Volvo T6 or T8 Hybrids - Experience

[sandys]

Indeed seems that way but it is not clear cut, it'd actually be a bit more in my saving case but Mazda not really in the same class, it's good but not quite up there with the Volvo for refinement and luxury feel, not a million miles away but quite a few whirs and clunks etc, from drivetrain which make it feel lower tier, though too its credit the 4 pot sounded better than the Volvo and was leagues above the crashy Koreans on the suspension front.

The lack of boost could be a concern towing once the battery is depleted, it's a 2.5 so it's not completely torque less but <200lbs of torque pulling a few tonnes of car/trailer could be a struggle, just no replacement for grunt requirement, a turbo diesel/petrol or more cylinders better here.

Things like comfort access though where seats, mirrors and steering position are stored per driver are a winner, this was great in our Merc, me and my missus are very different body shape and height, large and little so have vastly different everything when driving a car, this sort of feature is killer and it's amazing the amount of supposedly premium motors can't do it, the Volvo doesn't do the wheel for example, just the rest.

So yeh, not clear cut, on monies Mazda is an easy winner, it is a lot of car for the dough but on doing the job we want from it needs further consideration. The GLE350de is probably the perfect drivetrain, diesel and electric, too much car though, the new glc will have both diesel and petrol plugin with big battery.

 

[mjt]

Can’t speak for the Mazda, but the Volvo is no spring chicken these days. Given the fact you still haven’t got the car yet, seems like a no-brainer to get something else.

 

[sandys]

Yup, I am leaning that way, we did go for a retest of the T8 immediately afterwards and there's no question the the Volvo is the better car but the Mazda gives very little up to it or the competing Germans we've tried on the whole.

Missus is not so enamored, though I wonder if that is more of a status thing, she feels Mazda is like a Vauxhall and much less impressive, badge snob she's not really she liked the car though, but she loves the Volvo, so that is a hurdle, In typical fashion she has already said that 'we' can put the saving towards a house remodel ..... I'll never win which ever way I go

 

[sandys]

Well hung in there and picked up the XC60 T8, lovely car generally, can't say the Hybrid is working out well as well for me as I'd hoped, not sure how much of that is too much time sat in car setting up profiles and apps etc and maybe it will settle when I stop experimenting but struggling to hit anywhere where near 35 miles out of EV mode like reviewers, the missus was doing about 20-25 miles, of course with the kids in there on school run all 4 heated seats and wheel etc plus the heating as it has been sub zero past few days perhaps this is to be expected, I did nudge 30 when in it myself on a nicer day, so its not terrible just thought it might fair better with our low speed driving profile.

Still enough for most of her local stuff but its a daily charge which at my rates is ~£4.5, so £2.2 cheaper than the old car and less emissions etc, so don't feel so bad sat in the car waiting outside the school or sports pickups with car on for heat now Once I get the home battery I can get on a time of use tariff, but for now I have a lock that sees my main electric rate the best for my house if not optimal for an EV/PHEV and we don't do enough mileage to care about the car usage but that'd drop the charge rate to £2 a charge.

Seems like it'll do pretty decent petrol mpg as a hybrid, though not had a long enough run in it yet to test, I can see a tank of petrol lasting quite a long time due to running as an EV, might have to get into the habit of not filling the tank and just putting a few quid in

Need to see if we have stuff enabled that is to aggressive a consumer, certainly preheating isn't cheap at ~3.6Kw.

Sucks that the manual is all online so I can't just sit and read it in a nice structure manner, rubbish cost cutting step by Volvo.

Had no issues with the Google side of things yet, that all seems great.

The Slow charging is more annoying that I had imagined, 3.6Kw not enough, this is fixed for MY24 though only 6.6K, even that strikes me as slow.

Will report back once we are out of tinkering phase.

 

[MrM]

Congrats on the new car, looks great. I have found there are big variations for electric range in deepest winter versus high summer. I get ~16 miles per charge on my 21 T8 in deep winter and about 24 in the summer, so 50% more.

Applying that to your numbers and you are looking at 35 miles +. Bear with it… and enjoy.

 

[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.

 

[MrM]

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.

 

[mjt]

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

 

[dlockers]

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!

 

[mjt]

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!

I've just crunched the numbers and I've saved maybe £600 in fuel by having a PHEV over a normal petrol Q7...
16,000 miles covered in a year, 2200 in pure EV. Hardly massive savings considering the cost of the vehicle!

So yeah, sod PHEVs

 

[Jonnycoupe]

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

 

[jpaul]

I've just crunched the numbers and I've saved maybe £600 in fuel by having a PHEV over a normal petrol Q7...

you'll always have BIKParis, does that more than offset any increased leasing vs normal petrol

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Big assumption for it to be a company car there jpaul to start a sentence with “always”

No one in the UK has petrol company cars.

 

[dlockers]

I've just crunched the numbers and I've saved maybe £600 in fuel by having a PHEV over a normal petrol Q7...
16,000 miles covered in a year, 2200 in pure EV. Hardly massive savings considering the cost of the vehicle!

So yeah, sod PHEVs

Send me the 600 quid if it's such irrelevant savings

 

[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.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Indeed, it’s not just about ££ versus ££ running. Sometimes the driving experience is better too

 

[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.

 

[gailjon]

I've just crunched the numbers and I've saved maybe £600 in fuel by having a PHEV over a normal petrol Q7...
16,000 miles covered in a year, 2200 in pure EV. Hardly massive savings considering the cost of the vehicle!

So yeah, sod PHEVs

Problem with Q7 phev is poor ev only range and why get a 5 seat only Q7?

 

[mjt]

Problem with Q7 phev is poor ev only range and why get a 5 seat only Q7?

Totally agree, but it's a lovely place to be and it doesn't half shift. Honestly, we needed three-across seating with child seats in the back and the Q7 has 40/30/40 which you can really only get in a van. Also the 3 seats slide and recline individually which means an adult can travel in between the 2 kids with no problems at all and increases luggage capacity quite a bit when pushed forward.

 

[dlockers]

Totally agree, but it's a lovely place to be and it doesn't half shift. Honestly, we needed three-across seating with child seats in the back and the Q7 has 40/30/40 which you can really only get in a van. Also the 3 seats slide and recline individually which means an adult can travel in between the 2 kids with no problems at all and increases luggage capacity quite a bit when pushed forward.

110% rear seating does sound pretty roomy!