plug in hybrids rarely plugged in

[truthlesshunter]

Had a Porsche Cayenne PHEV. The electric range was rather limited, 8-12 miles depending on the weather. While on gas averaged overall about 30 mpg, which was not bad for an 5500 pound 400+ HP luxury vehicle. But still had all of the maintenance expense of an ICE vehicle, with the added luxury expense. And unless you gave that vehicle full beans, it was hard to tell whether it was using electrons or dinosaurs.

However I really prefer the full BEV (otherwise, why would I be on this forum?), and we are planning full electric for next vehicle. Wife got used to plugging in at home, and dislikes having to go to gas station.

Have a friend whom has a 40 mile round-trip commute and has charged all of his EVs on his home 110V outlet. For many people with "shorter" commutes and ABC charging, using the 110V charger should be fine. 240V systems are nice, and I can fully charge my Lightning at 80A overnight.

I am really interested in the home battery with DC charging systems coming out. Having someone come by to talk about the Franklin system soon. Sounds like a real home charging/backup/time-of-day usage winner, and if it comes in near my neighbor's Generac in cost then I think will be something to pull the trigger on.

hello fellow lightning driver with porsche sports car....while also having a porsche PHEV in the past, haha. We had a panamera though.

And to extend your point, we had the panamera PHEV prior to going BEV and that's what inspired us. Once we realized how little we used gas (we plugged the panamera in every night as well), we would go 4-6 weeks easy without gassing up. The move to BEV was natural.

And someone earlier in the thread mentioned the premium of going PHEV..that's what I love(d) about trying it out with Porsche (which I understand not everyone has the chance to do...)...they (used to at least) priced the ehybrid the same as they're S models, which were just as quick to 60, etc. So basically you'd get the same speed and added bonus of PHEV without sacrificing a price difference (although on a track and anything longer than a 1/4 mile, the S gas equivalent would eventually win out due to weight, etc.)

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[RickLightning]

If you want owners to plug them in they need an incentive to do so. There's little incentive with plug in hybrids.

Unless your electricity costs more than gas per mile, the incentive is saving money. Unfortunately, too many are simply lazy.

My wife drives our PHEV and we plug in ever night to get our 40-50 miles of clean er & cheaper E miles. PHEVs need to get their E mile higher than 5 - 10 to make it worth it. Thanks Toyota Rav … great car!

Yup.

There are gas additives that prevent it from going 'stale' - fuel stabilizers like STA-BIL - and if you have stale gas, gas restorers like PRI Fuel treatment - I have used both over the years for lawn mowers and gas generators.

Usually gas won't go stale in 1 month though.

PHEVs have (at least the Fusion Energi did) a pressurized system that kept the gas fresh for 18 months.

We have an xc60 plug in and I drove it to work and back recently and after I did the math the ev only mi/kwh was 1.6, worse than the Lightning. Sure it was cold and the heat was on but sill surprised based on low speed and overall size of the car.

The reason for this is likely the gas engine running, to warm up, to provide heat. On a short drive, that would kill your efficiency.

I appreciate that a plug-in hybrid works for some.

Just did not make economic sense at the time, it was $5,000 more I think.
If it had been 40 miles EV maybe we would have bought one.

But besides the higher cost, having to both charge and fill up with gas was not going to be convenient with only 11 miles EV range and only one EVSE - I already had a 2012 Nissan Leaf with an 80-100mile range and I used that for most of my driving needs.

EVSE were still fairly expensive, and wiring up another one for such a small EV range just didn't appeal to me.

So if we had bought a plug-in hybrid back then, we'd likely be in the less than 1/3 statistic.

The Prius V we bought has an EV mode which gives something like one mile of EV range at 25 mph before switching to Hybrid, lol.

Toyota was not on the EV band-wagon yet in 2015.

When we went from a Fusion Hybrid to a Fusion Energi, the #1 reason was that it cost less. Ford had more incentives on the PHEV then it did on the the Hybrid. In other words, we spent less money buying it.

It got 21 miles of range in warm weather, closer to 13 in cold. We plugged in every night, but my wife was not adept at managing the electricity usage (i.e. couldn't be bothered). So she would drive to the highway and then on the highway, and then off the highway to work, using all the electricity well before she got off the highway. The right way would have been to go electric only to the highway, then hit the button to turn it off, then when you got off the highway turn it back on again. Way too much work.

