From Volvo V70 D5 to Citroen C5X PHEV
Discussion
This is not going to be standard PistonHeads fodder, it's not the story of a performance car, being lovingly restored to it's former glory, or mechanically and visually enhanced by an enthusiastic hands-on owner.
It's the story of changing from a 14 year old 220,000 mile diesel Volvo V70 to a 2 year old 10,000 mile Citroen C5X PHEV, with a side plot of how things are done in France. Expect tales of every day use and road trips, experiences of plugging a car in for the first time and how I get on with leaping several generations of in-car technology.
A (very) few of you might have seen a previous thread about the prolonged search for a replacement car, particularly when the current vehicle continues to do a fine job, and you are really fussy about the specification of the replacement:-
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
It's the story of changing from a 14 year old 220,000 mile diesel Volvo V70 to a 2 year old 10,000 mile Citroen C5X PHEV, with a side plot of how things are done in France. Expect tales of every day use and road trips, experiences of plugging a car in for the first time and how I get on with leaping several generations of in-car technology.
A (very) few of you might have seen a previous thread about the prolonged search for a replacement car, particularly when the current vehicle continues to do a fine job, and you are really fussy about the specification of the replacement:-
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
One of the criteria for "Shed of the Year" is the amount of comments generated. I have obviously made the least interesting Reader's Car purchase of the year :-)
But I am still intrigued by starting to run a new type of car, so will put up some more updates now that I am nearly 8 weeks in.
The reason for no forecourt shot is that the salesman forgot to charge the car. So had filled the (puny) tank to compensate.
So 1200 miles in, and this week I'll be visiting a petrol pump for the second time. My first fill was 33 litres/7 gallons a month ago today.
To come - thoughts on charging, and range.
But I am still intrigued by starting to run a new type of car, so will put up some more updates now that I am nearly 8 weeks in.
The reason for no forecourt shot is that the salesman forgot to charge the car. So had filled the (puny) tank to compensate.
So 1200 miles in, and this week I'll be visiting a petrol pump for the second time. My first fill was 33 litres/7 gallons a month ago today.
To come - thoughts on charging, and range.
Charging - as I mentioned above, I acquired the car on August 1st with zero charge, c100 miles home before I could plug it in. On Saturday I successfully charged it at a public charger. The intervening steps:-
Happily home charging from Day One, mainly overnight, apart from the time when I plugged it in after 10:10pm, when it is scheduled to start, and pressed the "delayed charge" button. So it didn't. Schoolboy error.
The car came with just a domestic plug and cable. I read online something to the effect of "some public chargers have cables, some don't". So on a few days away in the Loire I spied a charger with cables attached, swiped my bank card, and discovered the provided cable wasn't a Type 2, attempt aborted.
Order a Type 2 cable through a French retailer's market place. Seemed a reasonable compromise between a cheap unknown quantity and Citroen branded. Quite pleased with the apparent quality, and it came with a semi-rigid case with a zip, which the cable easily fits into.
It takes several days to sign up to the mobile charging option with my domestic electric supplier, website switches between English and French at a whim (it's a Dutch company service, white labelled). validation codes not accepted, attempting to try again says email in use. Eventually get around it by going down the reset password route, despite having set a password and not forgotten it. It works. A few days later a smartcard arrives in a handwritten envelope. You wonder how few people my local electric company have signed up?
Saturday, I'm parked in a small village in the next department waiting for a car rally to pass. It occurs to me there might be a charger nearby. I look at the App, bingo, a few hundred metres up the road:
Prettier than your average motorway service area, but no signage from the street. The charger doesn't belong to my local electric company. Waving my smartcard causes lights to blink, no other reaction. Discover the App needs the card number adding, despite having logged in to the App with the account that triggered the delivery of the card... Still no reaction from blinky. Attempt aborted.
Perhaps that explains why the charger was covered in cobwebs when I arrived:-
Later that day go into town just to try a public charger. One owned by my electric supplier. It works. So now I do know my new cable works, but not whether the earlier failure was a one-off, or whether I still can't charge outside my local area.
