Fuel consumption throughout the day (IV PHEV)

[mccririck]

I have been noticing that when I start off average fuel consumption is very low (low 20s mpg) and gradually increases as I drive. My drive to the local Tesco is about 1.5 miles of flat or downhill roads and my old diesel would record about 67mpg average for this journey, whereas in the new hybrid it's showing about 23mpg! I haven't yet charged the battery, I've just been using it in hybrid mode - is it using fuel to charge the battery when I set off? I did get 54mpg on my drive to work on Tuesday (25 mile drive).

Edited 1 November, 2023 by mccririck

[PoloGaz]

Low 20s sounds lower than i would expect but I’ve not had this scenario myself yet. My battery did run out the other day in the middle of a short journey but I’d made multiple journeys that day, all on the battery, and the ‘since start’ data hadn’t had time to reset. The engine warmed up very quickly and once it was up to temp it shut down at every opportunity. The average never dropped below 300mpg

 

My last car was a kodiaq and that would certainly be in the low 20s on the type of journey you describe. (1.5 TSI DSG) so I suppose what you describe is possible if the engine was running constantly (it will run as long as you are moving until it’s warmed up) and you were in traffic with heaters on etc

 

It shouldn’t be wasting fuel charging the battery by default. You can adjust the charging behaviour in the settings but I think this resets every time you get in

 

 If you get a chance to charge it, you’ll definitely see a big benefit on these types of journies

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 November, 2023 by PoloGaz

[mccririck]

Well what I noticed is the engine is running constantly at just shy of 2000rpm coasting downhill which seems ridiculous to me. It should be noted I've only noticed this at the start of a journey so far (and the journey to Tesco is so short it does it all the way). A normal petrol car on this journey would definitely not be recording lowish 20s mpg on this journey btw.

[Ootohere]

It has to fire up the engine and heat up the Cat and there is the GPF.  Then the battery needs charging.  It is a hybrid after all and not an EV. 

[EnterName]

11 hours ago, mccririck said:

I have been noticing that when I start off average fuel consumption is very low (low 20s mpg) and gradually increases as I drive. My drive to the local Tesco is about 1.5 miles of flat or downhill roads and my old diesel would record about 67mpg average for this journey, whereas in the new hybrid it's showing about 23mpg! I haven't yet charged the battery, I've just been using it in hybrid mode - is it using fuel to charge the battery when I set off? I did get 54mpg on my drive to work on Tuesday (25 mile drive).

I thought the Octavia PHEV was not self-charging, and requires you to plug it in to recharge?

You get regenerative braking, but AFAIK, it's not self-charging.

In which case you basically have a very heavy 1.4 petrol Octavia if your battery is discharged.

 

Can someone confirm or correct me?

[Ootohere]

^^^ Absolutely.  A Plug in Hybrid.   PHEV. 

It can get power in the battery as it regenerates but it is not a Hybrid (Self Charge Hybrid)   Silly term really.

 

The Government reduced Grants on them because of these Tax Effective vehicles for Business users that were never getting charged.

Edited 2 November, 2023 by Rooted

[EnterName]

1 minute ago, Rooted said:

^^^ Absolutely.  A Plug in Hybrid.   PHEV. 

It can get power in the battery as it regenerates but it is not a Hybrid (Self Charge Hybrid)   Silly term really.

 

11 hours ago, mccririck said:

I haven't yet charged the battery, I've just been using it in hybrid mode

11 hours ago, mccririck said:

showing about 23mpg

I think the issue is explained.

You need to plug in and charge your car for best MPG, @mccririck.

[mccririck]

2 hours ago, EnterName said:

I thought the Octavia PHEV was not self-charging, and requires you to plug it in to recharge?

You get regenerative braking, but AFAIK, it's not self-charging.

In which case you basically have a very heavy 1.4 petrol Octavia if your battery is discharged.

 

Can someone confirm or correct me?

That's not really correct as it has regenerative braking so it is self charging to some extent. On longer runs it's capable of around 50mpg without plugging it in which it wouldn't be if it was just the 1.4 litre TSI engine on its own.

