Mercedes hybrid - anyone got one?
Discussion
E class is now in production - first I knew it was out was when I saw one in a dealer at the weekend. Seem to recall there might be an S too?
E300 hybrid is a diesel with an inline electric motor before the auto 'box. >65mpg in both urban and extra-urban cycles, along with a 0-60 in the 7's.
No road tax or congestion charge either.
E300 hybrid is a diesel with an inline electric motor before the auto 'box. >65mpg in both urban and extra-urban cycles, along with a 0-60 in the 7's.
No road tax or congestion charge either.
Interesting - hadn't realised the S hybrid had been out for a couple of years over there. Hopefully that means the battery tech isn't completely new to them by now.
Been watching a couple of videos on youtube: must be strange seeing the rev counter drop to zero whilst "sailing" on the motorway under electric power.
Been watching a couple of videos on youtube: must be strange seeing the rev counter drop to zero whilst "sailing" on the motorway under electric power.
GTIR said:
I doubt it will reach anywhere near it's claimed MPG.
I'm a little sceptical too.Book figures (for the estate) are:
Urban 62.8 (40% higher than E250 CDI)
Extra-urban 61.4 (same as E250 CDI)
Combined 62.8 (18% higher than E250 CDI)
There's only one way to find out though.
Notice you've ordered an E250 - fancy reporting back long term mpg (just off the computer to keep it simple) after say first 5k and I'll try to remember to do the same with the hybrid?
Figured nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Was initially a bit concerned about the technology but figured that hybrids have been running around for a decade+ now and Mercedes could do without the negative press if theirs start falling over... so expecting a hefty dollop of goodwill if we have any issues with the hybrid elements of the vehicle.
Price difference turned out to be negligible after we'd ascertained that they REALLY wanted to sell us a car.
Going to be a couple of weeks before it arrives... will take a little longer to cover 5k though as it's going to be MrsLT's car, but that means it'll spend a good bit of time doing the inefficient parts of the cycle.
Was initially a bit concerned about the technology but figured that hybrids have been running around for a decade+ now and Mercedes could do without the negative press if theirs start falling over... so expecting a hefty dollop of goodwill if we have any issues with the hybrid elements of the vehicle.
Price difference turned out to be negligible after we'd ascertained that they REALLY wanted to sell us a car.
Going to be a couple of weeks before it arrives... will take a little longer to cover 5k though as it's going to be MrsLT's car, but that means it'll spend a good bit of time doing the inefficient parts of the cycle.
GTIR said:
Is yours the facelift version?
I have to admit, I'm not 100% certain: we're expecting it to be one of the last of the pre-facelift vehicles, but there was some uncertainty earlier in the week about whether it had actually been built yet...Don't really mind either way (I think I prefer the front end of the current version, but wouldn't object to the improved residuals on the facelift if they surprise us with one of those!).
2500 miles in, so time for an update for anyone who is interested - first couple of hundred miles having a bit of a play with the hybrid tech, then just getting on with driving the thing.
Long term average ~45mpg (mainly A/B roads)
Typical motorway ~55mpg
Round town, on the commuter crawl sections, seeing up to 60mpg over a mile or so (and obviously not burning fuel when stopped).
Here's a real world example I scribbled down a couple of weeks ago:
From cold, 2 adults, 2 small children (+ associated junk)
15 miles
52 minutes
Avg 18mph
44.8mpg
Good points:
An improvement on the regular CDI, would benefit from a slightly meatier electric motor on estate at least, and an extended battery option might not go amiss.
Long term average ~45mpg (mainly A/B roads)
Typical motorway ~55mpg
Round town, on the commuter crawl sections, seeing up to 60mpg over a mile or so (and obviously not burning fuel when stopped).
Here's a real world example I scribbled down a couple of weeks ago:
From cold, 2 adults, 2 small children (+ associated junk)
15 miles
52 minutes
Avg 18mph
44.8mpg
Good points:
- Hybrid system makes the stop/start function much less intrusive than the regular diesel.
- Hybrid gives a nice extra push if pressing on (feels more supercharger-esque as there's less lag than with turbo alone).
- Seems to be a fuel economy benefit even when driven normally but, unsurprisingly, yet to hit the claimed mpg figures.
- The adverts online lie: seen the video of the chap silently leaving his drive early in the morning? Can't do that! The hybrid system needs the engine to be warm before it will operate.
- A polite way of asking pedestrians to move out of the way so that you can move off would be handy... had a couple of car park incidents now where, with the engine being off, people haven't realised that we're trying to move.
- Range on battery is limited - partly due to size, partly by the fact that it won't fully discharge (yet to see less than 28% charge). If you're expecting to hit town and then cruise in on battery, forget it.
- Need a very gentle touch to avoid engine cutting back in when accelerating.
- May be better on saloon but, on estate, anything more than a very gentle incline will see the engine cut back in.
An improvement on the regular CDI, would benefit from a slightly meatier electric motor on estate at least, and an extended battery option might not go amiss.
Not really a great more deal to report: the car's been absolutely faultless so far (probably up to about 7500/8000 miles or so by now).
Fuel consumption is pretty much unchanged from previous update, but could be improved by focussing more on the hybrid system (fortunately now that the novelty of all of the displays showing power use, charge status, etc has worn off we're spared from the kids demanding to see those on a daily basis).
Overall, it's quite a nice place to be - fit and finish are fine, with no squeaks/rattles inside.
iPod/iPhone integration is quite good on this but we're going to have a play with the USB port to see if we can get it to talk to a laptop HDD (logic being that it will give us access to media, but stop wife forgetting to take her phone out of the car).
Voice recognition on COMAND is outstanding compared to other VR systems I've used in the past, but doesn't seem to be a quick way of getting nav to route to home address by voice instructions (there may be if I could be bothered to RTFM?).
I don't really like the parking sensors - I feel the LED displays are a bit low rent compared to the on-screen displays other cars tend to use (and the rear one is positioned in a place where it's out of my natural eyeline when reversing, rendering it pretty much useless).
Handling's not quite as sharp as I'd like but, as it's the wife's car/sensible family transport, is perfectly acceptable. Very good for motorway cruising though.
Earlier comments about the hybrid system etc still stand - acceptable, and fairly unobtrusive, but a slightly more powerful electric drive might be handy on the Estate, just to prevent the engine cutting back in at the sign of a slight incline.
Only other things I'd change would be down to personal preferences (e.g. would be useful if it auto-locked x minutes after parking up/key out, and if you could have multiple mobiles hooked up simultaneously).
There's no buyer's remorse, and I think we'd buy another one... if the Business Edition was available in the UK (not a fan of the new Merc front end on anything other than the SLS). Of course, that may or may not change when we see what the dealer service is like now they've sold us the car.
Fuel consumption is pretty much unchanged from previous update, but could be improved by focussing more on the hybrid system (fortunately now that the novelty of all of the displays showing power use, charge status, etc has worn off we're spared from the kids demanding to see those on a daily basis).
Overall, it's quite a nice place to be - fit and finish are fine, with no squeaks/rattles inside.
iPod/iPhone integration is quite good on this but we're going to have a play with the USB port to see if we can get it to talk to a laptop HDD (logic being that it will give us access to media, but stop wife forgetting to take her phone out of the car).
Voice recognition on COMAND is outstanding compared to other VR systems I've used in the past, but doesn't seem to be a quick way of getting nav to route to home address by voice instructions (there may be if I could be bothered to RTFM?).
I don't really like the parking sensors - I feel the LED displays are a bit low rent compared to the on-screen displays other cars tend to use (and the rear one is positioned in a place where it's out of my natural eyeline when reversing, rendering it pretty much useless).
Handling's not quite as sharp as I'd like but, as it's the wife's car/sensible family transport, is perfectly acceptable. Very good for motorway cruising though.
Earlier comments about the hybrid system etc still stand - acceptable, and fairly unobtrusive, but a slightly more powerful electric drive might be handy on the Estate, just to prevent the engine cutting back in at the sign of a slight incline.
Only other things I'd change would be down to personal preferences (e.g. would be useful if it auto-locked x minutes after parking up/key out, and if you could have multiple mobiles hooked up simultaneously).
There's no buyer's remorse, and I think we'd buy another one... if the Business Edition was available in the UK (not a fan of the new Merc front end on anything other than the SLS). Of course, that may or may not change when we see what the dealer service is like now they've sold us the car.
T1CHS said:
I was thinking the other night, that there has got be a way of getting the electric motor to run simultaneously with the diesel engine!
It does that already, under certain circumstances... seems to make the delivery, bearing in mind it's a turbo, a bit less laggy. Agree that it might be interesting to have it user selectable though. Possibly a something we'll see linked to a "sport" button in the future?Now at ~46mpg (from OBC) over 20k miles. Mostly urban and A/B road at peak times (less than 25% motorway), driven as a normal car would be.
17k miles before the winters went on and it looks like new rears are on the cards when I swap them back.
Only slight downer was a bit of hassle when the iPhone interface stopped working and the dealer didn't realise for a while that the car has the new model COMAND instead of the previous version... which was why none of their fixes worked.
Other than that, comments on the car and drivetrain are unchanged from previous updates.
£30 VED...
17k miles before the winters went on and it looks like new rears are on the cards when I swap them back.
Only slight downer was a bit of hassle when the iPhone interface stopped working and the dealer didn't realise for a while that the car has the new model COMAND instead of the previous version... which was why none of their fixes worked.
Other than that, comments on the car and drivetrain are unchanged from previous updates.
£30 VED...
AmitG said:
How much range do you get on electric only?
If you use the heater or air con, does it stay on electric or does it automatically switch to ICE in order to power the accessories?
The "sailing" thing sounds pretty cool but surely it must deplete the battery quite quickly? At which point I imagine it has to charge up again by scavenging engine power. How well does it work in practice?
Has anything gone wrong? How has the dealer service been?
Electric only is < 1 mile, but that's not really the point.If you use the heater or air con, does it stay on electric or does it automatically switch to ICE in order to power the accessories?
The "sailing" thing sounds pretty cool but surely it must deplete the battery quite quickly? At which point I imagine it has to charge up again by scavenging engine power. How well does it work in practice?
Has anything gone wrong? How has the dealer service been?
In the stop start into town you end up with long periods of time where the engine isn't running but you can creep forward on battery whilst everyone else needs to keep their engines lit.
Yes, heater/air con seems to work on battery.
"Sailing" is basically just decoupling the drivetrain to get increased coasting BUT without charging the battery: you don't use any battery doing it but you don't get the charging effect you'd normally have when coasting.
Aside from a problem with the iPod lead, no issues apart from it taking a day longer to service it (due to not having worked on one before).
Ours is now somewhere around 35k miles and has never missed a beat.
Major service came in at a little under £700 (680 I think), which was about double the prior service. Only issue is that servicing *always* ends up taking longer than the dealers expect (due to lack of familiarity with them) to the extent that we're going to insist that they plan on having the car across two days.
It's not at all bad to drive, in fact I quite like it as a motorway cruiser or on the occasions I've used it to drag into town in rush hour, but wouldn't be the first I'd make for B road run (unless it was wet, long distance, and/or I knew I'd want something cosseting or quiet for the return leg) - but, to be fair to the car, aside from anything ending "63 AMG" I don't think MB make anything that I'd pick over my toys.
Winter's coming... so you'll be pleased to hear that it was very tractable in the (non) winter we had last year. I think an identical set of alloys + Nokians came in at around £1500.
Just one consideration: I don't expect depreciation to be especially kind when trade in time comes (due to the fact that there aren't many out there and you're pretty much trapped with dealer servicing right now).
That said, we were chatting the other day and not sure what we'd change it for so will be keeping it for the foreseeable future and would put another at the top of the list if this one was stolen/crashed.
Major service came in at a little under £700 (680 I think), which was about double the prior service. Only issue is that servicing *always* ends up taking longer than the dealers expect (due to lack of familiarity with them) to the extent that we're going to insist that they plan on having the car across two days.
It's not at all bad to drive, in fact I quite like it as a motorway cruiser or on the occasions I've used it to drag into town in rush hour, but wouldn't be the first I'd make for B road run (unless it was wet, long distance, and/or I knew I'd want something cosseting or quiet for the return leg) - but, to be fair to the car, aside from anything ending "63 AMG" I don't think MB make anything that I'd pick over my toys.
Winter's coming... so you'll be pleased to hear that it was very tractable in the (non) winter we had last year. I think an identical set of alloys + Nokians came in at around £1500.
Just one consideration: I don't expect depreciation to be especially kind when trade in time comes (due to the fact that there aren't many out there and you're pretty much trapped with dealer servicing right now).
That said, we were chatting the other day and not sure what we'd change it for so will be keeping it for the foreseeable future and would put another at the top of the list if this one was stolen/crashed.
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