Hybrid versus petrol and diesel: a comparison of real-life fuel consumption

[Jim2015]

I've done some sums comparing the cost per mile using data based on brimming the fuel tanks for our most recent cars. Yeti 4WD DSG diesel: fuel costs were 16p/mile with an average cost of £1.27/litre. Karoq 2WD DSG petrol: fuel costs were 17.8p/mile with an average cost of £1.22/litre. Octavia hybrid: petrol costs are 7.7p/mile with an average cost of £1.44/litre. I don't have sufficient data on electricity consumption for an accurate figure as yet, but our average monthly mileage is about 500 miles and in the first full month of billing by Octopus, we used £6.30 of off-peak electricity, which roughly equates to 0.1p/mile. We average about 6000 miles a year, so the Yeti would cost £960 pa, the Karoq £1068 pa and the Octavia £460 pa. Also half our mileage is on e-power, so we leave zero emissions around and near to our home town as well as reduced emissions on hybrid power, since e-power is used around town. I'm impressed by the performance and economy of the Octavia, so once the 400-volt battery insulation is sorted, our car will be fault-free.

[Ootohere]

It would be useful to know what it would cost for the fuel to drive something like 150 or maybe 200 miles, maybe 300 miles.

 

This with the Petrol Used, the Diesel used and the petrol used in a hybrid starting off fully charged but then not charged again until the trip is done.

 

A hybrid charged and doing 25 miles of a trip might use no petrol.

A diesel might be less efficient than a petrol doing just 25 miles, weather / temperature dependant.

[SteveTheElder]

This promises to be an interesting thread, and while I can't easily give fuel costs per mile (without digging the spends from a different application, and sifting one car from another) I can give fuel consumption figures for my last three cars - each based on brim - brim calculations...

• 59.33 mpg - Octavia Mk2 Estate 1.6TDi Manual over 67500 miles
• 48.94 mpg - Superb Mk2 Hatch 1.4 TSi Manual over 56200 miles
• 54.82 mpg - Octavia Mk4 Estate 1.5 TSi ACT Manual over 12500 miles

The Octavia Mk4 had 2500 miles on the [virtual] clock when I got it so currently a tad over 15,000 - and the fuel economy is getting better. At [a stab at] current fuel price of £1.87/Ltr (£8.50/gallon), the Mk4 works out at 15.51 p/mile.

 

I'm doing about 15k miles a year, a lot of which is made up of long journeys. Would be interesting to see the petrol costs for a hybrid over a 400 mile trip from Hampshire to Lanarkshire, for example.

 

 

Edited 16 June, 2022 by sneal
typo

[Jim2015]

10 minutes ago, roottoot said:

It would be useful to know what it would cost for the fuel to drive something like 150 or maybe 200 miles, maybe 300 miles.

 

This with the Petrol Used, the Diesel used and the petrol used in a hybrid starting off fully charged but then not charged again until the trip is done.

 

A hybrid charged and doing 25 miles of a trip might use no petrol.

A diesel might be less efficient than a petrol doing just 25 miles, weather / temperature dependant.

We rarely do long journeys, so the Octavia iV is perfect for our driving pattern. Using petrol alone we get about 44mpg, which is good for a heavy car. Our previous cars had a poor mpg because we do so many short journeys, so e-power is ideal. Our longest journey is to visit my brother, who lives about 125 miles away. He also has a hybrid so I can charge our car from his charge point for the return journey, with the same arrangement when he visits us. I should add that a pure electric car would suit us, but I still want the option to do a long journey without worrying about finding a charge point.

Edited 16 June, 2022 by Jim2015
Added a post script

[Ootohere]

That is how hybrids are, perfect for those that they suit, horses for courses,

or those with BIK and are getting the financial benefit but not using less fuel.

 

There are EV drivers going to hybrids because charging is a PITA on longer trips but for short journeys they charge at home or work or free someplace, 

but for longer trips they are not spending an hour extra charging for every 150-200 miles.

 

Yesterday in an EV i did 350 miles then 150 today.

Set off fully charged, 4 charging seasons and sitting with 120 range now.  That was 3 hours spent charging & that was lucky as straight onto chargers.

(Cost me nothing as all free Rapid / 50 kW charging in Scotland, and free 7 kW before i set off.)

Edited 16 June, 2022 by roottoot

[Baxlin]

I don’t keep full detailed records, but I do mentally note my mpg.

