Octavia iV (PHEV) disappointingly low range on electric???

[FABvirgil]

Octavia iV SEL estate. Ordered November 2021, received December 2023.
Apart from the horrendous problems that I have had with setting up with Octopus Intelligent Go and now my wallbox charger seems to have bitten the dust (so I’m onto the granny charger), my issue in this post is that I have been shocked/disappointed with the range on electric. I am retired and tend to potter around during the day, rarely more than 20 miles so my thinking was that I could easily cover this with a daily overnight charge on the cheap tariff = everybody wins, planet included.

The reality seems to be rather different. Things haven’t looked right with charge level dropping far faster than I expected, so today I kept a close log on my mileage:

 

Outside temperature 8C/9C
Braking regeneration not changed from default
Driving mode: normal
Pure electric (not hybrid)
No seat heaters on
AC set to 20C
Tyres ok
No roof clutter (just the rails as delivered)
Driving style: pretty mild/conservative
Roads: town/suburban .. mostly 30mph limit .. no hold ups anywhere.

Journeys today with time gaps:
1.7 miles (2 hours) 2.4 miles (30mins) 1.5 miles (2 hours) 1.1 miles (2 hours) 1.1 miles .. total 7.8 miles
The first journey was in rain (wipers on), the last journey was in darkness (headlights on), otherwise no auxiliary power drain in the car that I can think of.

 

So here’s the big question: 7.8 miles and battery went from 99% to 45%. Is this to be expected? This would mean a range of about 14 miles. Is that the realistic figure for this vehicle in winter?.. or could something be wrong e.g. the battery or some setting that I am missing?

Any help/advice/reality check most welcome.

[Ootohere]

Maybe charge to 99% again or even 100% and pre heat while plugged in and then set the Climate Control (No AC on) to 18*oC or even the 20*oC and try again just driving and see how far it will go on the battery.

 

The stopping and then going again and getting the interior heated again is using up energy. 

 

[Edela]

Many short trips with big intervals. Every time car heats itself up, that drains battery a lot. Just for curiosity you could try to fully charge and make a few longer trips to see what consumption would be. Preheating car via app or departure schedules would win some miles, too.

[wantaskoda]

I picked mine up today.

car was charged by the dealer and showed 35

miles. 
My drive home was 26 and I drove on battery all the time.

about 25% of the time I was in 20 mph zones
last 4 miles I was able to do 50-70 and at the end of the the journey I had 2 miles left.

 

i am keen to understand the peels and regen as I could get M showing but then it went back to D

[FABvirgil]

It had occurred to me that I should try one long drive but I thought it a bit frivolous! Looks like I'll have to try that... Thanks for the suggestions 

[Ootohere]

Hardly frivolous if you get 11 kWh electric @ 7 pence a kW so 77 pence to go see how far you get.

If it is 27 pence a kWh then it is a hefty almost £3.00.

[Benjybobs]

As above posters said, it’s the repeated reheating the cabin that is probably taking away a lot of range. 
 

if you’re going to drive a short distance, like 1 mile, then maybe consider pre heating, or just not having any heating at all for that journey. 
 

i can’t imagine you’ll feel much warmth in the time it takes to drive 1.5 miles anyway. 
 

maybe also try turning the regen off. 
 

i find it’s better to coast as much as possible rather than try and regen every time you lift off the throttle. If you plan your braking well then you can get the regen from the brake pedal when you actually need to slow down, very rarely need to actually use the friction brakes in normal traffic.  
 

I find I get better efficiency form coasting rather than cycling between regen, accelerating regen accelerating. 

[wantaskoda]

As you have the SE L I was told that the heated seats uses much less power than putting the air con on.

 

This morning I had driven less than a mile on electric. I was in a car park and 'floored it' (the car park was empty) and teh engine kicked in even though I had the mode setting to electric.

 

I presume that every so often it actually needs to run the engine.

 

I would like to know what MPG people are getting on hyrbid only on a motorway / A road only run

 

[FABvirgil]

22 hours ago, wantaskoda said:

As you have the SE L I was told that the heated seats uses much less power than putting the air con on.

