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Wanted to post an update on my actual driving experience.
We're sitting at 14K miles over about 14 months, so the car is getting driven when it's not at the shop. I am currently working at a client in Arlington, which is about 40-50 miles one way, depending on route. Because of this, the PSeH is now my DD until this gig ends. The office garage has public chargers available, and the electricity cost is built into the absurd high daily park rate.
I've been playing with concept of actively selecting the mode based on road and driving conditions. My game plan is to generally use E-power after departure in order to get some headspace in the battery. Then I alternate between the four modes depending on conditions. Uphill? switch over to E-charge. Need to pass someone, etc? Use Sport for a short bit. I try to use the E-power when it makes the most sense. Flat or downhill grade, etc.
This morning was my best result for the one way commute. I hadn't broken the 54.5 mpg barrier previously, and was pulling 48-50 on average. For this trip, if you strip out the 17 miles for electricity, I burned .812 gallons to travel 30.2 miles, which should equate to 37.2 mpg. That seems pretty damn good for a huge car dragging around a heavy battery pack and electric drive unit.
The driving conditions were anything from open highway ~75-80mph, down to crawling through toll booths and stop lights, and one bit of extended bumper to bumper driving. A true "mixed" drive.
For this trip, if you strip out the 17 miles for electricity, I burned .812 gallons to travel 30.2 miles, which should equate to 37.2 mpg.
That's better than anything I've seen. My experience with long-distance highway driving is that I'll get 35 MPG at 60 MPH, 33 at 70, after stripping out any electricity usage. Which is hardly Prius numbers, but a Prius doesn't accelerate like the Panamera, either.
I do play around between Sport and e-Power a lot. Mainly because e-Power is fine for cruising or behind traffic, but anemic if you're in a position to have any fun. It's kind of awkward to select in a hurry if you want to pass - I've thought about trying to slap the shifter into Manual instead, which is easy, fast, and can be done by touch, because it drops you out of e-Power mode if you do that. I've yet to remember to try, though.
The electric drive is really convenient for really slow stuff like stop-and-go on the expressway because traffic's halted by an accident. It's effortless, particularly if you're used to a car with a clutch.
I generally leave e-Charge alone unless I feel a need to build up a reserve for city driving after I leave the expressway. My tests on the flat showed it to be pretty much a wash with leaving it in the un-named Hybrid mode.
I can see the rationale for using it uphill. If you're in e-Charge, the engine is definitely on, and presumably this is not efficient if you're going downhill and could coast with the engine off. I wouldn't have thought it would have made much difference, but you're definitely getting better numbers, particularly if you're include 75-80 MPH stretches.
While I generally think the displayed MPG is misleading, since it doesn't consider electricity usage, 58 MPG is still pretty great. Because though there's an energy cost to the electric miles, it's pretty low. And as you said, you're getting the power for the return trip for "free," or rather included in the parking costs.
In an aside, a 70 minute commute each way sucks. I did that for a while when I was living in Los Angeles.
As long as we're updating this thread, I should mention the battery coolant issue I had the last month. When I brought the car in for annual service, they told me there was a service bulletin to replace the battery charge controller. Which took them 3 days, since it involved pulling the battery out of the car.
When I drove the car home, I got the coolant light again. I checked both systems, and sure enough, the battery tank was well below minimum. Because of the previous incident, I had coolant on hand, and filled it.
I called the dealership and told them about it. They claimed it was probably an air bubble. The next time I took the car out, the level dropped again, though I didn't get the warning. Off and on over the next couple of drives the coolant either stayed level or dropped.
After time #3, I was sure I had a problem, but I wanted to verify it before trying to brave dealer skepticism. Next drive it didn't happen, but I was in Sport mode a lot. I reasoned that maybe I need to heat up the battery, so I made an effort to do my next trip on battery power alone. The coolant didn't budge after 12 miles of electric driving.
So, maybe it was an air bubble after all, but a big one. Keep in mind that the difference between "maximum" and "minimum" in the battery fill tank is pretty small - I'd guess it's maybe 8 ounces of coolant.
I honestly don't know, but I'm feeling concerned enough about it that I'm keeping the bottle of coolant in the car until further notice.
...
In an aside, a 70 minute commute each way sucks. I did that for a while when I was living in Los Angeles.
When the pope was in town this week, the local governments collectively lost their brains and decided to alter road access, rail schedules, bus schedules, etc. I feel hook, line and sinker for it, and abandoned the drive to do the car/bus/train thing. I spent 5.5 hours commuting on Wednesday.
On days when it rains or Thursday (which is the worst commute day in this area) I take the commuter bus. It's cheaper and I can charge the car in a "rock star" parking spot for $1.44.
Interesting. generally speaking if it is cold outside (low 60s or even lower), specially in the morning, I would start with the mixed mode (engine on) and once the motor warms up, the system will cycle between battery and gas. I have found that to the best compromise as battery gets depleted quickly if its cold outside. I am still getting 1000 miles or so between gas tank fills and that includes occasional Sport/+ modes
Having read this entire thread twice, I want to thank all who contributed to it, especially ace10 and Gus_Smedstad. We took delivery of a Sapphire Blue 2015 PSeH last week and still have a lot to learn. Your willingness to share your experiences has been invaluable. Thank you.
how does the car start in different modes? The first week we got it, each morning (after charging all night) the car starts in full electric. Works great around town and when needed, will turn on the gas engine.
Now, i start the car, it starts the gas engine everytime! Says full batter and full charge. I press e-power and get "e-power is not possible" and if I try to press the e-charge, i get the same.
Frustrating to say the least that I cant drive in electric around slow areas, not sure why.
Im in Florida, its about 75 degrees outside. No idea WHY I cannot get e-power to work currently.
There are three basic things that should prevent the car from running in e-Power mode.
Low battery (obviously).
Cold engine oil. If the engine oil is below about 40 degrees, the car will start the engine regardless of battery state. The precise figures are in the e-Hybrid supplement. The cutoff temperature is higher for the first 2000 miles or so.
Recent gas fill. While I don't understand why this is so, the manual states that it wants to run the engine to "circulate air in the gas tank" if you've filled it recently. Generally speaking this is only about the first 5 minutes or so after a fill.
e-Charge, by the way, always turns the engine on. That's the purpose of e-Charge, to charge the lithium traction battery by burning gas.
1. The battery was fully charged.
2. The engine oil is showing too high of a level. Porsche said to bring it in, there is a bulletin on it.... (whatever that means)
3. Havent put gas in it yet.
BUT, yesterday, after driving "fun" in Sport mode for a few minutes, I was able to put it into epower! Weird, but all of a sudden the car is back running as it should, starting in electric, and today I drove 11 miles to work in full electric.
Now, the oil light is still on (yellow) and I am hoping to take the car in soon to be looked at. Just no idea why the car would run any electric for 3 days.
I have just fueled up last night and drove 1.5 miles to home. This morning when I first start the car, it ran electric for about 100 feet and ICE started and kept running for about 4 miles. Everything returned to normal after that. I think the fill up did it.
I drove the car to South Carolina last weekend, yellow oil light on the whole time. Turned RED the following morning (maybe with the cold temps?) Said their was too little oil. So the car has no dip-stick, so you must go by mechanical gauges and clearly they are not accurate.
I brought it to Porsche of Ocala, they said it had an open "bulletin" but not a recall. They had the car for an afternoon, and I went to pick it up = yellow oil light as soon as I start it. I was furious.
They took the car back and they added a small amount of oil, so the light went off. I drove it home, and the next morning the yellow warning light is on again!!
They said the eHybrid is finicky with the oil level readings, but this is NOT normal or Good. It prevents ePower sometimes and the operation of the car. Im calling the dealer again today, just not sure if anyone has ever had any of this.
I drove the car to South Carolina last weekend, yellow oil light on the whole time. Turned RED the following morning (maybe with the cold temps?) Said their was too little oil. So the car has no dip-stick, so you must go by mechanical gauges and clearly they are not accurate.
I brought it to Porsche of Ocala, they said it had an open "bulletin" but not a recall. They had the car for an afternoon, and I went to pick it up = yellow oil light as soon as I start it. I was furious.
They took the car back and they added a small amount of oil, so the light went off. I drove it home, and the next morning the yellow warning light is on again!!
They said the eHybrid is finicky with the oil level readings, but this is NOT normal or Good. It prevents ePower sometimes and the operation of the car. Im calling the dealer again today, just not sure if anyone has ever had any of this.
Did you go to Vehicle->Oil level-> and check what it looks like?
Of course, it shows a Yellow Warning Lamp that the Oil level is too high. Apparently (after Porsche having the car 2 days) they say their is now an open bulletin on the eHybrids for this.
Computer flash and oil level adjustment. Fingers crossed, we shall see.
Of course, it shows a Yellow Warning Lamp that the Oil level is too high. Apparently (after Porsche having the car 2 days) they say their is now an open bulletin on the eHybrids for this.
Computer flash and oil level adjustment. Fingers crossed, we shall see.
Wish you the best of luck. Your car is my car's twin brother.
I never had any issues with the oil level. I'd actually expect it to be less finicky than the regular Panameras in terms of oil use, because it uses that Audi-sourced V6. Porsche engines have a reputation for sometimes burning oil. Depending on the individual copy. Neither my 911 nor my wife's Cayman had a problem, but the reputation's out there.
The one issue I did have repeatedly was coolant level. The e-Hybrid has two cooling systems, one for the combustion engine, one for the traction battery. The traction battery system threw a "low coolant" warning about 3 months into ownership. After they pulled the battery in September 2015, I had to top up the battery coolant system several times (as I related in this thread).
