Volvo T6 or T8 Hybrids - Experience

[sandys]

Missus went over 30 miles on a charge today doing her normal stuff but didn't let the kids turn all the stuff on to test, so range is possible, it's just EV life I guess, you want to maximize range, drive with optimized settings etc. told her not too worry about it, we are not savages

She also made the obvious point that these guys doing range tests are moving, she spends a good 20-30 minutes loitering at places waiting for things to open for the kids, and them when the kids to come back etc where she's burning energy, much the same for me 30-40mins in stop start traffic to do 9 miles recently so if you're not doing many miles but the thing is on the mpkw is not going to be good

On the enjoyment side, testing out its Jekyl and Hyde nature of the T8, Ev mode 0-60 in ~10s, Power mode, ~4.4s little bit silly, apparently it'll do 100 in little over 10s, you feel nothing, keeping a license might be tricky, no noise, no sensation of speed and the speed limiter function doesn't seem to work Certainly understand why a HUD is useful more so now.

 

[sandys]

I don’t know if the Google system changes the controls for the speed limiter, I don’t use it very often. If I press the left of right buttons on the left of the steering wheel face I think it cycles between speed limiter, cruise control and then pilot assist. With each of them you select it and then use the up or down arrows to set the speed.

Yup the steering wheel switch on left/right is broken in google, I did not consider I'd have to select cruise or speed assist, perhaps I am doing it wrong, I'll lay with the options later

Welcome to EV/PHEV life. Winter range will be pathetic, summer range much, much better. However, as you have found out, it will depend massively on what you're actually using the car for and how you are using it.
It's still the best of both worlds, as long as you can charge it at home. Enjoy

Also don't let chasing irrelevant numbers ruin the experience. You're still doing much better than before even with just under 30 miles electric!

Yup it's still working out I think I just saw the review stuff and thought more would be possible but yup, totally how its used, it's performing the function we bought it for which was to stop having to deal with diesel issues on low mileage and better for local environment when doing car pool etc, where a lot of time sat in car parks waiting for tardy kids with engine running for heat/ac.

I will miss my late night DPF cleaning jaunts though, good time to listen to music with clear roads and nobody to say turn it down/off etc. Stereo in the Volvo is much better though so perhaps I'll do it anyway.

Even in these poor conditions with low results using a bad tariff its still cheaper to run than our old diesel, due to diesel the completely wrong engine for our day to day stuff, I'd have put 90-100quid in by now, I've put about £40 of electric in, not sure how much petrol we have used but tank is still showing as full, digital guage though, poor to know where it is.

Volvo put this in the manual, which makes sense.

Nicer driving attributes though? Or more frustrating?

Driving an Evoque PHEV just annoyed me as you know you had to restrain power to keep EV rather than full BEV deployment

Works really well, you don't even know its switched engines unless you are gunning it and getting high rpm, in terms of normal running on EV the little 143bhp/228/bs motor is enough for driving about town and it just stays in EV in pure mode even when you put your foot down. Theres a click point at bottom of the throttle that'll force the engine to come in if needed.

The refinement in this car is very high, such a wafter.

 

[sandys]

Sure, you don't buy a car to save money, if that was the goal I'd just run the old donkey for ever, 60k buys a lot of diesel and maintenance , it'd cover us and our normal mileage for 30yrs, I'd be dead before that it is just nice to know that it is doing well on that metric too along with all the other stuff it is better at.

 

[sandys]

if she goes into the office she can charge for free, so can't see why we wouldn't use that, though lots of EVs and one charge point mean you have to be lucky to get it, not that she would, she won't even put fuel in a car never mind latch up electric, it'd be another one of my man duties

Well stone me, Funny how seeing how much things cost changes attitudes, I normally do the fill ups or if the missus does it goes on my magic money card, so she never really thinks about it, just fill and go without a care in the world.

Charging this at home is doubling our energy usage and the smart meter is going nuts which is something she can see, all of a sudden the missus is worried about costs, I've explained its less that I normally pay but she doesn't like it

Today, she actually decided to charge it at the office free power, never thought that day would come, it might be a little win, but we should enjoy the small victories

 

[sandys]

1 month and 1035 miles in and just done my first fill up, think its safe to say that EV mode is working out for the missus, she's even said she'd have no issue with a full EV after running this and doing the charging etc. running approx 40/60 petrol/electric.

We are now seeing 30+ miles on EV with regularity, lows now ~28, high 37, comparing its costs versus petrol it is working out well for our local stuff, of course it is absolutely killing our old diesel on the same town driving.

That's 1.9-2.43 miles per kw, so some way off advertised 3.2 but acceptable, of course that's going off of usable battery size, if you include charging loss of ~16% its 1.62- 2.1 miles per kw, not sure if that improves with temp too I need to test a few more full battery depletions to understand impact of charging cold battery vs warm.

