 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi all
I Always do the drive to the alps in one hit, in our trusty old diesel x3. Alas, the old girl is due to meet her maker and im looking at getting a plug in hybrid kuga.
Are these able to cope with a 14hour nonstop journey? Its a long trek!
Anyone who has a plug in hybrid can give some reassurance that would be appreciated. Also, is the fuel economy any good?
Thanks in advance,
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Can't see why not. Clearly most of it will be under ICE power.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Wouldn't you do pretty much all of the journey on petrol power?
I've driven to the Alps in a battery EV several times, always in one hit. Does the job just fine. Takes a bit more time, costs a bit less, but no significant difference to the day's travel from when I did the same thing in a petrol or diesel powered car.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Daughter has a Kuga PHEV, she never plugs it in, ever. It runs just fine.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I just drove to Val Thorens and back with four of us in a plug-in hybrid Golf GTE. Yes, the smaller fuel tank is a bit annoying but the refuelling stops coincided with changes of driver so not an issue.
Driving down to Moutiers from Val Thorens added about 1/3 of battery charge, which helped as I wasn't able to plug in the car to charge at VT.
We averaged ~48mpg on the journey home, with an overnight stop in Dijon rather than doing it all in one hit.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Jwh138, check if it's a "wetbelt" PU as there's some real horror stories generally about that arrangement from manufacturer.
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We have driven down to the Alps in a plug in hybrid Mitsubishi Outback, (or is it an Outlander) and also my plug in Mini. We have never plugged them in anywhere and just drive on the petrol and maybe a bit of recharge from driving. That is on the journey, we do plug in at home and get our local driving from the charge.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Thu 24-04-25 9:15; edited 2 times in total
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| telford_mike wrote: |
| Daughter has a Kuga PHEV, she never plugs it in, ever. It runs just fine. |
That rather negates the advantages of a PHEV, i.e you can plug in to charge it for short daily commutes but when you have a longer journey you have the economy of the hybrid engine.
I have a 2024 Prius PHEV. For my usual daily trips I run on EV only, currently getting 3.9 miles/kWh. On my recent trip to Les Deux Alpes the petrol hybrid engine gave me about 60mpg.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Some PHEVs have terrible MPG when running on fuel alone, and can perform far worse than normal cars. On the other hand, some are excellent.
The WLTP rules were made much stricter for PHEV emissions this year, so if you're buying a new car you should be OK.
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Yes, its a nit of a minefield! Thanks for the feedback.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| HilbertSpace wrote: |
| Some PHEVs have terrible MPG when running on fuel alone, and can perform far worse than normal cars. On the other hand, some are excellent. |
Makes sense that they'd be inefficient, when on the engine it's lugging a battery around and when it's on electric it has to lug an engine around
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I cannot see how it’s economic to charge from a public charger. Ever. 
Especially in winter, for what? 20kms?
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You know it makes sense.
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| Alastair Pink wrote: |
| telford_mike wrote: |
| Daughter has a Kuga PHEV, she never plugs it in, ever. It runs just fine. |
That rather negates the advantages of a PHEV, i.e you can plug in to charge it for short daily commutes but when you have a longer journey you have the economy of the hybrid engine.
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Not sure about that. If I stayed in an apartment with no charging facilities but got massive tax breaks for carrying a huge battery around with me, I would think about it.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| SnoodyMcFlude wrote: |
| Makes sense that they'd be inefficient, when on the engine it's lugging a battery around and when it's on electric it has to lug an engine around |
It's a bit of a myth, this PHEV lugging a battery around when using ICE and vice versa.
It all depends on the nature of your usage - admittedly on long journeys running on ICE it is very much the case, though a fair amount of your battery energy can be regen. through ICE-recuperation; braking; coasting; down gradients etc.
However over the whole EV vs PHEV usage cycle (where the average daily car usage is around 20 miles - YMMV) the argument fails completely when comparing a PHEV (running in electric mode) to a full EV, since on the EV you're actually carrying an unnecessary 90%-ish of "unused" battery which actually weighs a lot more than the "unused" ICE in a PHEV
I have a range of around 40miles in my PHEV (Merc GLA250e), and most of the time run in pure electric costing me between 2p - 3p per mile. On the occasional longer journey I get around 40-50mpg, so say 12p - 15p per mile which is still a lot better than my previous car, which averaged 30-35mpg
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Poster: A snowHead
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@geoffers, I still don't understand how it's a myth, a 1.5 engine moving a car of 1500kg plus a 200kg battery (not accurate figures, just say for the theory) is surely less efficient than a 1.5 engine moving just the 1500kg....isn't it? I'm not saying that overall it's less efficient, just that when they're running purely on engine (as it would be for the OP), it's going to be less efficient.