With an upcoming trip to Scotland I'd like to recharge at some point. Partly because the user manual states:- "Driving when the charge level of the
traction battery is too low can lead to the vehicle breaking down and can lead to accidents or serious injuries". Which seems to fly in the face of how people expect to use PHEVs.
The question remains in my mind as to how costs compare between using fuel and public charging. There are so many factors - not having done a full tank without some charge I have no idea of my real mpg. Not knowing the losses associated with charging I don't know the real distance covered per unit of paid for kWh . The trip computer offers a km/kWh figure for each journey, but it seems to vary widely from the equivalent of 2.2 to 3.3 miles/kWh.
Conclusion to date - there were a lot of steps to get to where I am now and I still don't know if I have done everything to allow charging on a road trip. And I can see why many people are put off by the complexity and unfamiliarity of it all.
Happily home charging from Day One, mainly overnight, apart from the time when I plugged it in after 10:10pm, when it is scheduled to start, and pressed the "delayed charge" button. So it didn't. Schoolboy error.
The car came with just a domestic plug and cable. I read online something to the effect of "some public chargers have cables, some don't". So on a few days away in the Loire I spied a charger with cables attached, swiped my bank card, and discovered the provided cable wasn't a Type 2, attempt aborted.
Order a Type 2 cable through a French retailer's market place. Seemed a reasonable compromise between a cheap unknown quantity and Citroen branded. Quite pleased with the apparent quality, and it came with a semi-rigid case with a zip, which the cable easily fits into.
It takes several days to sign up to the mobile charging option with my domestic electric supplier, website switches between English and French at a whim (it's a Dutch company service, white labelled). validation codes not accepted, attempting to try again says email in use. Eventually get around it by going down the reset password route, despite having set a password and not forgotten it. It works. A few days later a smartcard arrives in a handwritten envelope. You wonder how few people my local electric company have signed up?
Saturday, I'm parked in a small village in the next department waiting for a car rally to pass. It occurs to me there might be a charger nearby. I look at the App, bingo, a few hundred metres up the road:
Prettier than your average motorway service area, but no signage from the street. The charger doesn't belong to my local electric company. Waving my smartcard causes lights to blink, no other reaction. Discover the App needs the card number adding, despite having logged in to the App with the account that triggered the delivery of the card... Still no reaction from blinky. Attempt aborted.
Perhaps that explains why the charger was covered in cobwebs when I arrived:-
Later that day go into town just to try a public charger. One owned by my electric supplier. It works. So now I do know my new cable works, but not whether the earlier failure was a one-off, or whether I still can't charge outside my local area.
With an upcoming trip to Scotland I'd like to recharge at some point. Partly because the user manual states:- "Driving when the charge level of the
traction battery is too low can lead to the vehicle breaking down and can lead to accidents or serious injuries". Which seems to fly in the face of how people expect to use PHEVs.
The question remains in my mind as to how costs compare between using fuel and public charging. There are so many factors - not having done a full tank without some charge I have no idea of my real mpg. Not knowing the losses associated with charging I don't know the real distance covered per unit of paid for kWh . The trip computer offers a km/kWh figure for each journey, but it seems to vary widely from the equivalent of 2.2 to 3.3 miles/kWh.
Conclusion to date - there were a lot of steps to get to where I am now and I still don't know if I have done everything to allow charging on a road trip. And I can see why many people are put off by the complexity and unfamiliarity of it all.
Now lets talk about range.
And this post is rather more optimistic than the last.
So far the predicted range on a full charge has varied from about 42km to 50km. The lowest figure was early on, after the car had been sitting in the trade for some time. Hopefully regular use and charging/discharging is having a positive effect.
My highest actual achieved range is 59km, or almost 37 miles, against a Citroen quoted figure of 34 miles.