Just did a 260 mile trip fully loaded with no charging, not the worlds most economical petrol motor, about 32-34mpg @ normal motorway speeds, hard to know exactly as it does still do some regen and electric use when flat and tells me I'm doing 60 mpg as it ignores electric consumption, in the old Volvos you would get a report of Kw use/regen and fuel use, this has not been implemented in Google yet, which is a shame as I like data /nerd

Next month 500 mile towing, it's got a low bar to beat of 21-23mpg for the old machine, I'm confident it'd do at least that.

 

[sandys]

Sad times, sexy 22s dropped in favour of some invisible 20s, loss of 3 tires for various reasons on 22s led the decision, hope this mitigates further failures.

Life got in the way of the track trip so no tow report....boo, car has been superb otherwise, completely fitting the brief it was bought for, as temps improved so did its electric efficiency, managing 2.7-3 miles/kw, not too shabby, though it can tank for reasons that just aren't clear to me, given up trying to figure it out despite a few of our journeys being double the battery range the consumption has been decent, sitting at about 160mpg for the past 1500 miles, so our driving profile fits this type of car well, in that we don't often go far enough for the inefficient petrol to impact much.

Only real negative now I've been using it for a while is its size, despite being a bigger footprint than our old car we're finding it quite small once loaded up with dog/kids/wheelchair/scooters etc, all the air crap in boot leads to quite a shallow boot with tonneau cover, pretty much have to throw that away and I have this weird thing where stuff in boot not being covered irks me, even thould you can't see it with privacy glass.

Fingers crossed the prices of ex90 tanks with other EVs, missus would go for that.

Now that I have cracked the modification seal, I've been considering some other tweaks, like lowering, I like how it looks parked with comfort access, I'd quite like it to look like that when it motion rather than an inch higher, then there's the Polestar map, modifying a Volvo though....doesn't seem right, will loose its comfort wagon status, unless it's a nodding dog and box of tissues in the back window oh wait there's no cover for that stuff to sit on.

 

[sandys]

In for the annual service this week, so 1yr report, how has it been, pretty damn good, fulfilled the brief for the dual nature car EV town car, long range lugger, I’d like to say it has been perfect but I cannot, we had a heater failure that took a while to fix, in fact it took a while to even get the car into my local dealer….

Fortunately loosing the coolant heater was not end of the world as I have a big turbo petrol powered lump of aluminium that can do a good job of this

How much have we used this PHEV as intended, pretty much all our local running has been covered in EV mode, petrol filling in on the long range stuff, in just under 10k and we are only on on 7th tank of fuel so an average of ~1400 miles per tank, typically nearer 2k So lots of EV use, gotta be in the region of 70% EV.

This can been seen in the tyre wear, current depths are 5mm front (petrol engine) 3mm rear (electric motor) obviously having the rear do both the accelerating and the decelerating in EV mode (one pedal drive so rear motor does regen) has quite an impact on tyre wear, can only be 6-7k on this set as I replaced them after all the 22” blowouts to 20”s, so looking at about maybe 10k out of a pair, not great, will do a rotation so I replace all 4 together later in the year ready for winter wetness. On the plus side, barely any break pad wear, just moved the problem somewhere else I guess. Is it a plus, pads are cheaper than tyres…..Hmmmm

For our journeys and how we use the car, the EV side is not very efficient, we can have some good outliers over 2.7 miles per kw but that is rare, 2.4 seems most common, now in low temp its 1.9-2.2, doesn’t matter too much, as we fill cheap/free, just means for the most part you only get 30-35miles out of its usable battery, it never really got loads better in the summer for us, couple of 38s and the odd kiss of a 40.

This could have course be attributed to buying the wrong tyres when I dropped down to 20s, using proper sports rubber rather than some EV/VOL specific things, when I replace I will not make that mistake, maybe it will improve things on wear and consumption.

It’s a well put together machine, despite the battering this got from the kids, potholes and missus smashing curbs etc, no squeaks or rattles or other issues have materialized, interior has held up well to the dogs claws and its general craziness when she gets excited. Feels nice and robust.

Overall good car and I love the look of the thing, trawling Volvo forums though does give me concerns about its ability to be a long term keeper, with EV running gear issues etc, but at the moment it feels so good I might just do the head in sand thing and hope it out lasts me

 

[sandys]

We would have had an F-PACE but Jags delivery times and certainty of any times quoted was at the time, and probably still is a joke. We ordered 5 cars in a whatever comes first we'll have, Jag didn't even make the cut as it was a 2 yr window....I had no time for that, and I wouldn't pay over list for anything used which was how it was when we ordered due to shortages. lovely car though.

Hard for me to reliably comment on petrol use as we mainly use as EV, must be over 70%, and I've been lucky and always seem to be able to get some form of charge on other journeys, you know like free at hotels or campsites etc, but I can't imagine Volvos engine being a patch on BMWs, when we are using the petrol we are pulling something or fully loaded, think the best I have seen on a 300 mile trip when I had no ability to charge was 37mpg.

