PeeHEV

The tale of the untouched cable.

Last week I completed an interesting, long and occasionally joyful journey. I’ve done roads trips or long drives in cars many times in the last 16 years, in Europe, the USA and Australia.

Some long drives are exciting and challenging. However in the UK, its very hard to drive thousands of miles through sparsely populated wilderness. We live on a crowded island, the clichéd Land's End to John o' Groats is only 847 miles or 1,407 km by road. From the tippy top to the bitty bottom. We drove a couple of hundred miles further than that in Australia in one very long day a few years back.

I suppose it’s important to point out that we did that Australian trip in an electric car, and yes, shock horror, we did stop every now and then. Mainly for us, but on two occasions to charge the car, an XPeng G6.

Last weeks trip was different for one simple reason, this is the first time in 12 years that I’ve had to buy imported, expensive, energy intensive, non sustainable, refined fossil fuel in order to complete the journey.

I have just completed an 978 mile round trip from my home up to and around Scotland and Cumbria and back home. I drove a BYD Seal 6 touring DMI (Duel Mode Intelligent) that was generously loaned to me by BYD UK.

The Seal 6 touring DMI is a plug in hybrid electric vehicle, commonly known in the trade as a PHEV (some people say peehev, I’m one of them).

That means it’s a fairly complicated machine, with an electric motor, a battery and all the peripheral electronic control systems, and a combustion engine, fuel tank and all the myriad of support mechanisms all combustion engines rely on.

When the car arrived at my house the day before I set off, the battery was at 80% and the tank was 2/3rds full. I charged the battery to 100% at my house. It took a few seconds. I literally plugged it in and went back to work. Later that day when the battery was full, because I don’t have an oil well, a refinery and storage tanks at my house, I had to get in the car, I had to drive 7 miles to our nearest petrol filling station and pump £60 worth of unleaded into the tank.

The whole liquid fuel thing is in crisis as we all know, we are seeing the world turn against fossil fuel, it’s unreliable and causes untold global instability. The whole industry is focussed on obfuscation and disseminating falsehood as an act of self preservation.

In the UK petrol/gasoline is still called unleaded even though sales of leaded petrol have effectively been banned for 26 years. That’s one mystery. The other one is a doozie. For those of you outside the UK, in this country we buy petrol/gasoline in litres, but calculate fuel consumption in miles per gallon.

No one under 40 knows how big a gallon is, few people over 60 know how little a litre is. To work out how much it costs you to drive one mile is really difficult, and let me just mention this. Who would possibly benefit from this confusion and obfuscation, and who would lobby to avoid any changes to the way fuel is sold and fuel efficiency is calculated?

I’ll let you answer that.

In an electric car, I know what one kiloWatt hour (kWh) costs. Either zero when it comes off my solar panels, or between 7p per kWh at night on an off peak tariff, to 95p a kWh if you hunt down the most obscenely expensive rapid charger. I know how far one kiloWatt hour will propel the car. Either, in the case of small, lighter electric cars, about five miles, as opposed to big heavy electric SUVs down to two and a half miles a kiloWatt hour.

So, back to the BYD Seal 6 touring DMI. After 978 miles I needed to fill the tank again, that cost £150. Now, I want to remind myself and you lovely readers that this is a plug in hybrid. By the time I refilled the tank, I had achieved an average of 58.2 miles per gallon.

Now, anyone who drives a larger, slightly above average car will know that is fairly reasonable fuel efficiency, but there are straightforward petrol cars that will achieve that, without a battery and electric motor.

The one really big gripe I had with what is a very nice car to drive is the charging port. The model I was loaned only had an AC or type 2 socket. That means you can charge it at home or in some car parks, but it’s very slow, you are talking hours to make any real difference.

The car can come with a DC or rapid charge port which would mean you could top-up the battery to near 100% during the standard break in a long journey. Plug in, visit facilities, get a coffee, stretch, scroll hideous brain rotting social media or ask some 100% hallucinating AI machine the answer to a banal question. You know, normal stuff, and your battery is back to 100% and your liquid fuel consumption would be much lower.

So, £180 for petrol plus say, £2 for electricity when I charged it at home

The same journey in an electric car where most of your charging is from expensive DC chargers:

978 miles at 4.5 miles per the kWh @ 70p per kWh = £151 + £2 = £153

However, if I’d driven an electric car from my house, then the first 300 miles would be very cheap due to solar and batteries, I’ll argue that 4p per kWh is a fair estimate of the real cost. A lot of solar, a bit of grid.

300 miles at 0.04p per kWh = £2.60

Remaining 678 miles at 4.5 miles per kWh @ 70p per kWh = £105 + £2.60 = £107.60

Due to the incredible price of fuel and electricity in the UK, the difference is big but not massive.

The same distance in, for example France, where I recently paid 29c per kWh on a Tesla supercharger would mean driving electric on long journeys is insanely cheaper than a fossil burner.

What is now increasingly obvious is the people and companies who buy these cars either never, or very very rarely plug them in.

Bottom line. I really liked driving the car, no question BYD make great cars, as hybrids go this is probably one of the best, but I will leave it to people who commented on my post about the car in Threads to conclude.

• Jerry Cobbs

• For me as a mechanic, hybrid cars are a nightmare. Its the worst of both worlds... An EV system, that i cant properly service as its a driving computer that needs a specific service computer to compute... plus an engine. Even more things that can break.

• MrKPnuts

• I’m a transfer driver for a rental company. We have a number of PHEV’s, mostly Pacificas and Wranglers. I have NEVER picked up one to move that had any charge. I get it; it’s a rental car, but you’d think at least our rental storefronts would plug them in for customers. Nope. What’s the point of having them if they’re not going to use them?

• graysonle13

• I have a Skoda superb phev, after having ev’s for 4 years I charge it all the time. Currently have 1000 on this tank and its damn near full. Did 212 mpg on last tank, I’m just dragging petrol and an engine for no reason

• Gossamerfly1971

• I don’t know anyone that has a PHEV that plugs it in, especially those with the fire breathing 330e … if driven by a usual spikey haired sales person, the battery lasts about 12 miles at best, so what the point. The whole reason they get them is to get a lower tax code! I have a customer that had a small fleet of 330D, and moved to 330e to “save the planet” and ended up costing him on average an extra £800 a month over the 10 cars! Now switched to full EV 😊

• BillyA21399

• But, but, but, aren’t they self-charging? 😉

That’s all folks.

Toodle pip