Thinking about the usage the car gets, it is fairly undemanding, probably 70-80% rural, lightly trafficked and flattish roads. However that does mean quite a lot of 50-55mph sustained cruising, so I can believe that someone with a higher percentage of urban use, or encountering more traffic could see an even higher figure.
I also think the car is quite is quite sensitive to how it is driven. I'm convinced my partner destroys the efficiency every time they drive it.
Now to see how that changes with the weather. So far we've seen mainly 20-30 degrees maximum daily temperatures, and I'm using the sunroof and climate just as I like.
And this post is rather more optimistic than the last.
So far the predicted range on a full charge has varied from about 42km to 50km. The lowest figure was early on, after the car had been sitting in the trade for some time. Hopefully regular use and charging/discharging is having a positive effect.
My highest actual achieved range is 59km, or almost 37 miles, against a Citroen quoted figure of 34 miles.
Thinking about the usage the car gets, it is fairly undemanding, probably 70-80% rural, lightly trafficked and flattish roads. However that does mean quite a lot of 50-55mph sustained cruising, so I can believe that someone with a higher percentage of urban use, or encountering more traffic could see an even higher figure.
I also think the car is quite is quite sensitive to how it is driven. I'm convinced my partner destroys the efficiency every time they drive it.
Now to see how that changes with the weather. So far we've seen mainly 20-30 degrees maximum daily temperatures, and I'm using the sunroof and climate just as I like.
Mammasaid said:
It's a handsome beast is the Citroen, I'd be interested to know the costings.
That's where I was disappointed to find very little real world info. Honest John's real mpg quotes the C5 Aircross at 38mpg for the 180 (1.6 Turbo, no electrification) and 82mpg for the PHEV, same engine, plus electric motor for 225bhp), All that tells me is that owners are doing about 50% of their mileage on charged electricity (as opposed to regen/engine generated). No figures for the C5X, too rare.So far I am seeing 2.5-3 miles per kWh. My cheapest domestic rate is 12 Euro cents. So pence per mile is about 3.3 to 4p.
On fuel - assuming 40 mpg (looking forward to getting real numbers on that next month). It is about 15ppm.
Public charging locally is 2-3 times the price of domestic for 22kWh chargers. which probably means a little cheaper than fuel, but really not significant. On the upcoming roadtrip to the UK I'll be charging only if convenient and less than about 50p per kWh.
On purchase cost - in France I think I paid an extra 4,000 euros for a 2023 car, but that is not very precise, because of the difficulty of finding similar spec cars to compare. That 4,000 euros has bought me 225bhp vs 130bhp, and avoids the 1.2 Puretech wet belt engine.
Mammasaid said:
Unfortunately, PHEV public charging isn't as good as full EV, mainly because I think the manufacturers/suppliers don't think PHEVs will use it.
What's the interior/infotainment like?
Indeed, the best C5X option is 7.4 kWh, but I'm expecting it to mean very little competition for the 22kWh chargers from real BEVs!What's the interior/infotainment like?
I've still not discovered all the functionality, but at this stage I can say that I like the separate climate buttons and head up display and that wireless CarPlay seems to be fine. (native satnav is TomTom). Lane keep seems mainly unobtrusive, assisted driving I've hardly scratched the surface. Interior spaciousness was a big factor in buying. Room for 5, easier than the previous V70, and front seats have a big range of adjustment. Some of the patterns on the dash and doortrims are a little unusual but I don't see that as a disadvantage.
And circling back to my previous thread asking why professional sellers can't properly describe what they are selling.
When I viewed the car I asked if it had a hands free tailgate. The salesman looked at the one button on the inside of the tailgate and said "No, it'd have two buttons if it did". So after I collected the car I half-heartedly tried once or twice to wiggle my foot under the bumper just in case, to no effect.
Yesterday, looking through the manual for something else, I find "To operate the hands free tailgate, kick forwards and upwards". Tried that, and it works, it made my day, well, made my hour anyway. Only the handbook also says it may not work with a prosthetic leg. I can't get this image out of my mind.