Typically with some charge many journeys are claiming 70+ but of course it doesn't count the electric in that, as an example my trip counter says I have done 133mpg over 6500miles. It may not be far off the truth or even a bit pessimistic if I consider how cheap I charge.

In my fuelly notes I convert EV cost to petrol and work out it equivalent mpg based of what I paid using 0.264p a unit for electric even for my free fill ups to work out an an overall equivalent mpg to compare to my old bus and this puts it at 45-55mpg as its cost to run. Obviously that figure would be in triple digits if I now use my new off peak tariff and didn't disregard free charging.

On the EV range side plenty of people claim to to far better than me, like mpg, EV range is going to be dependent on your use case.

Looking today, the X5 would be a contender, it was last time to be fair but the EV powertrain was lacking, now it matches the Volvo, perhaps surpasses, can't remember now in performance and usefulness of the EV side with a stronger motor and bigger battery so range should be greater. Missus also thought the x5 was too big but actually as our lives have changed a bit we're finding the XC60 a bit small, so the X5 might be perfect now

 

[sandys]

xc60 now as the bigger battery for eu compliancy - 60miles ? so maybe even better than current t8 -
bmw, unlike mb, don't seem to have any plans for bigger phev batteries though, a roadmap of straight to electric.

The MY24 Volvo battery has remained the same as what I have, though the website is not clear, they may have opened up a touch of extra range through increasing the unusable portion of the 18.8 to over 14.8 but in all likely hood the increase range has come from changes to wheel design and tyre as ~4kwh of reserved battery they have to play with is small.

BMW battery was an already massive 25ish kwh, but they have improved drive train now, new motor that is 197bhp, 90 odd up from the old one, more powerful motor means better regen and more useful without assistance, able to use it at higher speed etc.

 

[sandys]

MY24 is 6.6kw but for some rather odd reason they have gone 2 phase, so it seems that it is still 3.6Kw on a standard UK home supply, bonkers.

In reality because the battery is small it is fine, ~5 hour charge time over night, though it can mean when preconditioning at home the heating can pull more than the car can take in if your doing a quick 15 min cabin heat up (not much more but, you know a little loss is an annoying loss ), so it is better to tell the Volvo to get the car ready by a certain time then it heats the car up and recharges the battery itself in a controlled way leaving both battery full and car hot.

 

[sandys]

I'm not to worried, even my peak rate is cheaper to run than petrol, though that is marginal now prices have dropped so much @ 138.9 for E5 it is a close run thing with my EV efficiency, another 10p and it'd be cheaper to run petrol if I can't cheap/free charge.

Its more the battery percentage loss, I want to leave at 100 not 98/99, I know, saddo, My cheap rate is till 7 so not too bad and it only uses ~ 500w once upto temp ticking over, just the initial warm up that sucks down the elecrons which can be done by 7.

To be honest now she has had 6 chargers installed at work I shouldn't even plug it in an home and just pre heat off battery any way, use the free power, stay true to my Scottish roots

 

[sandys]

As always the quoted range numbers are WLTP and what you end up getting is all down to how your car is specced, and how you drive, WLTP on my XC60 was 48 mile range, but as I added the sports kit with 22" rims, it took 10% off of quoted, so immediately I compromised mine then of course no one drives the test conditions on the road, so I'd take the numbers as a guide not that you are going to achieved claimed, just like mpg numbers.

If you want the best range, check the spec tested and keep the car close to that, don't go mad on options like fancy rims etc.

Having a big battery though is a sure fire way to get more range and cars like the X5 start with a good size.

 

[sandys]

For our journeys and how we use the car, the EV side is not very efficient, we can have some good outliers over 2.7 miles per kw but that is rare, 2.4 seems most common, now in low temp its 1.9-2.2, doesn’t matter too much, as we fill cheap/free, just means for the most part you only get 30-35miles out of its usable battery, it never really got loads better in the summer for us, couple of 38s and the odd kiss of a 40.

This could have course be attributed to buying the wrong tyres when I dropped down to 20s, using proper sports rubber rather than some EV/VOL specific things, when I replace I will not make that mistake, maybe it will improve things on wear and consumption.

Well little update to this as we switched the tyres a few months back, this time I pulled off the Sports rubber I mistakenly bought and put the car back on the EV rubber it was supposed to be running.

That week almost instantly the range jumped up ~10-15% but it was hard to conclusively say whether that was the tires or because the temperature had also went over that ~10C threshold where the EV side starts to work better, but certainly now we have had some warmer weather we are indeed not seeing less than 40 miles, we are now 40-45miles out of a charge, so there you go, smaller lighter wheels with the right rubber FTW. (that or Volvos drivetrain optimizations every update are actually doing something)

It might even manage more but as the extra range better fits our daily use we are rarely fully emptying the battery at the moment.

Big problem we have now is the fuel never gets used, 8 tanks in 13k, last fill up early Feb. OK not really a problem Time for a proper EV perhaps?