[Ootohere]

Actually there are those that will disagree with that for 1.4 TSI,s or 1.4 TSI ACT / 1.4 TFSI COD,s.

[EnterName]

Firstly.

3 hours ago, EnterName said:

You get regenerative braking, but AFAIK, it's not self-charging.

33 minutes ago, mccririck said:

That's not really correct as it has regenerative braking so it is self charging to some extent.

I get the urge to disagree, but it helps if you have to have something to disagree with.

 

Secondly.

33 minutes ago, mccririck said:

On longer runs it's capable of around 50mpg without plugging it in which it wouldn't be if it was just the 1.4 litre TSI engine on its own.

I disagree. Once the car is rolling, it doesn't take much fuel to keep it going. I believe 50MPG is perfectly doable on a run for the 1.4TSI, even lugging the PHEV gear around, which is a bit over 1600Kg including the car AFAIK.

I can get 55MPG in my 2.0TSI fully laden on my holiday trip, which can't be much different weight wise, with us two over 6' plus all our camping gear.

Unless there are a load of other efficiency losses associated with the PHEV side of things on the PHEV Octavias.

Edited 2 November, 2023 by EnterName
Wrong picture & MPG shared.

[Ootohere]

What the OP could do is brim the fuel tank and not charge the battery and then see on a trip if it does 500 miles or more on just 10 imperial gallons. 

[EnterName]

2 minutes ago, Rooted said:

What the OP could do is brim the fuel tank and not charge the battery and then see on a trip if it does 500 miles or more on just 10 imperial gallons. 

OP could do that.

Personally, I'd charge the PHEV, run it in hybrid, note how my MPG had dramatically improved, then make a mental note to RTFM in future.

Although there might be one of those "Oh no!!!!" moments when it struck me I'd just bought a car I need to both refuel and charge after nearly every drive to get the best out of.

 

[Ootohere]

The threads are in this section with members that have given the Scores on the Doors.  MPG / efficiencies. 

[MiniNinjaRob]

If you are using the car display to figure out your mpg you’re dafter than you realise. 
After a couple of years of tracking MPG I have the following conclusions for my driving, bearing in mind I live in a hilly area. 
1) I can do solely electric miles if driving locally but recently it hasn’t been worth it due to the price of electricity. As prices are coming down I am doing the math to see if it’s worth it again. 
2) Long motorway journeys keeping to the speed limit without a full charge of electric gets me 45mpg average 

3) lowest mpg I ever got was 30mpg, no charging and town driving only (might have had a heavy right foot for a couple of weeks)

4) General MPG for me with a lot of town driving and 20 mile journeys is about 35-40mpg with no electric charge. 
 

All in all I’m happy, it’s not too much less than my previous Toyota Auris mild hybrid and it has nearly twice the power and is a lot bigger. 

[EnterName]

2 minutes ago, MiniNinjaRob said:

If you are using the car display to figure out your mpg you’re dafter than you realise. 

I want to disagree, but there is truth in what you say and really I should be double-checking my MPG the good old fashioned way.

[MiniNinjaRob]

Just now, EnterName said:

I want to disagree, but there is truth in what you say and really I should be double-checking my MPG the good old fashioned way.

I find the instant MPG function useful to see how your driving affects the MPG in a new car but otherwise I just ignore it once I’ve figured out how best to drive it. 

[SkOmk4]

5 hours ago, EnterName said:

I thought the Octavia PHEV was not self-charging, and requires you to plug it in to recharge?

You get regenerative braking, but AFAIK, it's not self-charging.

 

4 hours ago, Rooted said:

Absolutely.  A Plug in Hybrid.   PHEV. 

It can get power in the battery as it regenerates but it is not a Hybrid (Self Charge Hybrid) 

I didn't know too much about the hybrid system on Octavia, but it's the same one that I now have on the Formentor - it's the one VAG uses across several brands and models.
Long story-short, this PHEV IS ABLE to charge itself. I had to search the web for a while and find a video for Octavia (to make sure I'm not wrong correcting you guys), but there it is:

 

 

Sorry for the French, it's the first I could find...
At minute 19:05 you'll find the setting in the infotainment that allows the user to set the car to charge the battery to a certain percentage when needed.
Assuming you're on a long highway trip and you depleted your battery on the first part of your journey, but there's a town ahead of you that you want to cross in EV mode, this setting will allow you to either preserve a certain battery level, or to charge it to the desired level using the ICE if the battery is too low. 