 

So on this basis, the last 3 cars, in order of least frugal to best mpg, are

 

Lexus LS300h self-regen hybrid petrol - usually mid 30s mpg per tank.

Volvo D3 2ltr manual diesel, low 40s

Current Octavia, 1.4 Tsi DSG, late 40s.

 

The Lexus did more longer trips, as i had it up until I retired.  The other two are post-retirement. The Lexus VED of course was much lower than either of the others, to balance it a little, but I wouldn’t buy a self-regen hybrid for the mpg.

[Jim2015]

Another advantage of the hybrid Octavia is the bik of 7% compared with 28% plus for an IC vehicle. As long as the company pays for business use fuel, then for private motoring with the significant tax benefit and e-power for short-ish journeys, it's a big bonus.

[Ootohere]

That nonsense should be stopping sooner rather than later just like the EV Grants that stopped yesterday.

Lots of it is just taking the Michael if it is supposed to be about lower emissions. 

[SteveTheElder]

1 hour ago, Jim2015 said:

Another advantage of the hybrid Octavia is the bik of 7% compared with 28% plus for an IC vehicle. As long as the company pays for business use fuel, then for private motoring with the significant tax benefit and e-power for short-ish journeys, it's a big bonus.

 

Don't get me going or I'll be adding something to the 'What annoyed you today?' thread. 

 

1 hour ago, roottoot said:

That nonsense should be stopping sooner rather than later just like the EV Grants that stopped yesterday.

Lots of it is just taking the Michael if it is supposed to be about lower emissions. 

 

Couldn't agree more! Like all those company plug-in hybrids that give big tax benefits but never see a lower socket 😡

[SurreyJohn]

6 hours ago, Jim2015 said:

……. the Yeti would cost £960 pa, the Karoq £1068 pa and the Octavia £460 pa.

So the iV is saving about £600 per year vs petrol

 

Looking at the price list (SEL spec) the iV hybrid costs £5335 more than 1.5 tsi DSG.   (£34,800 vs £29,465 for hatchback)

 

So it takes 9 years of fuel saving at £600 per year to cover the extra cost.   Sort of implies unless you intend to not change the car for at least a decade don’t bother with the hybrid

 

 

[Ootohere]

If your off peak electricity is 7 pence a kWh and it is 13 kWh needed so 91 pence to take you 25 miles then that is much cheapness if you just do 25 miles a day or between charges.

So OK if your rest of day electricity tariff is not more expensive, and then you just need some petrol use occasionally.

 

If you are paying 27.2 pence a kWh then you are £3.53 for driving that 25 miles, or how ever far that batteries capacity takes you.

If you need to or do public charge at 55 pence a kWh then £7.15 paid is just not sensible. 

[Ootohere]

How far will an Octavia iV with people and stuff in it go in average UK weather with a full battery and tank at the start of a trip.

Is it about 485-500 miles for 50 litres or is it better than that? 

[matrix2020]

As people have said it all depends on you journey profiles. Mine tend to be (75% of journeys) long ish (100 miles) weekly commutes so diesel works for me:

 

Octavia Mk3.5 2.0 TDi DSG  Long Term (150000 miles) - 56mpg

Octavia Mk4 2.0 TDi DSG Long Term (7500 miles - same journeys) - 66mpg

 

I am very happy with the Mk4 (now its software is fixed!) its noticeably more economical than the identical Mk3... accepting I now need to add AdBlue but I don't add much as I do long journeys and it hardy drops.  

Round town, on short journeys, clearly the iv would be a far better option with a home charger. Friend has had a Hybrid and not filled it up in 9 months! Horses for courses, as they say.

Edited 17 June, 2022 by matrix2020

[SteveTheElder]

3 hours ago, roottoot said:

How far will an Octavia iV with people and stuff in it go in average UK weather with a full battery and tank at the start of a trip.

Is it about 485-500 miles for 50 litres or is it better than that? 

Not an iV, but for reference/comparison, on my recent road trip in the mk4 1.5tsi I was filling up when convenient (and before the red warning light came on) and was doing 530 - 580 miles between fill ups. Overall, the road trip returned 59.2mpg, which was way better than my expectations.

Two people and a boot full of luggage (& bottles of wine 😁). Weather ranged from wet & blustery mid-teens C to a balmy/sunny high twenties C.

