Defaulting to "hybrid mode" on startup

[jpg86]

Has anybody else had an issue where on starting the car it'll sometimes go straight into "hybrid" mode (rather than electric) and the engine will start running. 

 

I've had this happen numerous times (maybe 1 in 8 starts?) and every time it's happened i've had over 50% charge left on the battery. Yesterday it happened to me at 100% charge.

 

I often find myself turning the car on and off again to get back into electric (as you cant select electric mode when in hybrid) but i was wondering if there is an actual reason for the car doing this? 

 

I did a quick search but could not find a similar topic. Apologies if this has been discussed before!

[Ootohere]

Interested to hear the answer from those in the know.

?

What is the ambient temperature where you are, and had the car been running just in EV mode before being stopped / parked?

?

Is it because the cars 12 volt battery is getting low? 

[SkOmk4]

2 hours ago, jpg86 said:

Has anybody else had an issue where on starting the car it'll sometimes go straight into "hybrid" mode

Can't say about Octavia IV, but here's an identical discussion on CUPRA Forum - it's actually the very same hybrid system from VAG, so the same conditions on parameters for the EV mode to be validated...

https://www.seatcupra.net/forums/threads/fully-charged-car-and-then-it-starts-the-engine.474356/#post-5045932 

 

 

2 hours ago, jpg86 said:

I often find myself turning the car on and off again to get back into electric (as you cant select electric mode when in hybrid)

I would strongly advise against this "solution" that you use to get back into EV mode. Apparently it's not really clear for the users why the system decides to go directly into Hybrid mode with ICE-ON, even when the HV battery is charged at 100% (as it happened to me also), but surely there's a reason behind this behavior.
It might be related to:
- outside temp, or to the temperature of the HV battery,
- could be a bad status of the 12 V battery,
- a set of several conditions combined - such as outside temp. vs. the temperature requested by the user to the climate control - a case when the car decides it's more energy efficient to heat via the ICE rather than via the HV battery which can be quite inefficient at low exterior temperatures...
- there might be a long time since the ICE was last used - I had several consecutive weeks of exclusive EV-mode driving.
I looked into the (Cupra) User Manual and the info is pretty-scarce on this topic. They only mention 3 conditions that need to be met in order for the EV-mode to be available, but in my case, when I had the car starting in Hybrid-mode with ICE, all the conditions were met. So there must be something else behind, in a second layer of validation conditions - which is not visible to the regular user of the car.

Have a look into the Octavia User Manual, but I assume you'll find the exact same conditions... it's the same car.
Finally, I would strongly recommend that once it happens, allow your car to run in hybrid mode for a while; after some time or small distance, the EV-mode will be validated (it will no longer be greyed-out on your infotainment), normally there should be an indication also on the Virtual Cockpit (as the Manual mentioned). In my case, after 2 or 3 km of normal drive the EV-mode was available and I selected it without restarting the car.

 

2 hours ago, Rooted said:

What is the ambient temperature where you are,

This only happened to me 1 time in 2.300 km since I have the car. I drive it daily to work and back home (12-13 kms each way) and charge it every evening. When it started with ICE, it was in the evening, around 4 deg Celsius outside and I was preheating the car from the App before leaving home. When I got to the car and started, it went directly on ICE, even though the HV battery was at ~60%.
I've had colder evenings since that event, I preheated the car in those cases, but it never repeated that behavior. So I don't know what's the secret behind... 🙄

 

3 hours ago, Rooted said:

had the car been running just in EV mode before being stopped / parked

The car was driven exclusively in EV-mode for 3 weeks (some 400 kilometers I would say) before it decided to start on ICE.

 

3 hours ago, Rooted said:

Is it because the cars 12 volt battery is getting low? 

Normally it shouldn't be the case for me... The car is 3 months old, roughly 2.300 km onboard, charged on average 6 days/week. According to some diagram I've read online (if I'm not mistaking @Jorgeminator also uploaded some info on a different topic in this Forum) the 12 V battery is charged:
- while driving the car in any mode (hybrid or EV);
- while the HV battery is charging (charging station).
So I should be safe, as long as there's no faulty hardware on my car.

[SkOmk4]

I made a new entry, since the previous post was already too long.
I found the Octavia iV Manual, in Section "Starting and Driving", subsection "Select Drive", there's the following info:

 

 

 

Now the next part is what interests you:

 

 

Basically, because of those "Other conditions" I recommend you don't stop the engine and restart it immediately simply because you want to use EV-mode. Allow the hybrid-system to decide when all conditions are met and it's fine to use EV only... You won't use too much petrol before the car will validate the electric mode. If that's not the case, then contact your Skoda dealer, 'cause something's not feeling too well on your car. Look for the "strike-through E" sign on your VC, when it's off go into EV-mode.

 

[Edela]

It's not really to argue, but

2 hours ago, SkOmk4 said:

Basically, because of those "Other conditions" I recommend you don't stop the engine and restart it immediately simply because you want to use EV-mode. Allow the hybrid-system to decide when all conditions are met and it's fine to use EV only...

Isn't it a bit illogical? If some conditions are not met, then why would they become "met" right after switching ignition off and on again?

 

2 hours ago, SkOmk4 said:

You won't use too much petrol before the car will validate the electric mode.

Though the first kilometers ICE is the least efficient and will eat the most fuel.

Anyway, I read somewhere that it is all about catalytic converter. Like, car wants to do some idle regen once in a while. I have doubts that's true but who knows...
Definitely this is not the issue of low 12V battery, because there is a warning messages for low charge of 12V and if either of these messages pop up, it does not trigger ICE to start, and it doesn't need ICE to charge anyway. Not low temp, at least in my experience. I was parking car outside overnight in -12 and went electric no problem.

[SkOmk4]

8 minutes ago, Edela said:

why would they become "met" right after switching ignition off and on again

Don't know, but it's not the first time that I hear some behavior changes after car Stop/Start. (and not only on Octavia)
I never tried it, but as @jpg86 mentioned in the first post, he "fixed" it this way more than one time.
 

9 minutes ago, Edela said:

I was parking car outside overnight in -12 and went electric no problem.

Yep, that's why I'm blaming "Other conditions"; other users also mentioned that at lower temperatures they were able to go EV with no problem. In my case, when this happened the outside temp was not the minimum that the car was parked into. Too bad we don't know what those are...

[mccririck]

My 2020 diesel Octavia used to stop the stop-start when the battery was not at an optimum level. There was no warning about the battery then it just didn't stop-start until the engine had been running for a while charging the 12V battery back up.

Edited 28 November, 2023 by mccririck

[jpg86]

Thanks guys. Very informative replies. SkOmk4 that link to the SEAT forum describes exactly the same issue. Good find!

 

I will stop turning the car off and on again to enable electric mode  

 

I might drop the car into my local dealer tomorrow to see if they can diagnose the problem. 

[Stonekeeper]

Try turning the heating off before exiting the car the night before?

 

 

It may start the engine because the a/c heater is switched on?

[SkOmk4]

The PHEV doesn't need the engine (ICE) to run in order to cool or heat the car - the AC compressor is electric, using energy from the HV battery. That's why one can preheat or pre-cool the car in the parking lot before getting to the car.