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So it's quite difficult to find real world feedback from these car owners and if the PHEV will benefit myself. So I'd be interested to hear how you get on with real world commuting, MPG and fuel costs plus your view on if it would benefit myself.
Current car is a 2011 audi a6 2.0 estate which always returns 42-46mpg. It owes me nothing and keeps taking the miles with no issues, currently at 185k. but I'd like to swop it out at 200k hence me doing some research.
current commute - 4 days a week a drive from Lichfield to Lutterworth using the A5. This is 35 miles each way total 70 miles. The A5 is a mixture of dual carriage which flow okay and then single carriage where you have to queue to get over roundabouts. the drive takes an hour so my average speed is easy to calculate. there is no charging stations at my place of work. Is a phev the right vehicle for this commute or do I just buy another used Audi diesel estate or Passat?
Golf GTE here but electric covers all our local running (getting the kids to things, shopping, etc), then we tend to do longer trips occasionally.
It gets trickier to work out as you go beyond that range and start using petrol but in simplest terms you get about 16-20 miles at about 250mpg equivalent (because electricity still costs money) then about 50mpg once you've run out. Worst case I've had, 200 miles home from BPW with a bike on the roof and starting on an empty battery I got 46mpg.
In reality on a longer journey you tend to leave it in hybrid mode and it slowly draws down on the battery to get better petrol economy, and it's worth leaving a couple of miles on battery in case you hit traffic or slower bits - because then you crawl along using no petrol at all. All hybrids come into their own when traffic gets slow, wheras diesels are great for longer steady speed runs.
Just looked through the app and a recent journey was starting fully charged, 76 miles out (M25/M40) at 78.5mpg petrol average, then 76 miles back at 55.4mpg petrol average. Think I'd left a few miles of battery in between, if I'd depleted it then I think I could 80mpg petrol average for your commute.
So a decent saving, but at the same time that distance is comfortable for almost all of the current pure electric cars and those would do the 13500 miles a year of commuting for about £300 in electric rather than £1800+ in diesel.
Question you should be asking yourself is:
Is it a Tax perk ?
Will you actually charge it up from home ?
#jusayin
Q: do you really need a big car for the commute?
I bought a Passat GTE 6 weeks ago after 3 years with a Passat disel and ever since I've been trying to work out how much I'm saving and it's not so easy. First of all my cars are company cars, so I don't have to pay for them initially, only the taxes etc.
My GTE tells me I have 41km of pure battery when it's fully charged, in reality today that drove me about 25km, mainly motorway driving at 110kph. Then it switch over to petrol for the other 20km, then tonight I'll drive the 55km home on petrol as right now I can't charge at work either.
So in reality I don't think I'm saving much, but time will tell as I track my costs.
For you its going to be similar as your commute is a similar distance.
Will you be buying the car yourself or?
I think the best option for your commute would be to downsize to say a Nissan Leaf, then you could do the commute return pruely on El. Maybe look if you could find a decent lease offer and calculate if it'd be cheaper for you in the long run?
thanks for the feedback so far.
I do need a bigger car (I'm already compromising on size by looking at Golfs and A3s) , two kids a Labrador, bikes, etc. the car is not a company car, it'll be my own car with me paying for fuel. Car will defo get charged at home.
the numbers from Simon with GTE sound very good. and driving it to work in hybrid makes the most sense with the slow moving and stop start sections of my commute.
Golf GTE here too what Simon_g says sums it up.
Also a lovely car to drive.
The Golf is probably the best PHEV out there at the mo IMO.
k I think a golf or Passat GTE will be the ones. I think the golfs were released earlier so will be the cheaper option on the used market. when I was looking earlier the golfs started at 15k.
The Volvo is a bit different as it actually uses a diesel engine and not a petrol. anyone got a V60 D6?
I foun the V60 a bit small. It's a nice looking car (kinda), but the arm rests are in a slightly odd place for my arms. We ended up by a flexifuel Passat estate so that we can still use it if/when Stockholm bans diesels in the city center. It still gets 900+ km on a tank though, which is good for a petrol.
I had a Golf GTE and as others have said nice car. I got around 15miles electric range in winter which was enough to get to work and charge again there.
I think they only make sense as company cars with the associated tax breaks or if you can regularly commute on electric only. I did not find the petrol engine to be that economical as it is a very heavy car.
When my work scheme came to an end I looked at buying a used one but VW were unwilling to provide an extended warranty. I would not want to own one out of warranty due to expensive repairs if things go wrong.
Yet another Golf GTE owner checking in. On a company car lease, and if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have bothered - see bikebuoy's comment; it's just a greenwash on tax, and the list price was £35K before powershift grant. Even then, it's an expensive, lardy Golf. I would confirm Simon's figures (currently 90 mpg showing on the 40K mileage in 2 & 1/2 years) and echo the above comment about possible expense - I'm on charger number 3 and the list price was £700+. I also get occasional dashboard messages about drivetrain error - workshop referral or similar.
Instead of PHEV would a Hyundai Kona 64kwh ev be an option?
A3 Etron, Had it a little over a year. I’m fortunate it’s a company car as high mileage at 40k p/a. I have it for the tax benefit but unlike many I plug it in at home a few times a week. With the miles I travel it doesn’t get far on electric, but it certainly has great power with dual fuel. It’s a great car, but not big. In reality it’s very similar to the golf. I get around 25 miles on pure electric, so it’s good only for short journeys. I tend to run it on hybrid. 40 ltr tank. 420 miles with no charge and around 450 with one charge. It’s a crazy expensive car to buy new (mine on business lease). I’m not sure how people can justify the initial outlay for such cars. I appreciate you may buy used and the depreciation may make it more viable. The difference between a std petrol and the phev is massive. Also you need to factor in the reduced mpg due to extra weight 400kg.
It costs me only £1 to charge at home, so 25 miles for a quid is good value. But only if you overlook the significant up front cost.
I don’t know how you drive, but for sure, less speed is best way to increase mpg.
Yeah, to be fair sinking a load of money into owning one out of warranty is a less appealing prospect. Ours is on a 2 year lease and our usage (loads of short local trips) is saving us loads. We just run one car so it lets us run on electric for short trips but easily do the long runs when we need to.
Next car will be a battery EV though and if I had a 70 mile a day commute I’d already have one.
Btw if you must got phev then Kia Niro or Optima, or Hyundai Ioniq are available too but have the much longer Korean warranties - much better bet IMO as a private owner.