Thread: Hybrid vs petrol - surprising outcome

And that instant on when you put your foot down does come with some consequences, the mates missus went through a set of tyres in 18,000Km's. And the tyres are circa $700 a corner as they are specially rated for the extra weight and torque of the EV... Ouch. She doesn't appear to have learned the "feather the throttle" thing either, so we have a bet on at hubby's expense about how soon he's going to have to replace this set. Not amused by this is he...

Waihi to Auckland International Airport return today, copped some bumper-to-bumper on the Southern Motorway in the usual places on the way in, free run home. Left the engine running for 2 minutes at the drop-off so I captured the whole trip as one journey. 246km.

4.7 L/100km.

Our overall consumption since purchase (now >2000km) is 5.8 L/100km, about 1400km of that is local mileage and town, the rest the two longer trips to Taupo & Auckland.

My neighbour John did the exact same trip in the Mitsubishi Eclipse PHEV last week. He got 36km of electric only before needing the ICE, didn’t recharge anywhere en route. ICE only from Ngatea to airport and then all the way home. The whole return trip came in at 6.2 L/100km. He runs at about 7.0 L/100km on ICE when the battery isn’t being used and not being recharged by regenerative braking.

And his car cost twice as much as mine…. More actually. And is considerably more complex!

What’s interesting is that he can go a whole week without using his petrol motor once if he is only going to town and back (32-35km), and recharging overnight at home with the wall charger. As soon as he wants to do longer trips he’s using a less frugal petrol engine.

I’d love to know what the Prius or similar does at a steady 90-100km/h over say ~200-300km non-stop on typical NZ state highways if anyone’s got one.

The more I look at this the more I realise you really do have to understand how you’re going to use the vehicle, in order to make the right decision on a hybrid. It would be very easy to buy an expensive, complex, heavy hybrid and just not get the benefit of the electric only motoring. The flipside is that if you are genuinely only doing short-ish trips in a day, and can recharge regularly, then you’ll use practically zero fuel. John is about to embark on a five month road trip around New Zealand and does not expect to be using the electric capability very much at all.

Yeah, again your comment reflects exactly what we found and it was very much to our surprise - the maker's info does not highlight this at all. My sister is running a prius down in Canterbury - regularly rolling Rolleston to CHCH and return, I'll try and find out what her numbers are (if she actually takes any notice!!!).

As I said before, my mum is running at 5.4 L/100km in her 2022 Corolla Hybrid. She doesn’t pay any attention whatsoever to trying to drive economically (she’s 81). She does a 220km round trip every couple of weeks, most of which is motorway, and quite a lot of hilly country driving in between.

I’m pretty staggered that we are only 0.4 L/100km apart.

Wifey was at a girls do this past summer (Gin night or some such). Girls got to talking cars (Wifey has owned her SWB Safari for 20 years). One lass was waxing eloquent about her 9 month old PHEV, and how good it was for saving the planet bla bla bla. Wifey asked her how much it cost to charge up: "No, you just drive it and the motor charges the battery for free"....."Er, you do know that the P in PHEV stands for plug in don't you?". Big long pregnant pause.....she had owned a brand new car for 9 months and had no idea how it actually worked. So much for the salesman. Or it might just have been her. Who knows.

But the amassed data on these last few pages really puts the place of an EV or PHEV in perspective: live close enough to town to use as a shopping cart, OK. Intend to do longer distances in it, not so much.

I have a 2006 prius (so the 1.5L engine) and get around 800km to a tank (43L). I drive into Christchurch daily and consequently do a 50/50 mixture of open road and city driving which works out to be an average of 5.4L per 100km. As to 200 - 300 km of highway driving exclusively I've never paid particular notice to what my figures would be on longer trips but if I get these will pass on.

Originally Posted by XR500

Wifey was at a girls do this past summer (Gin night or some such). Girls got to talking cars (Wifey has owned her SWB Safari for 20 years). One lass was waxing eloquent about her 9 month old PHEV, and how good it was for saving the planet bla bla bla. Wifey asked her how much it cost to charge up: "No, you just drive it and the motor charges the battery for free"....."Er, you do know that the P in PHEV stands for plug in don't you?". Big long pregnant pause.....she had owned a brand new car for 9 months and had no idea how it actually worked. So much for the salesman. Or it might just have been her. Who knows.

But the amassed data on these last few pages really puts the place of an EV or PHEV in perspective: live close enough to town to use as a shopping cart, OK. Intend to do longer distances in it, not so much.

Yeah, you probably wouldn't be surprised how often this happens. The lady I mentioned before drove the ev for about three months before someone showed her the regen braking modes...

Originally Posted by vulcannz

Interesting read. I got the missus a GWM Haval H6 Ultra Hybrid at Christmas. She needed a new vehicle and the bank was doing 0% interest loans for EVs/Hybrids. So we could buy the regular petrol only car and pay interest, or the fancy car and no interest.

The H6 does about 6l/100km which I think is reasonable for a mid-sized SUV - definitely less than the smaller ASX was doing. It is absolutely packed with features (automation and safety), which initially I was quite skeptical of - but am now converted.

I guess what I'd say is the biggest change for me when I drive it is the way the electric drive works. I think I've got this right, the petrol engine acts as a generator and does not directly drive the wheels. The wheels are driven exclusively by the electric engine. This makes the driving experience quite a change. So when you're cruising around the burbs at less than 60km/h it's general super quiet on battery only, using no gas. When you put your foot down the thing accelerates hard and smooth - there are no go gear changes. On a typical motorway on ramp you can easily hit 140 without realizing it.

I am really happy with the H6, the economy is great, the features are amazing - and the new hybrid drive is a pleasure to drive. Oh, and no RUC's

No RUCs for now - will be with all of us by the end of the year according to the Govt's / NZTAs timeframe. I just hope they split the weight classes up a bit more..

A bit late to this thread, but some of the findings here are not surprising.

Open road driving is not a hybrid's specialty - the whole point in all the engineering complexity behind a hybrid drivetrain is stop/go urban driving where it recovers a lot of otherwise wasted energy to the battery. You don't ordinarily get that on the open road, so yeah, they are often no better than the petrol equivalent in that environment (and sometimes worse).