I know this is resurrecting an old thread but I am having a similar issue, but it seems to be tied to the Battery Hold level, and I don't know if I'm just being a bit thick.

 

I bought my iV a week ago, and my driving is broadly split into a commute which is 100 miles each direction where I would use hybrid, and on one direction set the HV battery to use around 50%, and use the remaining 50% on the return journey.  The remainder of my driving is relatively short and well within the reach of the e-mode.

 

A few days ago, the battery was showing around 45% charge, and as soon as I started the car, the ICE started and the car would not go into e-mode.  I unchecked the Auto box in the e-mode manager, and the white line was above the current level of charge.  I then manually moved  the line until it was as low as it would go, and after a few minutes the ICE engine switched off and the the e-mode came back on.

 

This morning I was driving on hybrid (in auto mode), and the ICE was running from dual carriageway use, and had been running for about 10 minutes or so, and even when I was stopped at traffic lights the ICE would not switch off, despite having over 70% battery charge of the HV battery.  So again, I unchecked the Auto box in the e-manager, and the battery was set to battery hold at 75%, and I was getting the same "unable to use e-drive" message.  There was nothing that was causing high energy drain as the climate control was set at 20 degrees with no A/C, and the car was fully warm.  So I moved the battery hold level to the bottom, re-checked the auto box in the e-manager and still it was saying the e-mode was unavailable.

 

After another few minutes at set of lights I turned the ignition off, and restarted the car, and miraculously the e-mode became available.

 

Is this a potential software issue, that using the reserve charge level function in the e-manager, is somehow overriding everything else even when you are in e-mode or automatic.  And once the software gets itself into a knot it doesn't know how to sort itself out?

I have found that sometimes I push the drive selector twice so the car is in Sport mode not Drive mode (the indicator is bottom left below the 'rev# gauge.  It will show D or S and the current gear.  You will be in D mode when you restart at traffic lights.

If you switch to sport mode it will change from emode to hybrid and once the engine starts you can't switch back to emode till the engine warms up.

 

However that does not explain why the car randomly starts engine. So many times I've popped into a shop after driving on battery. Plenty of charge and when I get back in after a min the car starts engine right away

I thought this was to do with state of charge in 12V battery?

 

I'm confident that unless the engine is running, the alternator isn't working whilst in E mode, so if your 12V is low, it will stay in Hybrid Mode

15 hours ago, Novascape said:

If you switch to sport mode it will change from emode to hybrid and once the engine starts you can't switch back to emode till the engine warms up.

 

However that does not explain why the car randomly starts engine. So many times I've popped into a shop after driving on battery. Plenty of charge and when I get back in after a min the car starts engine right away

That's exactly what happened with me the first time I noticed it.  Driving in e-mode to a destination, then with close to 50%  HV battery remaining as soon as I pressed the button to start the car the ICE fired up.  It wasn't anything to do with the car being in sport mode, or to do with the external temperature, or draw on the battery as nothing was switched on.

 

Out of question, when it does that have you ever looked at whether the hybrid system is trying to reserve charge/charge the battery in the drive mode selection?

 

And re the 12V battery - are they using really bad 12V batteries for them to not have sufficient charge in a 2 year old car?  

33 minutes ago, Simon667 said:

I'm confident that unless the engine is running, the alternator isn't working whilst in E mode, so if your 12V is low, it will stay in Hybrid Mode

It charges 12V battery when recuperating energy to HV battery, same as during charging. It does not need an engine for that.

24 minutes ago, Simon667 said:

I thought this was to do with state of charge in 12V battery?

 

I'm confident that unless the engine is running, the alternator isn't working whilst in E mode, so if your 12V is low, it will stay in Hybrid Mode

There was a link posted in page 1 of this thread to another thread where it is suggested that these car's don't have an alternator.  I have just checked the user manual for my car and that states  the 12V battery is charged along with the HV battery.  My HV battery gets charged regularly, so I can only assume that makes it either a fault with the battery or the charging system for the battery.

I ran an eHybrid Golf for three years and 30,000 miles during which it did this twice.  The car decides that for whatever reason the petrol engine needs to run for a certain amount of time and won't let you override it.

 

I don't think it's a fault.

 

Now have a IV SEL estate, much nicer car than the Golf, BTW.