And, in the winter, the gas engine came on regardless to warm up the engine to provide heat.

 

[Steely]

Yeah I would have expected better in that case as well. What did you use to compute the mpk? I noticed in the trip report it include regen energy in the total energy used for the trip. I subtract that out to see what the actual energy usage was from the battery.

Yea I don't know how to deal with the line item of regen, do I add that to get total power use or subtract it out because it is already added in to the total use... This short trip I did was so slow it regened under 0.1kwh.

Looking at the last 3000 miles the car claims 25.5/100mi so that's a more respectable 3.9

This PHEV has an electric heater like the truck (maybe it's PTC too and cuts into efficiency similarly) so, it's like a half electric and half ice car.

 

[chl]

We have an xc60 plug in and I drove it to work and back recently and after I did the math the ev only mi/kwh was 1.6, worse than the Lightning. Sure it was cold and the heat was on but sill surprised based on low speed and overall size of the car.

No real complaints though, it's even smart enough to use the gas when it's getting old. We got that message a few weeks back. I really didn't think the gas was that old but whatever, couldn't stop it from doing what it did.

Phevs are like that they just seem to do what they want, every now and then the computer surprises you with something that keeps the engine on when you don't think it needs to be.

I wonder what period of time it uses and how calculate the gas as 'old?' So I looked it up...

AI search results says:

"... The car will alert you when fuel becomes too old, often between 3-4 months...."

"the Engine Control Module (ECM), which tracks the age of the fuel relative to the volume of fuel used....

Tips for XC60 Fuel Management:

• Don't fill the tank: If you only use electric power, keep the gas tank only 1/4 or 1/2 full to avoid having to burn through a large amount of old gas.
• Use Fuel Stabilizer: If you rarely use gas, you can add a fuel stabilizer (e.g., Sta-Bil) to the tank to prevent degradation.
• Use Premium Fuel: Using 91+ octane fuel can help, as it is less prone to fast degradation than lower-octane fuel..."

From an operating cost perspective, a plug-in hybrid is undoubtedly higher than a BEV.

In a way, you get the best and the worst of both worlds.

My 2012 Nissan Leaf always averaged above 4mi/kWh sometimes over 5mi/kWh.
In 2012 the battery size was 24kWh and the range was 100miles (if you drove conservatively).

It was a real money saver when gas was over $4/gal compared to my 2001 Ranger.

The car cost over $30k new but got a tax credit for the year I bought it, and I have had near zero maintenance costs - rotate tires, new wiper blades, some distilled water for the 12V battery, washer fluid, that's it.

Better BEV options now then in 2011 when I put in my Leaf order.

But even the 12v battery, now 13.25 years old, still registers as "good" at 70% SOH thanks to being on a maintainer since about March 2012 - probably going to replace that soon just to be safe.

There has been a lot of progress since 2011, despite the oil industry paid propaganda and lobbying against EVs, turning it into a 'political' issue when it should just be about science and engineering. Hopefully that progress will continue despite recent US government policy changes that attempt to disincentivize adoption of BEVs, and industry capitulation.

At least the tariffs are gone...for the time being.

 

[chl]

PHEVs have (at least the Fusion Energi did) a pressurized system that kept the gas fresh for 18 months.

That's an improvement.

 

[chl]

When we went from a Fusion Hybrid to a Fusion Energi, the #1 reason was that it cost less. Ford had more incentives on the PHEV then it did on the the Hybrid. In other words, we spent less money buying it.

It got 21 miles of range in warm weather, closer to 13 in cold. We plugged in every night, but my wife was not adept at managing the electricity usage (i.e. couldn't be bothered). So she would drive to the highway and then on the highway, and then off the highway to work, using all the electricity well before she got off the highway. The right way would have been to go electric only to the highway, then hit the button to turn it off, then when you got off the highway turn it back on again. Way too much work.

And, in the winter, the gas engine came on regardless to warm up the engine to provide heat.

We got our second Prius in 2015, the Ford Energi PHEV wasn't around yet as I recall?
We always get better mpg highway than the EPA estimate 40mpg, usually over 50mpg.
Not a perfect car - visibility out the back is poor, the rear camera screen is pretty small, and like most Japanese cars I ever driven, the ride gets uncomfortable on a long drive (several 100 miles).
And it costs more to own in the long run than either the Leaf or, I hope, the Lightning.

Aerodynamics plays a big role in hwy efficiency.

On the highway, the Lightning is a big air dam.

For stop and go, an EV or EV mode is usually better, zero energy used 'idling,' even though the Prius will shut off the gas engine when stopped after a short period of time, ignoring the hvac energy use.

But every vehicle is different. A complicated combination of factors to ponder.

 

[Mal106]

Our Niro PHEV is what convinced me to go electric. We refuel it around town about every 1500 miles. It gets 30 to 40 miles electric if driven carefully. It's only 11 KWH so about 3 mi/kwh. I plug it in anywhere I can. It gets about 40 mpg after the battery is discharged. I have to admit it's the best of both but overriding that is that it's also the worst of both. I'll trade it for a BEV whenever my wife let's me, she loves it.

 

[davehu]

If you want owners to plug them in they need an incentive to do so. There's little incentive with plug in hybrids.

I'm curious how Ford will execute the Lightning EREV. For the gas engine to provide enough generating power for full performance it will need to be as big as an engine in an ICE truck.

RAM says the following about their upcoming ERV RAM 1500
" The 3.6L Pentastar® V6 engine generates mechanical power, which is converted to electrical power by the onboard generator for maximum efficiency. "
looks like they've added a generator but it is powered by the drive train engine.

 

[chl]

Our Niro PHEV is what convinced me to go electric. We refuel it around town about every 1500 miles. It gets 30 to 40 miles electric if driven carefully. It's only 11 KWH so about 3 mi/kwh. I plug it in anywhere I can. It gets about 40 mpg after the battery is discharged. I have to admit it's the best of both but overriding that is that it's also the worst of both. I'll trade it for a BEV whenever my wife let's me, she loves it.

The security of the availability of gas stations is most important to some people, and I get that.

 

[chl]

RAM says the following about their upcoming ERV RAM 1500
" The 3.6L Pentastar® V6 engine generates mechanical power, which is converted to electrical power by the onboard generator for maximum efficiency. "
looks like they've added a generator but it is powered by the drive train engine.

The laws of perpetual motion would tend to dispute that...

The main drive train 'engine' is the electric motor(s) and the V6 "generator can also increase the power to the motor and gearbox when serious power is needed."

So it sound like the generator V6 can be linked to the drive chain when more power is needed - when would that be I wonder?


ELECTRIC+ MODE
Power your truck with electricity only using energy from the battery pack, with the generator kicking in as soon as its needed.

E-SAVE MODE
E-Save Mode allows you to preserve your vehicle's battery life by controlling when the generator engages.

ECO MODE
Prioritize efficiency and reduce climate control settings to save power.


The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger (EREV) features a massive liquid-cooled, 91.8 kWh pouch-style battery pack that provides an EPA-estimated 145 miles of electric-only range before the gas engine acts as a generator...

PS: not something that I would want - generators can be NOISY! No specs on this one's Db's yet

 

[chl]

AI FWIW (some of this contradicts what the RAM web site says about the power assist from the generator V6):
----
Based on the specifications for the 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger (which features the 3.6L V6 range-extender generator), specific decibel (dB) noise levels have not been officially released by Ram.

However, based on its design, the generator is expected to be relatively quiet, similar to other integrated RV or "inverter-style" generators (around 60–70 dB) rather than a loud construction generator, due to the following factors:

• Isolated Function: The 3.6L Pentastar V6 engine is used solely as an onboard generator to charge the 92-kWh battery, not to directly power the wheels. This allows the engine to operate within a specific, optimized RPM range, potentially reducing noise compared to a traditional engine that must constantly rev up and down for acceleration.
• Encapsulation: As an integrated component of the truck, the engine is enclosed, reducing external noise output.
• Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) Capability: The system can produce up to 7.2 kW of power for external use, which requires efficient, sound-suppressed operation.
• Range-Extender Nature: The engine is not running constantly; it only turns on when needed to recharge the battery.

While not a direct comparison to the engine noise, the truck also includes mandated sounds to notify pedestrians and cyclists

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