As for PHEV v EV, one of the main benefits I see from an EV is reduced servicing, which is something you lose with the PHEV. That said, for someone who mostly does 30 mile journeys and the occasional 250-300 then PHEV is probably better than a long range EV....for now.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Not sure how PHEV differ from standard hybrids in how the apportion when to apply electric power to a journey, but just done the Alps and back in my Corolla hybrid (non-plug in) and there was a minuscule amount of electric-powered driving, all of it in cities when we did the stopovers.
I suspect the nature of 130kmh driving - uninterrupted because French motorways actually run smooth - and the fact there's a lot of 'power' driving to get up those long drags in Champagne, just meant that electricity alone wasn't able to provide what the car needed for the majority of the journey because of how the computer inside tells it when to switch between elec and ICE.
FYI, car did 52mpg over the 1550 miles and the electric motor does help the car under acceleration.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| SnoodyMcFlude wrote: |
| @geoffers, I still don't understand how it's a myth, a 1.5 engine moving a car of 1500kg plus a 200kg battery (not accurate figures, just say for the theory) is surely less efficient than a 1.5 engine moving just the 1500kg....isn't it? |
Agreed, but I was comparing the majority short journey daily usage of cars: comparing EV to PHEV where in an EV you're lugging a hugely heavy EV battery around but you're only using less than 10% of its capacity.
I bet 90% of (unused) battery weights a lot more than the (unused) ICE, but you never hear that comparison mentioned...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@geoffers, given that this thread is about driving to the Alps, I didn't think the short journey element was particularly relevant.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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We have one and do the alps three or four times a year. In some ways it is the ideal vehicle if you only want one car, are not able to commit to full electric and spend the time keeping it charged up for short journeys.
We do all of our daily driving in EV mode and this is very important to us as we are in London and Chamonix which both have emissions issues. On the long journey between the two we run more like a normal hybrid once the battery has been depleted (although we toggle between modes to generate charge on the flat and downhills and use that on the uphills to maximise economy). Our overall economy around town is that of an electric car but 40mpg on the long trips. A compromise maybe but we also travel through Italy a lot and, outside of the Aosta valley, EV chargers have been as rare as hens' teeth at service stations so all electric has not been a viable option for us yet.
What you choose to buy and drive is extremely personal but a PHEV can make a lot of sense as a single car especially if you have regular but not guaranteed access to charging points. Driving all-electric in traffic is a much smoother and nicer experience.
As a side-note, JLR took a load of weight out of their ICE to offset the battery as part of the their P300 drive train by making them 3-cylinder.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@22 dropout, what do you have? As I couldn’t see our Outlander generating meaningful charge on any downhills?
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I had a Volvo T5 then a T8 its essentially the same engine but with the PHEV battery. PHEV's are good of a lot of your mileage can be done on the EV only, school run, super market etc. Volvos newer PHEV's have an EV range of 40-50 miles which would be more usable.
On longer journeys I'd usually set for the engine to charge the battery for use when in traffic etc. It may have changed but PHEV batteries charge speed is limited so apart from the cost they're not really worth charging on a public charger. IMO they're a good compromise if the user case meshes with lots of small journeys on EV. We had ours for 4 years and got about 65 mpg combined vs 27mpg on the T5 we had if that gave a return on higher purchase price vs fuel savings I don't know?
Since then moved to a full EV which if you can charge at home are still cheap to run.
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| under a new name wrote: |
| @22 dropout, what do you have? As I couldn’t see our Outlander generating meaningful charge on any downhills? |
The Evoque P300. The regeneration is fairly good. On alpine hills we can get 1.5-3 kw regenerated. More like 4kw on the Col du Forclaz. On small hills you are right, it is barely noticeable. Gravitational regeneration will never exceed consumption but every little helps when you start dragging 2t of vehicle uphill.
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