Do PHEVs charge whilst driving?

Soldato
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Well, i know the answer is that "some do", but is it just down to whether a specific car does or does not?
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV recharges the battery once its depleted and if you're on a long journey, say on the motorway then once its been recharged it can auto switch to electric again, until depleted.....rinse and repeat hence their wild claim of up to 147mpg.

So, what about other PHEV's? I know regenerative braking helps, but do they all offer that too?
 
Soldato
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As in using the engine as a generator? They can but it’s a waste of pretrol and you shouldn’t do it if you care at all about MPG.

To get that quoted MPG you need to do lots of short journeys within or very close to the range of the battery (20-30 miles ish depending on the car) and use the engine as little as possible. Ideally finishing any journey over the range of the battery with nothing left in the battery.

Once the battery runs out it will recover energy from regen braking, that’s normal. It will then deploy it again as needed like a regular non-plug in hybrid.

Like I said, some allow you to recharge the battery from the engine but it’s a complete waste of fuel as it’s not efficient at all. Each time you convert energy into a different form (in this case fuel to mechanical to electric then back to mechanical) you lose some of it. It’s much more efficient to just drive the wheels with the engine directly and that’s really how it’s intended for you to use it.
 
Soldato
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Thanks so far everyone.
just noticed the govt has reduced the EV grant. I was looking for a corsa-e for my wife and the PCP has gone from £245pcm to over £355 in the past week.
Who on this planet, and with a a brain would pay that much for a corsa-e? Especially as they were over£100 cheaper per month the week before?
The whole care industry has gone bananas. Surely if the prices crash once you've signed a PCP then you're gonna be in big trouble at the end of the term?
 
Soldato
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Are any using an engine purely to charge the batteries, surely you could make the engine run really efficiently.

If it’s configured as a generator like the BMW i3 then potentially, but even that only gets about 40 mpg while using its range extender and it’s a tiny little hatch. The i3s little range extender engine is not connected to its wheels at all. They don’t make them anymore because it’s just better to give the car more range in the first place.

PHEVs are not normally configured in this way as they are an ICE powered car first and foremost. The ICE connected to a gearbox and the rest of the drive system because they need to be. The electric system doesn’t have the power needed to do the job on its own and it’s generally there to assist. While some can get you up to 70mph, it’s a very steady acceleration. As soon as you mash the go pedal, the engine kicks in. Want heating? That will be the engine kicking in etc.
 
Soldato
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Thanks so far everyone.
just noticed the govt has reduced the EV grant. I was looking for a corsa-e for my wife and the PCP has gone from £245pcm to over £355 in the past week.
Who on this planet, and with a a brain would pay that much for a corsa-e? Especially as they were over£100 cheaper per month the week before?
The whole care industry has gone bananas. Surely if the prices crash once you've signed a PCP then you're gonna be in big trouble at the end of the term?

Prices are not going to ‘crash’. Most predict this is the new normal, even when supply catches up with demand which there is no prospect of doing so for at least another year.

Manufacturers have worked out that they can charge more and people will still buy the product. Particularly as they transition to electric and no longer being able to extract value from their ICE intellectual property.
 
Soldato
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prices have fluctuated massively this past year, how can you be sure in saying they wont 'crash' or at least fluctuate enough so that they are affordable again?
I had a PCP offer for a corsa-e SE Premium in July for £205 pcm, now its £355 for the same car. Anyone with any sense would stick 2 fingers up and say "no thanks". That's a downright rip!
My car in July 2021 was worth £18k, it was recently valued at £23k. So the fluctuations are huge.
 
Caporegime
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Prices are not going to ‘crash’. Most predict this is the new normal, even when supply catches up with demand which there is no prospect of doing so for at least another year.

Manufacturers have worked out that they can charge more and people will still buy the product. Particularly as they transition to electric and no longer being able to extract value from their ICE intellectual property.

This plus big manufactures like Merc and BMW have said they are going to move to selling less cars at a much high price model as well.

The shortage of microchips have allowed them to reset prices. I noticed with the Merc GLE hybrid I ordered last year the list price went up by £6,000 in October and the car came with around £3,000 less kit as standard so more than a 10% price hike.

I cant see that price ever dropping back to where it was.
 
Soldato
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prices have fluctuated massively this past year, how can you be sure in saying they wont 'crash' or at least fluctuate enough so that they are affordable again?
I had a PCP offer for a corsa-e SE Premium in July for £205 pcm, now its £355 for the same car. Anyone with any sense would stick 2 fingers up and say "no thanks". That's a downright rip!
My car in July 2021 was worth £18k, it was recently valued at £23k. So the fluctuations are huge.

Fluctuation implies prices go up and down, in reality they’ve gone up and stayed up.

Prices are not going to come down any time soon because there is a shortage of new cars compared to demand. That has been the case for the best part of 12+ months since the first unlocking.

You’ve got 12+ months worth of pent up demand, anything remotely desired in the used market has shot up in price.

Even if the supply was fixed tomorrow, they’ve still got a backlog which started building up 12+ months ago. The issue is that it isn’t fixed so the backlog continues to grow. Some manufacturers are now taking orders for 2023 delivery.

For the prices to crash, there would need to be a load of stock dumped onto the market, that stock simply doesn’t exist.

What’s likely to happen is that supply will eventually catch up with demand, prices will stabilise and then start to slowly decrease, if they decrease at all. You also have to consider that for the next decade+, there is going to be a shortage filtering through the used market. This will continue pushing up prices for used and new cars because there simply isn’t enough on the roads to service that demand.
 
Soldato
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This plus big manufactures like Merc and BMW have said they are going to move to selling less cars at a much high price model as well.

The shortage of microchips have allowed them to reset prices. I noticed with the Merc GLE hybrid I ordered last year the list price went up by £6,000 in October and the car came with around £3,000 less kit as standard so more than a 10% price hike.

I cant see that price ever dropping back to where it was.
with respect mate, if people are daft enough to buy it at a higher price for less spec, then brands are going to continue doing it.
But sooner or later the shortage of chips will end, then what excuse can they offer? If peoples salaries don't increase to match car price hike, then what will happen?
Last week i could place and order for the exact spec corsa-e that i wanted (9 week waiting list) and it would be cheaper with more benefits than buying a pre-reg corsa-e that was available now. So.........if that's the case how on earth would they shift the existing cars on the forecourt?

Could anybody reading this thread, albeit we've gone off topic now, honestly say that regardless of the brand of car i'd mentioned, they'd be willing to spend over 70% more per month than they would have had they signed a deal last week?
Even if they could afford it, would they?
 
Soldato
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Fluctuation implies prices go up and down, in reality they’ve gone up and stayed up.

Prices are not going to come down any time soon because there is a shortage of new cars compared to demand. That has been the case for the best part of 12+ months since the first unlocking.

You’ve got 12+ months worth of pent up demand, anything remotely desired in the used market has shot up in price.

Even if the supply was fixed tomorrow, they’ve still got a backlog which started building up 12+ months ago. The issue is that it isn’t fixed so the backlog continues to grow. Some manufacturers are now taking orders for 2023 delivery.

For the prices to crash, there would need to be a load of stock dumped onto the market, that stock simply doesn’t exist.

What’s likely to happen is that supply will eventually catch up with demand, prices will stabilise and then start to slowly decrease, if they decrease at all. You also have to consider that for the next decade+, there is going to be a shortage filtering through the used market. This will continue pushing up prices for used and new cars because there simply isn’t enough on the roads to service that demand.
Yeah.....thanks, it kind of makes [business] sense. its just crazy.
 
Soldato
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Dealer pricing is very opaque at the best of times. Prices vary significantly week to week, even before covid. It just depends if they have some cars to sell or not and if they have any margin that they can eat or not.

I would have said £205/month for a Corsa-E was an absolute bargain (assuming minimal down payment). £300 is much closer to where I’d expected it to have been in the current market.
 
Soldato
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Dealer pricing is very opaque at the best of times. Prices vary significantly week to week, even before covid. It just depends if they have some cars to sell or not and if they have any margin that they can eat or not.

I would have said £205/month for a Corsa-E was an absolute bargain (assuming minimal down payment). £300 is much closer to where I’d expected it to have been in the current market.
I know, its crazy. £205 in July, but the wife decided she didn't want to change just yet. Had we decided last week to place an order and wait 9 weeks, then it would have been £245 and acceptable. But £357 is an absolute joke. My 3008 SUV GT cost me £336 pcm (all paid for now), so i'll be keeping that for a while longer i guess, but i was looking to change. Just can't now.
 
Soldato
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I know, its crazy. £205 in July, but the wife decided she didn't want to change just yet. Had we decided last week to place an order and wait 9 weeks, then it would have been £245 and acceptable. But £357 is an absolute joke. My 3008 SUV GT cost me £336 pcm (all paid for now), so i'll be keeping that for a while longer i guess, but i was looking to change. Just can't now.
That's life though. Two years ago the house I wanted was nearly £100k less than it is now. I can give it all the "stick 2 fingers up and say "no thanks". That's a downright rip!" I want but it isn't going to reduce the price anytime soon. Ultimately, if I want my bigger garden and more space then I'm going to have to pony up the cash.

Same with car prices, cars are now more expensive than they were. There might be a bit of a correction but the old pricing model has gone so better get used to it. Or, if you don't want to pay that much, simply don't. Run an older car or stick with what you have. No one is holding a gun to your head to sign up to a PCP you don't think represents good value.

This plus big manufactures like Merc and BMW have said they are going to move to selling less cars at a much high price model as well.

It is always interesting going to countries where used cars are relatively expensive to what we are used to here in the UK. People all of a sudden don't need to be swapping cars every five minutes and the social status of owning the latest 'shiny shiny' evaporates. Cars are no longer fit for the scrap heap with life left in them because it is financially worth while fixing them. Ultimately if we (the collective we that is) genuinely want to look at the environmental impact of personal transportation then this idea of swapping cars every 3 years doesn't really fit with that, even if the thing runs on electricity. So maybe having cars as a longer term investment is a good thing? If we all owned or leased our cars for a few more years before changing then there wouldn't need to be as many made in the first place.

Back on topic... even on a long trip isn't there still some advantage to being able to stick some charge back in the battery if, for example, you know you are going to spend the last 30 minutes of your journey in stop start traffic through a city centre?
 
Soldato
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PHEVs are not normally configured in this way as they are an ICE powered car first and foremost. The ICE connected to a gearbox and the rest of the drive system because they need to be. The electric system doesn’t have the power needed to do the job on its own and it’s generally there to assist. While some can get you up to 70mph, it’s a very steady acceleration. As soon as you mash the go pedal, the engine kicks in. Want heating? That will be the engine kicking in etc.

what he said - Nissan is introducing a phev range extender design (whether they will stick with that plan)
otherwise the gearbox(torque convertor replacing) electric motor is usually delivering about 1/3 of the max power when charged (zf boxes)

I thought phev sales were down, and per hyundai comments, full ev variant should be cheaper now (cross-over point), resulting from cheaper batteries,
maybe there will/are some relatively good (given current market+inflation) 2nd hand phev deals, but otherwise I think the technology is rapidy eol, people jumping to full ev.
 
Soldato
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ok, (forgetting my rant about prices) so if was doing say 15 miles a day round trip for work and maybe similar at the weekend, my thoughts were a PHEV would almost certainly give me most of my mileage on the battery, thus saving petrol. But for longer journeys I have the availability of fossil fuel to get there without range anxiety.
 
Soldato
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ok, (forgetting my rant about prices) so if was doing say 15 miles a day round trip for work and maybe similar at the weekend, my thoughts were a PHEV would almost certainly give me most of my mileage on the battery, thus saving petrol. But for longer journeys I have the availability of fossil fuel to get there without range anxiety.
TBH I'd see a PHEV as perfect for what you've described and simply think of it as an EV for anything within the range of the battery, an ICE for anything longer and consider any EV miles on a long trip as a bonus.
 
Caporegime
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what he said - Nissan is introducing a phev range extender design (whether they will stick with that plan)
otherwise the gearbox(torque convertor replacing) electric motor is usually delivering about 1/3 of the max power when charged (zf boxes)

I thought phev sales were down, and per hyundai comments, full ev variant should be cheaper now (cross-over point), resulting from cheaper batteries,
maybe there will/are some relatively good (given current market+inflation) 2nd hand phev deals, but otherwise I think the technology is rapidy eol, people jumping to full ev.

Hybrid sales were up last month. There are lots of people not quite ready to go full EV, like me.

The biggest issue with BEV so far are towing weights. Until there are BEVS with good towing weights there will always be a demand for Hybrids.
 
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