Nup, he’s employed by Her Majesty’s Government.
The wife’s boss has a fully tricked out P100D. Think it was about £125k, which sounds like quite a lot until you consider what it will stack up against. To be able to produce those 0-60 times, whilst being able to carry 5 adults comfortably (and 2 kids in the boot), plus the Autopilot stuff, it does do quite a lot.
I don’t know whether to cockpunch Lexus and their “self-charging hybrids” in here or the official thread.
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To be fair, a system that genuinely knew where it was and what your schedule was could work if it charged the battery on the motorway and then discharged in town. You would be sacrificing overall efficiency for getting the pollution in the right place.
But I doubt it’s smart enough. I’d like to be proven wrong though.
Presumably if you could talk to the satnav in the car you could work out the demand on the batteries fairly easily and have a setup to arrive with either some or no battery depending on whether you set your destination as having a charger or not.
Yeah that kind of thing. My diary usually has all appointments that I have for the day, including location, so it wouldn’t be impossible to create a plan for charging the battery accordingly. It could also learn your regime for where you could plug it in, if its a plug-in hybrid.
The main problem is spontaneity. Or simply mischievously not telling it where you’re going!
As the owner of a despicable Lexus hybrid the charging seems to be done on the following criteria.
- is the traction battery low? Yes, then run the engine to charge - i.e. if you are sitting waiting for the wife to finish shoe shopping with the mark levinson going full pelt.
- If you are braking and the battery is below a certain level then you’re charging via kers
- if you are at a speed that’s too high for the electric motors (above town and traffic jam speeds) and the battery needs a bit of a charge then it will route some power to the battery.
In order to get the best out of the system you need to adapt your driving style a little to a more gentle acceleration then maintain speed style i can then eake out 30+ mpg from my 3.3 litre v6 SUV. If however I can’t be arsed with all that and I just want to drive it I’m at 24mpg in the winter and 29mpg in the summer. Best ever was 42mpg on a tedious traffic jam and road work ridden trundle back home from wolverhampton but i’m not driving like that everywhere to save a few quid.
It’ll do about 2 miles on electric only before the engine cuts in to charge the battery up which is not great but enough to stop excessive consumption in towns or traffic jams.
It’ll also always shut off the engine when not moving unless the battery is low or you have the heat on full blast (heating is from waste engine heat not an electric heater like a full EV)
it’ll also accelerate like a bastard for something so big - none of the other big SUV’s from the same time can live with it although more modern diesels will give it some grief. It’s on a par with a fiesta st until it gets to a roundabout and then it’s like your fat granny on a shopping trolley.
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Er, doesn’t this somewhat defeat one of the points of having a car that runs on batteries?!
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it takes 5-10 minutes to charge the battery so it can sit playing the radio for 30 mins (or thereabouts) so If i start with a full battery and sit waiting for Imelda for 30 mins it doesn’t run the engine at all. If i park up with the battery on it’s uppers it’ll run for 10 mins and then shut off for 20. Far better than sitting there for 30 mins belching diesel fumes.
No, hybrids aren’t an ideal solution and they are definitely not full EV’s but they are (to my mind) a decent compromise that helps my pocket and the environment from an emissions standpoint at least. The torque from the electric motors is a plus for me too. Plug in hybrids with larger batteries that can cover 10’s of miles with no ICE involvement (the mitsubishi phev for example although the continental drift it has as an excuse for acceleration rules it out personally) would be a better bet if you are really concerned about this, or a Tesla model x if you have a fat wallet. My particular version is verging on 12 years old now and for what it is and the price i paid for it it serves my purposes very well. all i can ask really.
It’s an example of emissions shifting, and a particularly poor one at that.
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Lexus hybrid you say
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yes i tried to make that clear, but then driving a similar vintage, performance, cost and size conventional vehicle would see me in the sub 20 mpg range (X5 / ML / etc.).
I’d love a full EV and indeed have had one in the past (a leaf) sadly it didn’t work within the changed framework of our family life so it had to go when the lease finished but i’d have another EV without hesitation when the cost / benefit / need calculation comes out positive again.
As I say they are a compromise that for me works. Yes it sounds like a wounded cow when you floor it, but that’s the only real criticism i have of the thing and i can live with that.
Does the radio even use that battery?
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When I do the school run I have seen a few PHEVs idling, I imagine that they are charging the battery. I have no idea what the thought process is whereby people think it is sensible to do this in a Waitrose car park right next to a school. It is pretty much the last place you want emissions - the road is much better.
I’ve even seen someone do it in one of the electric car charging spaces. In a PHEV. Really.
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no but the accessory battery is recharged from the traction battery (there is no traditional alternator in the vehicle) . The acc battery is a notorious weak spot for the RX its tiny so if you are sitting there with the radio going, heater running and the like it’ll die relatively quickly.
No idea how the PHEV works, i fuzzily recall that it may not even charge from the engine, using only braking and plug in to charge the batteries but may be wrong there. So if it’s not been plugged in it’ll have to idle. I know for sure that I can sit in a traffic jam at night for hours listening to music with the lights and heater on with the engine running significantly less than the guy in the diesel x5 next to me without risk of a dead battery. In the grand scheme of things its not a big deal but every little helps. Don’t forget that heat will also come from the engine so if it’s on a short run and you have the heat turned up to 11 it’ll be running the engine to get up to temperature.
Modern traditional cars with 48v electrics will apparently act in a similar way but as i’ve not much experience with those so can’t really comment.
Wish you had waited Edd?
No, not at £12k but maybe when this one dies, they might be cheaper.
Though now I want a Century, because V12.
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I want the Honda African Warlord.
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I owned a Nissan QX 3.0 V6 for a while. Drove lovely but was fugly.