Roads included everything from autoroutes to county lanes to high mountain passes.

[MCG1975]

Just throwing my last two (inc current) in the mix as I record consumption using Fuelly.  I do mostly long drives (commute is 100 mile round trip on dual carriageways) so it helps!  Usually I fill to brim each time.

• Mk3 (65 plate) Superb 1.6 TDi Manual - average 56.5mpg tracked over 122,421 miles
• Mk4 (70 plate) Octavia 2.0 TDi Manual - average 68.6mpg over 24,495 miles so far

Very happy with the Octavia's efficiency, especially given current fuel costs!

[Jim2015]

20 hours ago, SurreyJohn said:

So the iV is saving about £600 per year vs petrol. Looking at the price list (SEL spec) the iV hybrid costs £5335 more than 1.5 tsi DSG.   (£34,800 vs £29,465 for hatchback). So it takes 9 years of fuel saving at £600 per year to cover the extra cost.   Sort of implies unless you intend to not change the car for at least a decade don’t bother with the hybrid

 

 

A good point. We had a budget for the Karoq replacement and the Octavia iV suited us perfectly for reasons stated elsewhere. When we bought it, the massive increase in energy costs were not apparent. So with our gas and electricity costs quadrupling and doubling respectively, the savings in vehicle fuel costs are welcome. I am amazed at the mpg figures for the petrol and diesel Octavias.  However, these are for long distance journeys which are not our pattern nowadays. Our 02 reg diesel Octavia once returned 70mpg on a motorway journey averaging 55mph, when I was working and regularly drove long distances. I like matrix2002's comment about a friend not filling up for nine months! Incidentally, our latest electricity bill indicates that we saved £19 by charging the Octy overnight.

[Chrisg2021]

In the IV can you see how many miles you have done on Electric then Petrol? As in separate figures?

[Jim2015]

If you look at vehicle > data on the infotainment screen, it will show the range for the petrol and battery, so note the figures before and after a journey to check the consumption figures.

[Jim2015]

On 18/06/2022 at 08:00, Chrisg2021 said:

In the IV can you see how many miles you have done on Electric then Petrol? As in separate figures?

Today we did 61 miles in hybrid mode. Using the car's computed data we used £5 of petrol and 90p of electricity, ie just under 10p/mile. Our Karoq cost nearly 18p/mile, when petrol was 'cheap'.

[Ootohere]

Was that 185 pence a litre so 2.7 litres and 13 kWh of electric @ about 7 pence a kWh? 

 

So If you did that one way and charged to come home at 35 pence a kWh that would have been £4.55 & £5.  61 miles for £9.55

[MiniNinjaRob]

The iV is worth it if you are a) a company car driver and b) do a lot of short journeys and occasional long ones. 
I have one. Most of my journeys are sub 30 miles including my work mileage. My my current electric tariff i average about 6.5p per mile on the electric. I can get to local towns and Leeds on electric and most if not all the way back as well. I get 14p a mile back on business miles so it works out ok but I don’t do many business miles. 
It doesn’t charge very fast but I’ve had no issues using only a 3 pin plug and charge it up every time I use it. 
We occasionally do trips to the coast (200mikes) or UK holidays (maybe 7-800 miles) in remote places where we need to petrol engine. I have found worse case is about 45mpg on petrol only. The shorter the trip the more the battery helps to reduce consumption but it still acts as a MHEV when fully discharged so that’s pretty good. I’ve never charged it away from home personally. 
 

If you were buying it with your own money I wouldn’t bother as it’s a costly car and you could get similar mpg from a petrol - the extra cost of the iV would make up and less MPG for many years!!

 

It suits my journeys very well but I did think long and hard about it. I really wanted a Focus estate but a MHEV one was still going to be over £100 a month in BIK tax plus contribution of £130 for the spec I wanted whereas the Octavia is £15 tax plus £145 contribution  ish. So I pay about £160 a month for it but the comparable focus would have been £230 at least. I went for an SEL model with a couple of options so I have a really luxurious car for a bargain price compared to some of my other options. Also it has 205bhp combined so it’s also easily the fastest option for the money I was willing to spend. 
 

You’ve just got to be honest about how you use a car and do the numbers for your own situation. My car would not work well for someone who commuted 60 miles a day, had nowhere to charge at work and paid for the car themselves - a diesel or petrol may be better. 
 