In other news a springer spaniel and a greyhound will fit in the boot, but the dog's heads were close to the rear window. It'd be a much better car as a proper estate. And our nearly 12 year old springer is now much more confident to jump up into the back seat than he was to start with. It's only an extra inch or two compared with the V70, but he needed a little while to master it. I'm hoping the time when he needs lifting, or a step, or ramp is still a way off.
Gratuitous dog photo
When I viewed the car I asked if it had a hands free tailgate. The salesman looked at the one button on the inside of the tailgate and said "No, it'd have two buttons if it did". So after I collected the car I half-heartedly tried once or twice to wiggle my foot under the bumper just in case, to no effect.
Yesterday, looking through the manual for something else, I find "To operate the hands free tailgate, kick forwards and upwards". Tried that, and it works, it made my day, well, made my hour anyway. Only the handbook also says it may not work with a prosthetic leg. I can't get this image out of my mind.
In other news a springer spaniel and a greyhound will fit in the boot, but the dog's heads were close to the rear window. It'd be a much better car as a proper estate. And our nearly 12 year old springer is now much more confident to jump up into the back seat than he was to start with. It's only an extra inch or two compared with the V70, but he needed a little while to master it. I'm hoping the time when he needs lifting, or a step, or ramp is still a way off.
Gratuitous dog photo
How you know the car was conceived primarily with the Chinese market in mind:-
1. There are buttons on the side of the front passenger seat to allow a rear seat passenger to move the front seat forwards and more upright.
2. The handbook entry for changing the headlamp beams for driving on the other side of the road reads "See your Citroen dealer".
So I went to my local Citroen dealer. The service receptionist asked a colleague on the desk, then went out the back, then came back and said "We suggest you visit a Citroen dealer once you get to the UK". I suppose a UK dealer is slightly more likely to have had the request than one in South West France. The dealer has a C5X on the forecourt, which might be the same one they had when I got mine 3 months ago. I don't think I've seem another one in the wild since I got mine.
In other news, the slightly cooler weather has seen the predicted electric range fall from a maximum of 50km to a maximum of 44km. A recent actual figure was 48km from a predicted range of 40km though. My trip computer average fuel consumption has increased to 40km/l or about 113mpg.
I've seen figures quoted on line of 30mpg and 55mpg for running with no charge and later this week I'll be finding out which of those is more accurate in long distance use. Yet to decide if I cruise at 130km/h or nearer 110km/h which I tended to do in the Volvo for a noticeable improvement in fuel consumption. I reckon about 47mpg on diesel and 700 miles before even thinking about filling up was par for the course with a 15 gallon tank. On the other hand I suspect the Volvo did about 35mpg on local journeys which I'm now doing entirely electrically.
I've been watching on-line reviews. Could be dangerous having already bought the car. Not fully in agreement with the "fabulous seats" and "fabulous ride" comments. Both are good, but perhaps a 14 year old Volvo on 17" wheels is a tougher comparison than most modern cars.
Finally, on touchscreen technology, the car has scroll down from the top and scroll right from the left functions to bring up other screens. Also a physical "car" button to access ADAS functions, and a physical "home" button, which the manual says can scroll through multiple home screens (???). However only this week have I found, from the manual, that touching the screen with 3 fingers brings up all the "Apps" at once. Yeah, very intuitive.
1. There are buttons on the side of the front passenger seat to allow a rear seat passenger to move the front seat forwards and more upright.
2. The handbook entry for changing the headlamp beams for driving on the other side of the road reads "See your Citroen dealer".
So I went to my local Citroen dealer. The service receptionist asked a colleague on the desk, then went out the back, then came back and said "We suggest you visit a Citroen dealer once you get to the UK". I suppose a UK dealer is slightly more likely to have had the request than one in South West France. The dealer has a C5X on the forecourt, which might be the same one they had when I got mine 3 months ago. I don't think I've seem another one in the wild since I got mine.
