6/7 seat PHEV

Scuzi

Scuzi

Scuzi

Man of Honour
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
20,467
Location
UK
My current car is a Volvo V90 which I’m very happy with but as the kids get bigger and I spend the majority of my free time chauffeuring them and their friends around, it is becoming increasingly limiting as we often have to leave someone behind, hence looking at 7 seaters. About 40% of the 13-15k per year I travel is on journeys <20 miles round trip, so I thought a PHEV would be a box worth ticking, especially if I can get a car on the work salary sacrifice scheme. A BEV probably won’t work for me because I do occasionally travel to areas with limited charging infrastructure, and I‘m not quite ready for having to add charge planning into my life - I like the convenience of petrol. That’s the background to why I’m looking at a 7 seater PHEV as the next car.

I thought there would be a market for these but apparently not. It seems the Volvo XC90 T8 is about the only viable option. Am I missing something? I think there is a Kia, but it has a diesel engine and I hate diesel.

I took an XC90 T8 for a test drive and it was a smoother and quieter version of my V90, but otherwise very similar to drive. The interior space was cavernous, and felt like twice the size of the V90. It ticks lots of boxes and is top contender for consideration right now.

For those of you who own one, what is the real world performance when driving on battery? Can you do a journey of say 10 miles each way on urban / suburban solely on electric, or does the engine kick in regularly? I’ve heard of supposed real world reports of <30mpg. Is that the reality?
 
I thought salary sacrifice was pretty much a dead end for non BEV stuff these days, as you end up paying whichever is higher out of the BIK or the income tax you would have paid?
 
I ran an example quote and according to the providers calculator there would be a monthly income tax and NI saving of £496 with a BIK of £209. Not amazing but marginally better than buying privately and more tax efficient, especially with the added complications of the pension annual allowance and upcoming income tax threshold reductions.
 
Last edited:
What’s the waiting time on an XC90 T8? They tick so many boxes. Would need to do some serious man maths to make it work unless I can find one on the work salary sacrifice scheme.
 
tom_nieto said:
What’s the waiting time on an XC90 T8? They tick so many boxes. Would need to do some serious man maths to make it work unless I can find one on the work salary sacrifice scheme.
Click to expand...
My local dealership could get a new pre-built one for May. Through the work scheme provider it’s looking like 6 months+.
 
There's a Hyundai Santa Fe 1.6 petrol PHEV, I think Kia also do a PHEV Sorento as well.

Not much choice, if you include mild hybrid then you can add a Q7 or Highlander
 
Volvo XC90's rear-most seats aren't great, and it's about 35 years old now! Does the Ford Explorer PHEV exist in RHD? That comes with a V6
VW T7 comes in hybrid..

mattx4 said:
There's a Hyundai Santa Fe 1.6 petrol PHEV, I think Kia also do a PHEV Sorento as well.

Not much choice, if you include mild hybrid then you can add a Q7 or Highlander
Click to expand...
Q7 is awesome, but alas PHEV is 5-seat only.
If OP can live with interior plastics, etc. the Sante Fe/Sorenta is a good shout. 1.6 makes the baby jesus cry though, as does spending £50k on a KIA!
 
Last edited:
mattx4 said:
There's a Hyundai Santa Fe 1.6 petrol PHEV, I think Kia also do a PHEV Sorento as well.

Not much choice, if you include mild hybrid then you can add a Q7 or Highlander
Click to expand...
The mild hybrid options don’t interest me. Shame about the Q7. As crass as it is, it would have been nice to have some alternative to look at.

K.C. Leblanc said:
I can't fathom their website. But petrol PHEV LR defenders are a thing, as are 7 seater defenders. So that might be an option.
Click to expand...
You aren’t kidding. I just tried to spec a defender PHEV with more than 5 seats and whilst i think it’s possible, I think I need an Ouija board to summon the expertise to figure out how to find one on that website! I think they look great but the brand reliability and build quality reputation puts me off.

mjt said:
Volvo XC90's rear-most seats aren't great, and it's about 35 years old now! Does the Ford Explorer PHEV exist in RHD? That comes with a V6
VW T7 comes in hybrid..


