Quote:
Originally Posted by lair12
Please correct me if I am wrong, but once you run out of electric mode are you not driving a vehicle with a 4-cyl 180hp gas engine that weights 600 pounds more than the stock x30i? I would expect performance to be significantly compromised. What am I missing?
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Well, the answer to the above is “yes” strictly technically, as when the battery runs out you only have the power of the petrol engine with reduced performance, but also “no”(the thing you are “missing”) as you would most likely not let your battery run out to zero and loose the extra boost. This is rather easy to manage when you get used to your hybrid car.
I’ve driven a hybrid a bit more than 2.5 years now and rarely have encountered such situation that the battery runs out, especially after first 6 months of ownership. Maybe in the beginning it happened a couple of times but as many hybrids these days can be run that it also automatically leaves some battery(e.g. 20%), this would be even less likely. I did not have the option to leave battery level at certain percentage in my previous car but I managed just fine.
But generally speaking at least I do two types of driving. 90-95% of my driving is to work or other close by driving in low speed city environment. This I do 100% electric if the distance is below say 30km(~20miles). Generally electric motors in hybrid cars are very good in city speeds. If there is a higher speed or longer distance, I drive in hybrid (petrol + electric) mode so I always have some battery left. And for the higher motorway speed longer journeys I normally use the same hybrid mode with the petrol engine as a “base” with electric motor kicking in for extra performance and slightly better fuel consumption vs normal petrol. In these cases I have never run out of battery in my 2.5years with my previous car. I’ve still not had my first longer journey with the X3 but would assume that I keep the behaviour the same as with my VW hybrid.
I hope this answers a part of the question or gives another view at least.