In other news, the slightly cooler weather has seen the predicted electric range fall from a maximum of 50km to a maximum of 44km. A recent actual figure was 48km from a predicted range of 40km though. My trip computer average fuel consumption has increased to 40km/l or about 113mpg.
I've seen figures quoted on line of 30mpg and 55mpg for running with no charge and later this week I'll be finding out which of those is more accurate in long distance use. Yet to decide if I cruise at 130km/h or nearer 110km/h which I tended to do in the Volvo for a noticeable improvement in fuel consumption. I reckon about 47mpg on diesel and 700 miles before even thinking about filling up was par for the course with a 15 gallon tank. On the other hand I suspect the Volvo did about 35mpg on local journeys which I'm now doing entirely electrically.
I've been watching on-line reviews. Could be dangerous having already bought the car. Not fully in agreement with the "fabulous seats" and "fabulous ride" comments. Both are good, but perhaps a 14 year old Volvo on 17" wheels is a tougher comparison than most modern cars.
Finally, on touchscreen technology, the car has scroll down from the top and scroll right from the left functions to bring up other screens. Also a physical "car" button to access ADAS functions, and a physical "home" button, which the manual says can scroll through multiple home screens (???). However only this week have I found, from the manual, that touching the screen with 3 fingers brings up all the "Apps" at once. Yeah, very intuitive.
Road trip over. 2242 miles in 13 days. So I now have my own answer to "What fuel consumption will the car do with an empty battery?" From brim to brim over a number of tanks. Overall answer - 52.5 mpg. That includes about 50 miles of mains electric running, so needs adjusting down by 2%, call it 51 mpg.
So my 5 seat 225bhp crossover with "all the weight and complexity of 2 powertrains" can do over 50mpg purely on petrol.
Strangely the worst figure of 45mpg was the first tankful, when I also had a full battery. Best figure of 57mpg included a gentle amble through the Peak District as well as motorway either side of that from the south east and on to Carlisle.
So using 51mpg and 1.35/litre as an average fuel cost gives me a cost per mile of about 12p. To match the cost per mile assuming 3 miles/kWh I needed a public charger at 36p/kWh.
So how many times did I charge after leaving home? Once. With two failed attempts. The French charge card still doesn't work with chargers other than my own supplier's. I found that out at 7pm on a Friday, so didn't even attempt to contact my electric company. The second failure was when, after installing ZapMap, and adding a card to google pay the charger appeared to start, and I set off to walk back to the hotel, a few minutes in the rain. When I got to the hotel I had a message "Something seems to have gone wrong, try unplugging and replugging the car. By the time I returned it seemed to have timed out, returned to the "make payment" stage but said payment could not be made, perhaps because an amount had already been pre-authorised. The successful attempt was after adding a 3rd App, on a phone already set up for Apple Pay. And resulted in almost a full charge at 35p/kWh. Huge shout out to East Lothian council for providing the only public charger I found in the entire journey that could match the cost per mile of petrol.
But what a contrast to pulling up to a petrol pump, waving a credit card at a contactless reader, picking up a nozzle and filling a tank.
On the other hand I really missed the 100% electric running. I've got used to setting off every morning smoothly and quietly, and whilst the transition between electric and petrol is generally smooth, and results in an almost undetectable change in noise levels at a steady cruise, the petrol engine is very noticeable when first moving off, or accelerating uphill for example.
And in 2400 miles I saw one other C5X, in Northern France. I also saw one Chrysler Hunter, in North East England. And howmanyleft suggests it might be the only one on the road in the UK
So my 5 seat 225bhp crossover with "all the weight and complexity of 2 powertrains" can do over 50mpg purely on petrol.
Strangely the worst figure of 45mpg was the first tankful, when I also had a full battery. Best figure of 57mpg included a gentle amble through the Peak District as well as motorway either side of that from the south east and on to Carlisle.
So using 51mpg and 1.35/litre as an average fuel cost gives me a cost per mile of about 12p. To match the cost per mile assuming 3 miles/kWh I needed a public charger at 36p/kWh.