Q7 is awesome, but alas PHEV is 5-seat only.
If OP can live with interior plastics, etc. the Sante Fe/Sorenta is a good shout. 1.6 makes the baby jesus cry though, as does spending £50k on a KIA!
Click to expand...
I thought the rear seats were best in class. I’m no giant but I fitted fairly comfortably. The Saleswoman thought I was mental as I insisted she drive me around whilst I sat in the 3rd row.

I understand Hyundai/Kia have come a long way but they aren’t that much cheaper with the options I’m looking at, and I’d rather just keep the V90 and do without than move to one of them.

Ford Explorer, I’m unsure and will check. VW T7 is a van and I don‘t think I’ll ever be a van person.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: mjt
Scuzi said:
You aren’t kidding. I just tried to spec a defender PHEV with more than 5 seats and whilst i think it’s possible, I think I need an Ouija board to summon the expertise to figure out how to find one on that website! I think they look great but the brand reliability and build quality reputation puts me off.
Click to expand...

I did wonder if it's a form of perseverance test to make sure your actually ready to own one of their vehicles.
 
mjt said:
Volvo XC90's rear-most seats aren't great, and it's about 35 years old now!
Click to expand...

It's still decent quality motor though, 35, it's not even 10 and has been updated over time.

Scuzi said:
For those of you who own one, what is the real world performance when driving on battery? Can you do a journey of say 10 miles each way on urban / suburban solely on electric, or does the engine kick in regularly? I’ve heard of supposed real world reports of <30mpg. Is that the reality?
Click to expand...

You can do that whole journey on EV, I have the xc60, smaller yes, but not by a lot and basically the same drive train, on the latest 18.8kw battery 30+ miles is achievable, I've almost hit 40 miles, though driving very carefully, not experienced anything but wintery conditions mind you, performance is acceptable in EV mode bigger battery comes with more powerful 143bhp/228lbft rear motor up from 87 of the old car, in pure EV mode the engine never kicks in, in Hybrid mode, only if you go past a point on the gauge or if the NAV has decided topology suits using power in a different way for set journey.

The range drops off a bit if you do lots of short trips through the day but still nudges 30, I guess as you have to heat the car each time.

Regarding petrol usage I can't imagine it's going to be good, I have only used petrol on a long journey and I'd estimate its low 30s at normal motorway speeds, probably shocking around town if you don't plug in, but if you don't plug in, don't buy a plug in, with no charge it does regen etc and does one pedal driving but you'll never recover enough energy to get back what you loose braking.

Some further detail from xc90 owners in here though most have the older setup with small motor and small battery but has vids of range tests on newer battery xc90 https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/volvo-t6-or-t8-hybrids-experience.18948383/

Lots of complaints from old Volvo owners regarding some of the features that are a step backwards with respect to the infotainment change from Sensus to Google but I've been pretty happy with it, they are slowly adding features in and for us builtin google is pretty nice.

The biggest loss IMO is the drive mode button, that is the main bugbear.
 
Last edited:
When does the EX90 fully electric come out? Would that be an option?

I recently test drove the XC90 T8 quite a bit as very nearly bought one. On the mixed driving test drives, I could get around 15 miles around the city on pure electric (this is in an older model with the smaller battery) and once the battery is out of juice I was struggling to get 25mpg out of the petrol engine and that was with only 2 adults in the car and no kit.

It’s a shame there’s still no PHEV X7.
 
Last edited:
Spleen Sauce said:
I recently test drove the XC90 T8 quite a bit as very nearly bought one. On the mixed driving test drives, I could get around 15 miles around the city on pure electric (this is in an older model with the smaller battery) and once the battery is out of juice I was struggling to get 25mpg out of the petrol engine and that was with only 2 adults in the car and no kit.
Click to expand...