 

Edited 28 June, 2022 by MiniNinjaRob

[Jim2015]

15 hours ago, roottoot said:

Was that 185 pence a litre so 2.7 litres and 13 kWh of electric @ about 7 pence a kWh? 

 

So If you did that one way and charged to come home at 35 pence a kWh that would have been £4.55 & £5.  61 miles for £9.55

It was calculated using the last refuel at £1.83/l and electricity at 7.5p/kWh. There was no need to recharge for the return journey - after 61 miles the battery was at 10%

[Ootohere]

That was good.  61 miles. 

Doing 61 miles and then 61 miles return so 122 miles is what is different and why i posted.

 

Doing 30.5 miles then charging and 30.5 miles back is really where the PHEV can save more money, even maybe the planet if using electricity from renewables.

The thing is that renewables in the UK / Scotland will include from DRAX and woodchips imported from the US and the pollution of that not included in the Governments figures. 

Edited 29 June, 2022 by roottoot

[cheezemonkhai]

On 16/06/2022 at 16:47, Jim2015 said:

We rarely do long journeys, so the Octavia iV is perfect for our driving pattern. Using petrol alone we get about 44mpg, which is good for a heavy car. Our previous cars had a poor mpg because we do so many short journeys, so e-power is ideal. Our longest journey is to visit my brother, who lives about 125 miles away. He also has a hybrid so I can charge our car from his charge point for the return journey, with the same arrangement when he visits us. I should add that a pure electric car would suit us, but I still want the option to do a long journey without worrying about finding a charge point.

 

However that's terrible compared to a diesel, which for a long run on diesel will get 65MPG+ without doing much more than keeping it at or below 70 and looking ahead.  I do agree that batteries are useful, but then if long journeys are rare, why not look at a short/long range EV for 99% of the journeys and renting an ICE vehicle for longer distance.

 

The whole concept comes back to the same problem you currently have with all cars, which is too much weight.

When on ICE you're carrying around an unused battery, if you're topping the battery up MPG tanks and if you're on battery you're carrying around a load of unused ICE and gearbox/transmission etc. The end story is poor MPG or poor range for a given amount of fuel/charge.

 

If you look at it all, then you can find that people moving from great big heavy SUV with the aero/drag profiles approaching that of a brick to a normal car like an octy estate would make more difference than driving a hybrid SUV. Similarly people driving large cars who never need them would be better in a polo estate etc.

 

Cars have got bigger and heavier and people have not looked at weight saving. It's huge alloys, big heavy brake calipers rather than lighter weight multi-piston designs, steel everywhere when plastic panels were used in the 80's and 90s (Citroen, Renault) and aluminium. 

The key issue should be weight and drag reduction to create more efficient cars, not greenwashing, by strapping a battery plus a glorified washing machine motor in an SUV then calling it self-charging hybrid technology (ICE powered you mean?).

 

On an electric thread, it was suggested a mass based system of road tax would be a good replacement for the lost fuel duty, and I can see it would apply and help here too.  I also posted this, which is food for thought...

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/opinion/354505/scrap-your-hybrid-diesel-campaign-might-just-happen

 

  

20 hours ago, MiniNinjaRob said:

The iV is worth it if you are a) a company car driver and b) do a lot of short journeys and occasional long ones. 
I have one. Most of my journeys are sub 30 miles including my work mileage. My my current electric tariff i average about 6.5p per mile on the electric. I can get to local towns and Leeds on electric and most if not all the way back as well. I get 14p a mile back on business miles so it works out ok but I don’t do many business miles. 

 

I could be wrong, but I think the BIK advantage for hybrids is gone (or about to be).

At which point a hybrid doesn't make sense as a company car driver any more vs an all electric ZEV.

 

 

Edited 29 June, 2022 by cheezemonkhai

[Jim2015]

The Octy was within our budget and suits out needs for comfort, handling, acceleration, with plenty of room for our greyhound. All our journeys since we bought the car have been within the range of the battery on hybrid power, except for two of 120 miles each way to visit my brother. He has a charge point, so I plugged in to recharge for the return journey. A diesel engine would be unsuitable for our style of motoring, as would be petrol alone. Our Yeti diesel and Karoq petrol returned 36 mpg and 31 mpg respectively, the latter being skewed by much of the driving during lockdown being 8 miles a week going shopping. The Octy iV is obviously not suitable for business use where long distances are involved, but for us it's perfect.