 

This morning I had driven less than a mile on electric. I was in a car park and 'floored it' (the car park was empty) and teh engine kicked in even though I had the mode setting to electric.

 

I presume that every so often it actually needs to run the engine.

 

I would like to know what MPG people are getting on hyrbid only on a motorway / A road only run

 

I've not had that experience (ICE kicking in) but then I'm quite gentle trying to maximise my miles per charge. Do you know anything about SOC (state of charge)? I've seen so much online and I'm a bit confused but there seems to be advice out there not to charge above 80%? BUT is that for EV (not hybrid) , is it something to do with charging rate (I know it drops off for a big EV battery as the SOC rises), or what? Naturally there's nothing on this from Skoda. I can charge to 100% every night using my cheap tariff but am I damaging the battery. You would have thought that this information would be easily obtainable from the manufacturer but no ...

[wantaskoda]

I think the 80% is for full electric.

i don’t even know if i have a cheap tariff at night so need to check.

Just waiting for my outside socket to arrive today as so far I have been ‘cable out the window’ (had my old socket removed last year as I was not using it and it - so annoying - )

[FABvirgil]

1 hour ago, wantaskoda said:

I think the 80% is for full electric.

i don’t even know if i have a cheap tariff at night so need to check.

Just waiting for my outside socket to arrive today as so far I have been ‘cable out the window’ (had my old socket removed last year as I was not using it and it - so annoying - )

Octopus intelligent go offers 7p/unit 2330 - 0530 ... BUT it takes a while to get it all set up (took me 5 weeks and I was already with Octopus!!)

[FABvirgil]

Thank you everybody ... your help is much appreciated.

It's a learning curve!

[tricol]

First post for me, similar to yourself here. I've owned my SE L for almost a month now. Not driven entirely on electric range much, but on hybrid only, short journeys kill the indicated range.

 

I've fared okay on longer journeys. My longest trip so far was 110 miles out to Ormskirk and back. Full charge indcated 34 miles, that was pretty much all gone when the trip was done and I averaged just under 80mpg. That was mostly A roads and motorway., but some town driving. I put it into hybrid mode and let the car decide how to optimise. 

[Ootohere]

Welcome.   As to averaging 80 mpg.  Was that an indication on an 80 mile or so trip.   It could not go for 240 miles stating with a full charge and only use 3 gallons could it?

[tricol]

Yes, that was over the entire trip, 80mpg which used most of the battery. I think I maybe had 2 miles or so remaining. Seeing how much fuel I actually used is difficult as the fuel remaining increments every 5 miles.

[wantaskoda]

I have now had my car for two weeks.

The majority of my driving has been on pure electric, but short journeys.

I have 'run out' of charge twice so far.

 

I did not buy the car for it's electric capacity, but more so that the deal I got against a 1.0 SE Tech DSG was attractive.

 

It is cold, and I am getting between 20 and 25 at the moment, but I actually did some boring calculations this morning based on a friend who has a Ford Puma. Appreciate they are dfferent cars, but here goes.

 

I am charging at home using a standard plug and no saving to charge at night (I will not buy a dedicated charger as I don't think it is worth £7-800)

 

500 miles in a car that does 42 to the gallon paying £1.29 a gallon (local Costco price) would cost around £70

500 miles in my car doing 25 on a full charge based on £0.26 per KWH is £67.60.

 

When it is warmer, and I hope to be doing 30/32 the cost will then be around £54.00

 

so not a huge saving, but I am now looking to see what mpg I can get using hybrid.

 

If I can get anything about 60, I will be happy.

 

[SkOmk4]

15 hours ago, wantaskoda said:

500 miles in my car doing 25 on a full charge based on £0.26 per KWH is £67.60.

That's true, not a huge saving, but the PHEV choice should be also pollution-related. At least that's how I see it and how I made up my mind for the PHEV.
The EV range covers my daily to-and-from work trip, across town. If I can go through urban landscape without smoke behind my car, that's great! I know there's some smoke behind the energy I'm using in EV mode, but that's not produced in the city - and that's a way of moving the pollution outside inhabited areas.