 

[EnterName]

Thank you for setting me right on this. 👍

[mccririck]

3 hours ago, EnterName said:

Firstly.

I get the urge to disagree, but it helps if you have to have something to disagree with.

 

Secondly.

I disagree. Once the car is rolling, it doesn't take much fuel to keep it going. I believe 50MPG is perfectly doable on a run for the 1.4TSI, even lugging the PHEV gear around, which is a bit over 1600Kg including the car AFAIK.

I can get 55MPG in my 2.0TSI fully laden on my holiday trip, which can't be much different weight wise, with us two over 6' plus all our camping gear.

Unless there are a load of other efficiency losses associated with the PHEV side of things on the PHEV Octavias.

That's a nonsense reply. I was doing a lot of city driving in Edinburgh that day and some motorway when I got 49mpg.

[Edela]

1 hour ago, SkOmk4 said:

this setting will allow you to either preserve a certain battery level

In theory, yes. In reality I see my Octavia is not able to keep charge level on highways. It will deplete battery while accelerating and won't recharge to the same state. So I figured that if I need some charge on arrival, I'd just put it to charge some time before, and let it deplete battery as much as it wants before that. It also gives better mileage than if I will run with 'keep charge' setting on.

[SkOmk4]

Sure, charging the battery via the ICE will clearly (and seriously) impact the mileage.
On the Formentor I had the opportunity to play just a bit with the battery options: 

To keep the charge at a certain level - there's no problem, even if I decided to drive a bit sportier. It will give the electric boost anytime I need it and it will recharge quite fast via ICE.
Once I tested the charge while driving option; I was down to about 15%, on the highway returning to the city and asked the system to charge to (maybe) 30% - it's hard to say, 'cause the CUPRA menu is different to the Skoda one, so all I can see are level bars instead of percentage. In about 20 km on the highway it got to about 25% - enough for me to cross the city in EV mode. But that was just to test the way it works, otherwise I'm able to charge daily, and for the really long trips I'm reserving some battery percentage from the start of the trip. Too  bad you have to remember to set again the battery reserve if you have a stop along your trip... it would be nice if it would remember that setting for short stops. The same way a short stop will not reset your current trip mileage for example.

I don't have a picture of that menu on Cupra, but I found something online; if you press the "=" symbol the system will preserve the current charge level...

 

[MiniNinjaRob]

1 hour ago, Edela said:

In theory, yes. In reality I see my Octavia is not able to keep charge level on highways. It will deplete battery while accelerating and won't recharge to the same state. So I figured that if I need some charge on arrival, I'd just put it to charge some time before, and let it deplete battery as much as it wants before that. It also gives better mileage than if I will run with 'keep charge' setting on.

You can get it to save a certain percentage of charge. Deselect auto and you can go up and down on how much percent to keep. 
if I’m going on a hundred mile round trip I’ll get it to save 50% for the way back. 

[EnterName]

6 hours ago, mccririck said:

That's a nonsense reply. I was doing a lot of city driving in Edinburgh that day and some motorway when I got 49mpg.

I can only reply to your posts @mccririck, not whatever internal dialogue you've got going on in your head.

Perhaps you'd like to quote yourself and my response to you, so I can at least have a fair chance of making sense of your replies?

[mccririck]

2 hours ago, EnterName said:

I can only reply to your posts @mccririck, not whatever internal dialogue you've got going on in your head.

Perhaps you'd like to quote yourself and my response to you, so I can at least have a fair chance of making sense of your replies?

Well you assumes I was driving all day at speed and not stopping and accelerating. It was pure assumption on your part 

[EnterName]

9 hours ago, mccririck said:

Well you assumes I was driving all day at speed and not stopping and accelerating. It was pure assumption on your part 

Yes. I was not given all the information needed to form an informed opinion, so instead of ignoring your post, I tried to contribute to the replies.

My bad.