So how many times did I charge after leaving home? Once. With two failed attempts. The French charge card still doesn't work with chargers other than my own supplier's. I found that out at 7pm on a Friday, so didn't even attempt to contact my electric company. The second failure was when, after installing ZapMap, and adding a card to google pay the charger appeared to start, and I set off to walk back to the hotel, a few minutes in the rain. When I got to the hotel I had a message "Something seems to have gone wrong, try unplugging and replugging the car. By the time I returned it seemed to have timed out, returned to the "make payment" stage but said payment could not be made, perhaps because an amount had already been pre-authorised. The successful attempt was after adding a 3rd App, on a phone already set up for Apple Pay. And resulted in almost a full charge at 35p/kWh. Huge shout out to East Lothian council for providing the only public charger I found in the entire journey that could match the cost per mile of petrol.
But what a contrast to pulling up to a petrol pump, waving a credit card at a contactless reader, picking up a nozzle and filling a tank.
On the other hand I really missed the 100% electric running. I've got used to setting off every morning smoothly and quietly, and whilst the transition between electric and petrol is generally smooth, and results in an almost undetectable change in noise levels at a steady cruise, the petrol engine is very noticeable when first moving off, or accelerating uphill for example.
And in 2400 miles I saw one other C5X, in Northern France. I also saw one Chrysler Hunter, in North East England. And howmanyleft suggests it might be the only one on the road in the UK
Nice colour, far too many black/grey/silver/white cars on the road.
I was reading your earlier post thinking your 40mpg assumption sounded a little low
I picked up my PHEV (Lexus NX) in the UK and drove it back to the Netherlands via Dunkirk so had a decent motorway run with a flat battery so got an early indicator of mpg (50ish on the motorway), but still haven't really got a good idea of miles per kWh. I really don't like the way manufacturers report MPG though, I'd much rather they quoted a figure with a flat battery and a separate figure for miles per kWh. I make it around 50c/kWh before it's cheaper to use petrol, but petrol's about 1.90/litre around here
I've found the Tap Electric app to be one of the better ones for coverage here in NL, and it covers France too. It's 2c/kWh on my local chargers than through the local providers app, but it seems to cover a very wide range of providers. So it may well be worth taking a look at a few other charging apps. In the UK I just use Zapmap, but when I tried to charge at Tesco's before driving back the Podpoint charger was broken
I was reading your earlier post thinking your 40mpg assumption sounded a little low
I picked up my PHEV (Lexus NX) in the UK and drove it back to the Netherlands via Dunkirk so had a decent motorway run with a flat battery so got an early indicator of mpg (50ish on the motorway), but still haven't really got a good idea of miles per kWh. I really don't like the way manufacturers report MPG though, I'd much rather they quoted a figure with a flat battery and a separate figure for miles per kWh. I make it around 50c/kWh before it's cheaper to use petrol, but petrol's about 1.90/litre around here
I've found the Tap Electric app to be one of the better ones for coverage here in NL, and it covers France too. It's 2c/kWh on my local chargers than through the local providers app, but it seems to cover a very wide range of providers. So it may well be worth taking a look at a few other charging apps. In the UK I just use Zapmap, but when I tried to charge at Tesco's before driving back the Podpoint charger was broken
andyalan10 said:
Partly because the user manual states:- "Driving when the charge level of the
traction battery is too low can lead to the vehicle breaking down and can lead to accidents or serious injuries". Which seems to fly in the face of how people expect to use PHEVs..
I'm surprised by this. Now you've done a long trip, does it maintain a level of charge in the battery? Mine will keep it at about 20%, it will occasionally drop to 1 bar but pretty soon gets back up to 2 as you drive.traction battery is too low can lead to the vehicle breaking down and can lead to accidents or serious injuries". Which seems to fly in the face of how people expect to use PHEVs..
Edited by RizzoTheRat on Thursday 23 October 15:08
RizzoTheRat said:
I'm surprised by this. Now you've done a long trip, does it maintain a level of charge in the battery? Mine will keep it at about 20%, it will occasionally drop to 1 bar but pretty soon gets back up to 2 as you drive.
It displays 0% charge and 0% range, but I believe it actually retains some charge for when "full steam ahead" is requested. The manual implies that when the power indicator is in the "Power" section rather than "Eco" both engine and battery are being used, but I'm not convinced it is that simple...Edited by RizzoTheRat on Thursday 23 October 15:08
Starting with zero range in the battery, by the end of the journey the "%age completed emissions free" is anything from 20 to 50+%. The manual helpfully doesn't define whether that percentage is distance or time...
It's been cold...
Worst temperature seen in the recent cold snap was about -4 at 10:00am. It might have been colder overnight, but I wasn't checking.
In the late summer I was seeing up to 50km predicted range, and 57-58 actually achieved.
This morning I saw a predicted range of 32km. But that was after a few days of repeated short runs. E.g. 2km, walk the dog and return. 2km and an hour in the gym and return, 10km and an hour's French lesson. So constantly heating a cold cabin. The only concession I have made is to tweak the climate control down to 19 from 21. The heated steering wheel is quite nice, the seats are a bit slow to warm up, and with winter clothes on have less of an effect.
Haven't tried pre-heating the interior. I'd need another go at using the App on my phone, which I abandoned after the confirmation email came through in Russian. Also I don't use the car at a regular time. Think - "oh it's stopped raining, I'll take the dog out".
Also I have seen a couple of other C5Xs within 15km of home. So I'm not the only one locally. And we did a full charge over lunch at a restaurant about 40 minutes away. My charge card still doesn't work, my partner's app did. That did seem to confirm the car can charge at c. 6kW. Despite no documentation to say it has the optional 7.4kW on board charger.
One other observation - I recently read a review of a PHEV SUV (PHESUV?) which suggested that electric only would struggle to top 40mph. I can confirm that my car will happily attain and hold 110km/h (67mph) on a dual carriageway, although obviously to the detriment of range.
Also I did use the Fiat Barchetta the other day, because it hadn't turned a wheel in a few weeks, and it needed a jump start, followed by a battery charge. As it is practically free to use the large car with all mod-cons, it becomes an effort to use, or trickle charge, the petrol car. Not sure what the answer to that is.
Worst temperature seen in the recent cold snap was about -4 at 10:00am. It might have been colder overnight, but I wasn't checking.
In the late summer I was seeing up to 50km predicted range, and 57-58 actually achieved.
This morning I saw a predicted range of 32km. But that was after a few days of repeated short runs. E.g. 2km, walk the dog and return. 2km and an hour in the gym and return, 10km and an hour's French lesson. So constantly heating a cold cabin. The only concession I have made is to tweak the climate control down to 19 from 21. The heated steering wheel is quite nice, the seats are a bit slow to warm up, and with winter clothes on have less of an effect.
Haven't tried pre-heating the interior. I'd need another go at using the App on my phone, which I abandoned after the confirmation email came through in Russian. Also I don't use the car at a regular time. Think - "oh it's stopped raining, I'll take the dog out".
Also I have seen a couple of other C5Xs within 15km of home. So I'm not the only one locally. And we did a full charge over lunch at a restaurant about 40 minutes away. My charge card still doesn't work, my partner's app did. That did seem to confirm the car can charge at c. 6kW. Despite no documentation to say it has the optional 7.4kW on board charger.
One other observation - I recently read a review of a PHEV SUV (PHESUV?) which suggested that electric only would struggle to top 40mph. I can confirm that my car will happily attain and hold 110km/h (67mph) on a dual carriageway, although obviously to the detriment of range.
Also I did use the Fiat Barchetta the other day, because it hadn't turned a wheel in a few weeks, and it needed a jump start, followed by a battery charge. As it is practically free to use the large car with all mod-cons, it becomes an effort to use, or trickle charge, the petrol car. Not sure what the answer to that is.
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