By the way, since this is an electric-range topic:
I recently read the specs for the new Skoda Superb, and noticed they updated the PHEV (which was rumored for a while now). The ICE is changed fron the 1.4 TSI to the newer 1.5 TSI (same power output). The electric motor is the same, included into the same DQ400e gearbox, therefore the system power remains unchanged, BUT there's a NEW HV battery: it has 25,5 kWh capacity! And it comes with fast-charge!!! So it's about twice the range of the current VAG PHEVs (Skoda, VW, Seat, Cupra).
The big question is: will the Octavia facelift this year be launched with the new PHEV system? I can imagine they will (quite)easily replace the ICE, but will they be able to "squeeze-in" the bigger battery? It's known that they avoid making major changes on the platform when they're launching the facelift...

[PetrolDave]

1 minute ago, SkOmk4 said:

 will they be able to "squeeze-in" the bigger battery?

I guess that depends on whether it's a physically bigger battery, or a battery with a higher energy density which could be the same physical size (or even smaller?).

[SkOmk4]

Not sure, but AFAIK they keep the same Li-Ion technology, so I doubt it's double energy-density.

I'm directly interested, since the Formentor should also get a facelift this year, which means it would also get the updated PHEV. Not sure about the battery though... I wouldn't mind doubling my EV range 😉

 

[Edela]

2 hours ago, SkOmk4 said:

The big question is: will the Octavia facelift this year be launched with the new PHEV system?

They made Kodiaq the same way as Superb, so I'd expect they will try to upgrade Octavia, too. I'm only worried about the weight of new battery. Weight balance of PHEV Octavia is quite awful and I'd hope they will find out the way to improve it.

[SkOmk4]

Oh, I've never used an Octavia PHEV, but the weight distribution of the Formentor is quite good - nothing to complain about. It's true that the Cupra has a different approach for the suspension - since they pretend to be on the sportier side of the VAG group.
However, I noticed on the Rescue-Sheet of the Formentor that the HV-battery is under the rear-seats and the fuel-tank in under the trunk floor (spare wheel position)- which kind of makes-sense. The tank is only 40 liters, while the battery with the metal safety-enclosure plus the cooling circuit and liquid should be much heavier... So the heavier stuff is in front of the rear axle. I can only assume it's similar for the Octavia, but I'm not sure.
 

Edited 11 January by SkOmk4

[tricol]

The latest Autoexpress article seems to hint that the bigger battery from the new Superb wont be carried over in this new facelift Octavia at least.

 

Running the car on hybrid mode, it appears to me that 60mpg+ is easily achievable. 

[Ootohere]

Re the term Fast Charge. 

In the UK that term refers to AC 7 or 11 kW chargers. That is using the cars AC onboard charger.

 

Rapid Charge is 43 kW AC or 50 kW DC charging. 

So 50 kW DC 'Rapid' charging is like Land Rover PHEV,s has. 

[SkOmk4]

6 minutes ago, Rooted said:

Re the term Fast Charge. 

Anything is "fast charge" compared to the currently maximum of 3.5 kW that our PHEVs are limited to... (Octavia, Formentor etc.) 😁
Now on a more serious note, they specify on the press release note that it will be capable of a maximum charge rate of 50 kW:
"Thanks to a maximum charging rate of 50 kW, it takes just 25 minutes to charge the battery from 10 to 80 percent"

 

Source:

https://skodamedia.com/en-gb/releases/1455

 

[Ootohere]

@SkOmk4I know, and faster then my under 2 kW charging with the 3 pin.

(32.6 kWh battery, 28.9 kWh usable.)

 

Often stuff gets Lost in translation with Skoda / VW Press Releases.  & the term 'Fast Chargers' causes confusion in the UK as it is.

 

50kW Max Charge rate is nice though.  

It is good when they tell you the average charge speed 0-100% 

 

As to Rapid charging it is great if free,

& at 35 pence a kWh then 20 kWh is £7.00 and if you get 2.5 miles to a kWh that is 50 miles worth.

Get to 55 pence a kWh, or 69 or even 75 pence plus and then there is no saving really on longer trips unless you are getting the first full charge at a reduced tariff. 

Edited 12 January by Rooted