX-60 PHEV. I think it is a first time ever I didn’t listen to Mat Watson, who explicitly advised in his review NOT to touch it. I didn’t enjoy PHEV at all. You can drive it only in electric mode, but you don’t enjoy its full power, you can drive both ICE and EV motor, but then it is not predictable enough. When you want to accelerate, the ICE shouts at you: “Oi! I am not ready yet! Need to warm myself up a bit”! And then there are too many things to coordinate and work together, plus at least in CX-60 PHEV the tank is small to accommodate the battery etc. So to cover 300 miles to Newcastle we had to fill once. Same on the way home – another 300 miles and another trip to petrol station. Obviously the most expensive ones on M roads.
- We have EVs since 2015 (3 x Zoe, 1 x Leaf, 1 x Enyaq) so I think I have enough experience as a consumer in this area, especially as we make between 22K and 25K miles per annum. Despite my current issues with Enyaq, I prefer the EV to drive to Newcastle. I admit in the past with Leaf we had to stop 4-5 times each direction, but then the charging was free at a time.
So now on my trip to Newcastle to cover same 300 miles in 5 hours I stop for a wee and charge the car. Mind you, our Enyaq can take 175kW AC charging and I need to remember to optimise the battery some 20-25 minutes before arrival to the charging point to make it super quick.
We also go to Cardiff – round trip of circa 270 Miles. In a summer, driving without A/C we can make it on one full charge (although I admit the anxiety of coming home with 10 miles left is not for everyone). When it is cold, we simply stop only once, on our way home, before crossing the bridge back to England, to add some 20kW. One positive thing to keep in mind worse is the traffic on M roads, better EV’s consumption.
Hope it helps a bit.
Sent from a mobile device.
Apologies for briefness and spelling mistakes.Motability Skoda Enyaq SportLine 85x April 2024 (unhappy customer - Ombudsman pending)
Motability Mazda CX-60 July 2023 (unhappy customer - early termination on mechanical grounds)
Motability VW Touran Family Pack May 2019 (happy customer)Interesting feedback @kdwolf especially about the CX-60. We shortlisted it but decided against it due to poor reviews and the fact that Mazda stopped bundling the packs that we would have wanted but didn’t reduce the AP.
I couldn’t be doing with a car that you have to drive in the summer with the AC off though just to conserve range. That makes it not fit for purpose in my book. AC should be left on 365 days a year, not just for passenger comfort but because it also dehumidifies the cabin which stops driver drowsiness. Also, if AC is off for months on end the seals dry out and shrink, which causes the refrigerant to leak and reduces the system efficiency.
@kdwolf if I remember rightly Mat Watson said to shortlist it but, favoured the 3.3 diesel! The downfall, if you can call it that, is the CX60 only has a speed of 62mph in EV mode compared to 80+ in most PHEV’s in its class.
With PHEV’s – EV mode for urban and parallel (Hybrid) mode for highway, unless you have some spare range prior to arriving at your destination.
Sacrificing comfort for range, just to squeze out extra miles wouldn’t be my cuppa!
@countrypete stick to ICE or hybrid, if you regularly cover 1,000 -1,500 month.
@kezo I didn’t know that you could only do up to 62mph in EV mode in the CX-60. That makes me even more glad that I didn’t get one! Our local journeys involve a high proportion of motorway driving, where I’m usually in the 70-78 mph range, and I can do all of that in EV mode in the Tucson. I wouldn’t want to have to be pootling along at 62mph, with all the HGVs, just so that I could keep it in EV mode. That would irritate me as much as having to drive at slower speeds in an EV in order to conserve range.
@kdwolf if I remember rightly Mat Watson said to shortlist it but, favoured the 3.3 diesel! The downfall, if you can call it that, is the CX60 only has a speed of 62mph in EV mode compared to 80+ in most PHEV’s in its class. With PHEV’s – EV mode for urban and parallel (Hybrid) mode for highway, unless you have some spare range prior to arriving at your destination. Sacrificing comfort for range, just to squeze out extra miles wouldn’t be my cuppa!
Squeezing out extra miles reminds too much of the dark old days where there were huge gaps between chargers and cars were barely capable of 100 miles if you opted for the biggest battery. Lots of journey ruining things like hypermiling, catching a wind tow off HGVs and that’s just not fun.
With a speed restriction like that, I’d have EV mode for town use only. I know when I had the Ampera with its generator, we used the petrol to do the faster driving and switched to pure EV once we’d get to where speeds were never that high. It maximised the combined range, which is now about what I can get out of the Hi5 now.
I'm Autistic, if I say something you find offensive, please let me know, I can guarantee it was unintentional.
I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.Mark
With a speed restriction like that, I’d have EV mode for town use only. I know when I had the Ampera with its generator, we used the petrol to do the faster driving and switched to pure EV once we’d get to where speeds were never that high. It maximised the combined range, which is now about what I can get out of the Hi5 now.
That approach wouldn’t work for me as we do very little driving in towns and all journeys, even local ones, involve motorways, so if we couldn’t drive our PHEV on the motorway in EV mode at a decent speed it would be a complete waste of time for us!
I am staggered how far people drive on one trip, then I remember, I was once young !
If you are doing 500 mile round trips on a weekly basis @countrypete , you might consider it to be ‘challenging’. It is worth mentioning that I have never stopped for public charging, but I do stop for relaxing comfort breaks and charge the car at the same time. It’s making the best use of the stop. But if you are the kind of head down arse up driver and can not abide ‘wasting time’ on a long journey, I doubt you would be happy with a BEV.
Personally, I do not miss going to a petrol station and I enjoy knowing my car is charged up at home overnight on cheap electric is perfect. That is feature alone negates any extra duration on a long trip for us.
Check out Zap-Map for charge locations and more.
The bottom line is, the car has to work for you.
Skoda Enyaq Race Blue
Interesting feedback @kdwolf especially about the CX-60. We shortlisted it but decided against it due to poor reviews and the fact that Mazda stopped bundling the packs that we would have wanted but didn’t reduce the AP. I couldn’t be doing with a car that you have to drive in the summer with the AC off though just to conserve range. That makes it not fit for purpose in my book. AC should be left on 365 days a year, not just for passenger comfort but because it also dehumidifies the cabin which stops driver drowsiness. Also, if AC is off for months on end the seals dry out and shrink, which causes the refrigerant to leak and reduces the system efficiency.
I agree. Hence don’t do it anymore – the A/C is always on nowadays.
Sent from a mobile device.
Apologies for briefness and spelling mistakes.Motability Skoda Enyaq SportLine 85x April 2024 (unhappy customer - Ombudsman pending)
Motability Mazda CX-60 July 2023 (unhappy customer - early termination on mechanical grounds)
Motability VW Touran Family Pack May 2019 (happy customer)One more thing to mention: due to the ongoing issues the Enyaq had to stay with the dealer for 6 weeks (since 30 January to 14 March this year). During this period we have been given MG petrol – the best Proximo could source for us at a time. I am not tall, but I need high sitting position and this was the best they could source for me. I drove 2,300 miles (90% of it on M3 to and from the office) and it cost us staggering amount of £453. It felt in the pocket very nicely. With EV you will never have this issue.
Sent from a mobile device.
Apologies for briefness and spelling mistakes.Motability Skoda Enyaq SportLine 85x April 2024 (unhappy customer - Ombudsman pending)
Motability Mazda CX-60 July 2023 (unhappy customer - early termination on mechanical grounds)
Motability VW Touran Family Pack May 2019 (happy customer)Agree with Glos guy. Diesel makes sense. VW Tayron Life s £3199 and a few hundred more for Elegance or R line.
Went to check out a V60 at our nearest Volvo dealership yesterday and to book a test drive. They had no demonstrators and didn’t even have one in the showroom.
They only had one in the used car section, but that was a 4 year old one in a different trim. So I’ll try our next closest tomorrow. I was told that delivery was around 7 months. This worries me as I’ve previously heard of Motability customers ordering Volvos, that later get removed from the scheme and their original order is not fulfilled.
I had considered an EX30, but after sitting in it, quickly changed my mind. Although I expected that I’d find it too sparse and wouldn’t get on with everything being controlled via a central screen, I was immediately shocked by how cheap/poor quality everything appeared inside.
The Ex30 trim is full of recycled plastics, even my seats and trim are made out of old jeans and vegan leather. I quite like that aspect of the car and so far I have no real complaints of the car. That I haven’t had with other cars. I did test drive a Model 3 as I had a spare hour and thought why not. Indicators on the steering wheel are a step to far. The rest though you quickly get used to. Just like on how some cars the buttons on the steering wheel are reversed. So when you want to increase speed on acc you actually increase the music volume.
Yes with all modern cars you can get little niggles and no car is truly perfect. Although one press of the car icon takes you to a shortcut page. Which most of the needed options are quickly accessed or can be changed or for other features not driving related you can use your voice. Like turn on re-defroster.
It is small though and access could be an issue for some as was the case with most BEVs I test drove. At least ones solely created as EVs. As the battery is in the floor so it makes the sills lower to the cars floor and so the roof near the door is also lower. But after a while your muscle memory kicks in and you stop bashing your head getting in.
In 2014 I had a C4 grand Picasso and it had the speedo in the middle of the dash and Virtual everything was done via the infotainment system. But I got used to it. Same with the EX30. I actually really like the lack of buttons. Its a nice place to be in, obviously its the ultra trim and I paid £1249 AP. Would I pay the over 4k AP it is now, No I wouldn’t.
It does have full demist and hazard buttons near the reading lights for if the screen ever crashes. Which the C4 would do on a regular basis and you had to stop and turn the engine off to reboot it. On the golf at least you could reboot with a button and on the EX30 if you press decrease set speed and volume down buttons together it reboots the system. All in all I do think the system works well and you get used to it as you do any car. We all have different needs and requirements and it’s certainly worth getting a decent hour long test drive in any car you look at. which is why the EX30 won for me this time. Again though at it’s current ap it wouldn’t of even got a test drive.
The v60 is a good option if you need a big boot space, which these days I don’t. I need something higher than a car. Although the ap is a tad high for me and it’s a petrol. Now I’ve gone BEV I’m unlikely to go back, as it works for me. Saying that going to physically see and Test driving then all the cars still on your shortlist is so vital.
EX30 SMER Ultra
Managed to get a test drive, with another dealership, in a V60 that was virtually new. It was the much more powerful T8 plug-in, so he put it in a drive mode to get the engine recharging the battery to make sure I had no EV/battery assistance.
Really like it and it’s gone straight to the top of my list. BUT wife is now unsure if she’d be ok driving it (mostly parking and manoeuvring in tight spots).
It’s still an option and I even booked a date to return and order it.
My wife said that I could park it for her and I did this the first few weeks when we got our Sportage. But I’m not always well enough to drive, so not knowing if my wife will eventually feel comfortable enough to park on our drive or not, makes me nervous to go ahead with it.
At this rate I can see us ending up with another Sportage, albeit PHEV this time. Boring car and boring that it won’t really seem like a new car, but it does tick all the boxes (except fun) and is very good value this quarter.
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