robinrottier

I have plugin superb iV and use home charging all the time. To me the only point of a hybrid is for plugged in at home charging to support local daily driving ... and we rarely do >20 miles on a typical day. But then we have option of the petrol engine for "big trips" where, to me, the battery plays little role ... yes there is braking leading to regen charging in the battery but its very limited ..think of that as just a more efficient petrol engine. It is very inefficient to have the petrol engine deliberating running in order to recharge the battery and the sensible use cases for that are very limited. If you never fully charge the battery you'd be pointlessly driving around with a massive deadweight in the boot. I have had 60mpg on some mostly petrol trips but generally its high 40s, low 50s mpg. You can play with the settings and tell the car, in hybrid mode, to leave 10% or 20% say in the battery in order to give you some electric driving when you get near your destination after a long motorway (for example) but thats a pain and rather adhoc. In our case we can drive around locally for a month without visiting a petrol station and charging overnight is cheap ... 70p to fill up an empty battery ...so for 20 miles thats ~3p per mile for "fuel" and in the summer with better range or even free electricity from the solar PV then much less. --> PHEV gives you the best of both worlds (i.e. cheap electric travel and the backup of longer range from the engine) but also the worst of both worlds... more weight to carry around, twice as many engines to break down and a smaller petrol tank. As always, it all depends on your circumstances and driving pattern/requirements -- if you routinely do more than 30 miles a day for commuting or travelling I would say the hybrid wasnt worth it ... go for a full EV or stick to ICE. And another factor to consider, is if you get a home charger you can get an EV electricity tariff and depending what else you have in your house you can get cheap electric for whole home use in the off-peak period.

Im just back from the Alps and I took some chains labelled with a "size" of 120 ... not entirely sure what that corresponds to but they were bigger than another set of chains labelled "100" which did not fit my 235/45/R18 tyres, whereas the 120 size did fit comfortably. There is some slack and adjustment in chains but not too much to allow you to put smaller chains on bigger tyres-- every chain says what size tyres it will fit. ANd if it comes to fitting in adverse conditions you really dont want chains that are a struggle to put on -- and take spare gloves and something to kneel on. The 9mm number is the size of the links which is what you want for normal cars. Some bigger chains are available with 16mm links for super heavy SUVs and vans (I believe)

From new joiner. Skoda Superb iV 2021, Black ~34k miles