The newer ones are quite a bit different to the old, not only are the battery and e-motor better but the supercharger is dropped for a stronger ISG to do torque fill at low rpm like the mild hybrids, this unit upfront itself is 46bhp/111lbs ft which improves the economy over the old setup, of course there's no escaping having to move a couple of tonnes of car in city stop start but if you have been using B mode the electric motor always seem to be there to get it moving even with 0 range.

I've not been able to use enough petrol to really test mpg accurately as it's has had new toy syndrome and so lots of playing, we've only done 1500 miles in it and one tank, but I have trialed a few things, it is one of those mpg gauges that doesn't provide instantaneous mpg and takes a decent drive to come up from 0 but even doing an 80mph run charging the battery I did more than 25mpg, not yet sat down to work out if charge storage is a worthwhile thing to do mind.

For the first fill up @ 1035 miles we used 63 litres of fuel, 335 units of electricity (this includes charging losses and lots of cabin preheating when we had that cold spell in January etc, not just energy use from the drive and of course lots of loitering in car parks with heating on waiting for kids) filled up with Vpower @1.699, my electric is 0.264p, combining those costs and converting the total price to litres as if it was done with petrol that works out at ~41mpg over 1035 miles, if I had used reasonably priced fuel @1.479 that would have been ~38mpg.

Incidentally on the cabin heating when parked up off, I don't know if this is a normal thing in premium cars these days but when you want to warm the cabin parked up and have been using the engine for what ever reason ( in my case having gone for a bit of a rant :D ) it asks you if you want to use the residual engine heat instead of the electric heater saving battery which was a nice suprise, a benefit I guess of most things being decoupled from the petrol engine so they can run on electric.

Whilst that mpg doesn't sound amazing you can only really compare with something that has lived the same life and journeys, the diesel 4x4 we replaced was low 20s due to the round town stop start kiddy activities and obviously the fuel cost a lot more per litre.

Just running the car in EV mode for the daily drive and not using any petrol is equivalent to ~55mpg @ 26p a unit which is far superior than my little petrol city car, it's great really.

To be honest, now that the missus has got a handle on charging and can do so for free at work, I may never be able to accurately test its mpg again as petrol will only be used for touring/towing, I'll have to make a concerted effort when we have no trips to go out and use the fuel. :cool:
 
Last edited:
That’s a really interesting report because your usage is kind of how I would expect mine to be, but some people have suggested that it’s impossible. I’m glad to hear it is possible.

I average 28mpg in my V90 so as long as it was in that ballpark whilst running on petrol I’d be happy, especially if a large portion of my miles can be done on electric which is relatively cheap, or in some cases free.

There is one irrational barrier to this being a no brainer. I saw an old XC90 today and thought it looked horribly dated. Just before the current XC90 came out I thought it looked ok. I do worry that when the EX90 is released, the same thing will happen with the XC90. Irrational and unlikely but it’s there…
 
Yup its totally possible, some days, we don't make the range work and that's fine, the petrol is there, all warmed up by the electric ready to go, so you might use a few miles on a journey at which point the mpg gauge for the trip reports an amusing 700mpg etc :D Comparing WLTP on xc60 vs xc90 there's about a 10% deficit on the xc90 but things like load out will impact that, in my case I am running in worst case with the large foolishy specced 22s just because I like how it looks, efficiency and ride refinement be damned :p :D

If I didn't tow I'd have a BEV without question for a family motor where comfort rather than driving dynamics is a priority, charging will improve, it has no choice but to do so, It'd be worth looking into full electric if you are to take advantage or sacrifice schemes.

There are a couple of 7 seat BEVs which perhaps don't have the best rear seats but as I found when I had a Grand Scenic whose +2 in the back weren't the largest, if its a case of being left behind, taking a second car and its associated costs or running slightly compromised in the rear, most tightwads will squeeze themselves in the back :D
 
Last edited:
Just ordered an XC90 T8 Recharge Plus in primer grey. Expecting delivery in September which I’m told is a fairly accurate estimate. I thought about holding out for the EX90 but it will be very expensive and the over-reliance on touchscreen inputs to control pretty much everything puts me off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom