Why aren't there any 80/20 PHEVs?
Discussion
My BiL's Tesla Model X is hugely impressive, but if driven with any weight in your right foot does require a half hour stop (assuming you don't get to a recharging point and find a queue) every 200 miles or so to recharge the battery. Not ideal if going on holiday, for example.
With my C350e, I can obviously fill up with petrol much faster, but I can only do around 10-15 miles purely on batteries.
Of course my C350e is a first gen PHEV, and many others will do double that, but even so, I've done 650 of the last 968 petrol free because most of my trips are short local ones.
What this means in effect is that I get 65mpg+ on urban driving, but this drops to around 35mpg on long journeys.
On many of those long journeys, I'd be perfectly happy trundling along at 70-80 without the need for quick acceleration, so it seems to me that the ideal PHEV would be one not which gets the majority of its range from petrol, but from electricity. If I could buy a car which could do sub 7 second to 60, have let's say a 150 mile battery range and then a small petrol engine which in its own could do maybe that 70-80mph with a 0-60 of maybe 15 seconds, this would feel like the ideal car. I'd be able to do 95% of my driving petrol free and save a lot of cash, but still have the option on longer journeys of pressing on slowly on petrol rather than stopping for long recharging spells.
As far as I know, however, no such car exists, and I have to wonder why?
With my C350e, I can obviously fill up with petrol much faster, but I can only do around 10-15 miles purely on batteries.
Of course my C350e is a first gen PHEV, and many others will do double that, but even so, I've done 650 of the last 968 petrol free because most of my trips are short local ones.
What this means in effect is that I get 65mpg+ on urban driving, but this drops to around 35mpg on long journeys.
On many of those long journeys, I'd be perfectly happy trundling along at 70-80 without the need for quick acceleration, so it seems to me that the ideal PHEV would be one not which gets the majority of its range from petrol, but from electricity. If I could buy a car which could do sub 7 second to 60, have let's say a 150 mile battery range and then a small petrol engine which in its own could do maybe that 70-80mph with a 0-60 of maybe 15 seconds, this would feel like the ideal car. I'd be able to do 95% of my driving petrol free and save a lot of cash, but still have the option on longer journeys of pressing on slowly on petrol rather than stopping for long recharging spells.
As far as I know, however, no such car exists, and I have to wonder why?
Tycho said:
I believe they have stopped making the range extender version so 2nd hand is the only option for that. Don't understand the logic but I guess the demand wasn't there.
I think the demand was there - if you look at autotrader (haven’t tried this myself for a while) i3 Rex greatly outnumber i3 BEVs. It’s not clear why bmw abandoned it - but there were a lot of warranty claims for Rex problems. Maybe that was a factor though I think they fixed that by the end of production - mine was December 15.I think there are problems with two things:
1. How do you keep healthy a motor that only runs very occasionally - on my car out of 39k total miles in 3 years only around 1% was petrol. I worked very hard at maximising ELectric miles!
2. To get decent range on both battery and motor you are going to have big batteries and big motor and fuel tank so lots of weight and packaging issues
oop north said:
I think the demand was there - if you look at autotrader (haven’t tried this myself for a while) i3 Rex greatly outnumber i3 BEVs. It’s not clear why bmw abandoned it - but there were a lot of warranty claims for Rex problems. Maybe that was a factor though I think they fixed that by the end of production - mine was December 15.
I think there are problems with two things:
1. How do you keep healthy a motor that only runs very occasionally - on my car out of 39k total miles in 3 years only around 1% was petrol. I worked very hard at maximising ELectric miles!
2. To get decent range on both battery and motor you are going to have big batteries and big motor and fuel tank so lots of weight and packaging issues
The i3 REX 120Ah exists. In the US and I think elsewhere. Just not in the UK. I guess this is something to do with type approval / WLTP here?I think there are problems with two things:
1. How do you keep healthy a motor that only runs very occasionally - on my car out of 39k total miles in 3 years only around 1% was petrol. I worked very hard at maximising ELectric miles!
2. To get decent range on both battery and motor you are going to have big batteries and big motor and fuel tank so lots of weight and packaging issues
Most people I know with a REX had it there as a comfort blanket, or as you rightly say above, used it extremely minimally and it had to in fact probably burn up more fuel doing it's maintenance cycle than doing actual mileage.
Kermit, to answer your question it's kinda like the tyranny of rockets - the more weight you're adding the less beneficial it is to power/range and energy efficiency decreases when drag/speed is increased. I remember trying to see how much range my phev had at 70mph on pure electric. It wasn't much.
The i3 got away with it due to very lightweight construction, and if you in fact leant on the rex at low battery power (so it had to top up) it reduced driveable power as you could drain the battery quicker than the REX could replenish it. The next gen C300e and 330e have already got denser, biggery battery packs in them but they're definitely not going to hit an 80/20 split that you'd like.
This and increase in battery density and lead time for designs I think PHEV has been and will be a very stop-gap measure (ex 330e owner here!) - many cars are coming out this/next year where the range is good enough for 99% of peoples use cases. Not seen a roadmap where anyone's contemplating a phev with even a 50/50 split - would love to be shown one and be proved wrong tho :-)
Yep the c350e is a nice car, many people at work have them, including the estate model and it's a versatile vehicle. But if someone wanted to move house they'd need to hire a van to move most of their stuff - so could argue their phev isn't a 100% suitable vehicle and they should have bought a long wheelbase transit to ensure they were never caught out in owning the wrong vehicle for every possible event / usage / type of journey.
Buy a daily car that fits 99% of your use case and worry about the 1% when the 1% comes up. Heck, with your electric mileage you're the majority of the way there already with it's current capacity.
Weekend cars, well, that's an entirely different kettle of fish :-)
oop north said:
To get decent range on both battery and motor you are going to have big batteries and big motor and fuel tank so lots of weight and packaging issues
Not really. Yes, if you wanted to keep the same performance you'd be right, but if it's there just as a range extender, would that still be the case?Let's say I can get 150 miles out of batteries. That does cover pretty much every trip I'd likely do except for summer holidays, but on a summer holiday I might well do 400+ miles in a day on French motorways. That's doable, but if I've got to add on an extra hour or more for re-charging, it becomes really frustrating.
If, on the other hand, I can still drive at motorway speeds on a smaller motor (albeit without the acceleration) and have a small fuel tank to give me 100 or so miles of extra range, then I lose far less time refueling, and possibly more importantly, I'm not worried about potentially not being able to find a charging point somewhere in the arse end of rural France...
Adding 20% of eMachine to 80% of ICE is easy.
You need a small chunk of boot/underfloor/fueltank area for the small, cheap battery pack, and the eMachine is small enough to stick in with the transmission. You don't need to redesign the car, so it can be applied to current models. For a low outlay, your marketing dept can crow on about how environmentally good your cars are (self charging hybrid anyone.....) and you can use all the latest buzz words to people buying your car (It's a PHEV don't you know sir), and in the real world, for a lot of people, actually having say 20 miles of EV range, or the fuel saving from regen with an assistance style system does make a significant improvement to the fuel costs (because lots of people do actually do pretty short daily trips)
Adding a 20% ICE to an 80% eMAchine is hard.
The ICE brings all sorts of requirements that an BEV doesn't have, like exhausts, fuel tanks, cooling packs, clutches, air intake etc, and your BEV is probably designed to fit in the most number of batteries already, so the space for the ICE is simply not availiable, especially as you can't mount an ICE just anyhow, unlike with a eMachine that can be jammed in anywhere and doesn't care. And of course, small ICEs aren't efficient (thanks to the fundamental physics of surface area to volume ratio) and their costs is not particularly capacity dependant (ie a 1.0 litre ICE does not cost half that of a 2.0 litre engine (it costs around 90% of it!). And with an ICE, you suddenly as a manufacturer need to jump through a massive number of SignOff, Certification and Legaslative hoops that take vast amounts of time and money
So you do all that expensive work and development, the cost of the vehicle spirals upwards, the complexity spirals upwards, and it only solves a single problem (lack of non-stopping range), that once you get to a certain battery size for your EV bit, that range becomes less and less of an issue. It takes no great genius to see that is you have space and money to fit an ICE to an EV, then you are far better using that space and cost to just fit a bigger battery! (esp. as the cost per kWh of storage has plumeted in the last few years) Companies like Tesla simply could not compete with the existing big OEs if they tried to make an ICE vehicle, or even a ReX, and yet, their BEVs are competitive and now getting to be class leading in fact..;
I have a small battery (22 kWh) I3 without the ReX, and i'm so glad i didn't saddle the car with all that extra mass, complexity and phaff, it's a far better car without all that guff.........
You need a small chunk of boot/underfloor/fueltank area for the small, cheap battery pack, and the eMachine is small enough to stick in with the transmission. You don't need to redesign the car, so it can be applied to current models. For a low outlay, your marketing dept can crow on about how environmentally good your cars are (self charging hybrid anyone.....) and you can use all the latest buzz words to people buying your car (It's a PHEV don't you know sir), and in the real world, for a lot of people, actually having say 20 miles of EV range, or the fuel saving from regen with an assistance style system does make a significant improvement to the fuel costs (because lots of people do actually do pretty short daily trips)
Adding a 20% ICE to an 80% eMAchine is hard.
The ICE brings all sorts of requirements that an BEV doesn't have, like exhausts, fuel tanks, cooling packs, clutches, air intake etc, and your BEV is probably designed to fit in the most number of batteries already, so the space for the ICE is simply not availiable, especially as you can't mount an ICE just anyhow, unlike with a eMachine that can be jammed in anywhere and doesn't care. And of course, small ICEs aren't efficient (thanks to the fundamental physics of surface area to volume ratio) and their costs is not particularly capacity dependant (ie a 1.0 litre ICE does not cost half that of a 2.0 litre engine (it costs around 90% of it!). And with an ICE, you suddenly as a manufacturer need to jump through a massive number of SignOff, Certification and Legaslative hoops that take vast amounts of time and money
So you do all that expensive work and development, the cost of the vehicle spirals upwards, the complexity spirals upwards, and it only solves a single problem (lack of non-stopping range), that once you get to a certain battery size for your EV bit, that range becomes less and less of an issue. It takes no great genius to see that is you have space and money to fit an ICE to an EV, then you are far better using that space and cost to just fit a bigger battery! (esp. as the cost per kWh of storage has plumeted in the last few years) Companies like Tesla simply could not compete with the existing big OEs if they tried to make an ICE vehicle, or even a ReX, and yet, their BEVs are competitive and now getting to be class leading in fact..;
I have a small battery (22 kWh) I3 without the ReX, and i'm so glad i didn't saddle the car with all that extra mass, complexity and phaff, it's a far better car without all that guff.........
Max_Torque said:
Adding 20% of eMachine to 80% of ICE is easy.
You need a small chunk of boot/underfloor/fueltank area for the small, cheap battery pack, and the eMachine is small enough to stick in with the transmission. You don't need to redesign the car, so it can be applied to current models. For a low outlay, your marketing dept can crow on about how environmentally good your cars are (self charging hybrid anyone.....) and you can use all the latest buzz words to people buying your car (It's a PHEV don't you know sir), and in the real world, for a lot of people, actually having say 20 miles of EV range, or the fuel saving from regen with an assistance style system does make a significant improvement to the fuel costs (because lots of people do actually do pretty short daily trips)
Adding a 20% ICE to an 80% eMAchine is hard.
The ICE brings all sorts of requirements that an BEV doesn't have, like exhausts, fuel tanks, cooling packs, clutches, air intake etc, and your BEV is probably designed to fit in the most number of batteries already, so the space for the ICE is simply not availiable, especially as you can't mount an ICE just anyhow, unlike with a eMachine that can be jammed in anywhere and doesn't care. And of course, small ICEs aren't efficient (thanks to the fundamental physics of surface area to volume ratio) and their costs is not particularly capacity dependant (ie a 1.0 litre ICE does not cost half that of a 2.0 litre engine (it costs around 90% of it!). And with an ICE, you suddenly as a manufacturer need to jump through a massive number of SignOff, Certification and Legaslative hoops that take vast amounts of time and money
So you do all that expensive work and development, the cost of the vehicle spirals upwards, the complexity spirals upwards, and it only solves a single problem (lack of non-stopping range), that once you get to a certain battery size for your EV bit, that range becomes less and less of an issue. It takes no great genius to see that is you have space and money to fit an ICE to an EV, then you are far better using that space and cost to just fit a bigger battery! (esp. as the cost per kWh of storage has plumeted in the last few years) Companies like Tesla simply could not compete with the existing big OEs if they tried to make an ICE vehicle, or even a ReX, and yet, their BEVs are competitive and now getting to be class leading in fact..;
I have a small battery (22 kWh) I3 without the ReX, and i'm so glad i didn't saddle the car with all that extra mass, complexity and phaff, it's a far better car without all that guff.........
Ah... That all makes sense, thanks! You need a small chunk of boot/underfloor/fueltank area for the small, cheap battery pack, and the eMachine is small enough to stick in with the transmission. You don't need to redesign the car, so it can be applied to current models. For a low outlay, your marketing dept can crow on about how environmentally good your cars are (self charging hybrid anyone.....) and you can use all the latest buzz words to people buying your car (It's a PHEV don't you know sir), and in the real world, for a lot of people, actually having say 20 miles of EV range, or the fuel saving from regen with an assistance style system does make a significant improvement to the fuel costs (because lots of people do actually do pretty short daily trips)
Adding a 20% ICE to an 80% eMAchine is hard.
The ICE brings all sorts of requirements that an BEV doesn't have, like exhausts, fuel tanks, cooling packs, clutches, air intake etc, and your BEV is probably designed to fit in the most number of batteries already, so the space for the ICE is simply not availiable, especially as you can't mount an ICE just anyhow, unlike with a eMachine that can be jammed in anywhere and doesn't care. And of course, small ICEs aren't efficient (thanks to the fundamental physics of surface area to volume ratio) and their costs is not particularly capacity dependant (ie a 1.0 litre ICE does not cost half that of a 2.0 litre engine (it costs around 90% of it!). And with an ICE, you suddenly as a manufacturer need to jump through a massive number of SignOff, Certification and Legaslative hoops that take vast amounts of time and money
So you do all that expensive work and development, the cost of the vehicle spirals upwards, the complexity spirals upwards, and it only solves a single problem (lack of non-stopping range), that once you get to a certain battery size for your EV bit, that range becomes less and less of an issue. It takes no great genius to see that is you have space and money to fit an ICE to an EV, then you are far better using that space and cost to just fit a bigger battery! (esp. as the cost per kWh of storage has plumeted in the last few years) Companies like Tesla simply could not compete with the existing big OEs if they tried to make an ICE vehicle, or even a ReX, and yet, their BEVs are competitive and now getting to be class leading in fact..;
I have a small battery (22 kWh) I3 without the ReX, and i'm so glad i didn't saddle the car with all that extra mass, complexity and phaff, it's a far better car without all that guff.........
skilly1 said:
Rex is a generator and only charges batteries. No direct drive.
Ahh okay. Thanks. I guess that makes the packaging simpler as it can essentially go anywhere. You'd think something like the Larger SUV's would be perfect for that setup as the extra ground clearance that 99.9% of buyers don't actually need gives extra room underneath for the generator and small fuel tank.Edit- Apologies if I seem like i'm asking stupid questions of making stupid comments. EV's are new to me and i'm trying to learn what I can. The Evezy Renault Zoe seems like a great deal for my OH who has a 30 mile daily commute into north london from Herts considering her 7 year old fiat 500 costs similar per month by the time she's paid for the finance, insurance and petrol!
Edited by chunkytfg on Wednesday 4th September 21:34
Kermit power said:
As far as I know, however, no such car exists, and I have to wonder why?
Because you are comparing apples with oranges.If you used the same size car example as your own for example a model 3 which when trundling along the motorway at about 70 will get 300 miles, when your own car would get only 350 miles - it hardly seems worth carrying two powertrains for that extra 50 miles range does it?
JD said:
Kermit power said:
As far as I know, however, no such car exists, and I have to wonder why?
Because you are comparing apples with oranges.If you used the same size car example as your own for example a model 3 which when trundling along the motorway at about 70 will get 300 miles, when your own car would get only 350 miles - it hardly seems worth carrying two powertrains for that extra 50 miles range does it?
If you stick a small engine in - and from comments so far, this would clearly be as a range extender charging the batteries rather than driving the wheels - then you can keep yourself going by just stopping at any petrol station. There's far more of them, and it only takes you a couple of minutes.
I do realise that for many people this isn't an issue, and even for those who tend to drive in to Europe on holiday it's probably only an issue once or twice a year, but I'm in that category, and at the moment it would keep me from going to a pure EV.
Kermit power said:
You're missing the point. It's not about a 300 mile journey so much as a 400+ mile journey. With a pure EV, you have no choice but to find somewhere to recharge en route, it's going to take at least half an hour, and that's assuming you don't get there to find a couple of cars in the queue in front of you, or the charger out of order. What do you do if you've got 30 miles of range left, and the next nearest charging point is 60 miles away?
If you stick a small engine in - and from comments so far, this would clearly be as a range extender charging the batteries rather than driving the wheels - then you can keep yourself going by just stopping at any petrol station. There's far more of them, and it only takes you a couple of minutes.
I do realise that for many people this isn't an issue, and even for those who tend to drive in to Europe on holiday it's probably only an issue once or twice a year, but I'm in that category, and at the moment it would keep me from going to a pure EV.
It's a fair concern for the capabilities of most cars and most charging today. But it becomes less and less of an issue as cars get more range, and charging becomes both faster and more plentiful. If you stick a small engine in - and from comments so far, this would clearly be as a range extender charging the batteries rather than driving the wheels - then you can keep yourself going by just stopping at any petrol station. There's far more of them, and it only takes you a couple of minutes.
I do realise that for many people this isn't an issue, and even for those who tend to drive in to Europe on holiday it's probably only an issue once or twice a year, but I'm in that category, and at the moment it would keep me from going to a pure EV.
Range extenders made sense on the first gen i3 with a realistic range under 80 miles, and that takes 25 minutes or so to get another 60 miles of range in. But even that tiny engine is tricky to package, needs maintaining and on BMW's experience, seems prone to problems particularly as many people don't use it that much.
As cars get much more range and charging speeds increase, it makes big journeys much easier - you put the car on to charge when you stop anyway (for a break/food/sleep) and aren't left waiting around. In case there is a problem, you have a much bigger buffer of spare range to get to the next stop.
Have a play with abetterrouteplanner.com to see what the long touring experience would be like in some of the current cars and charging networks - eg. a Tesla Model 3 long range, going at the speed limit between London and Naples only needs 2 hours 23 minutes of charging, in over 20 hours of driving. Longest stop 22 minutes, many 11 or 12. In reality if you were stopping for a meal or (as I would) an overnight stay you could charge to 100% while you were doing something else and go further before the next one. Yes, you could probably 2-stop it in a diesel car but would you go 8+ hours at the wheel without stopping?
JD said:
Kermit power said:
What do you do if you've got 30 miles of range left, and the next nearest charging point is 60 miles away?
I mean, what do you do in your petrol car?Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff