P
Peter Chequers
Yesterday was day one of road trip to Devon and Cornwall
Group size 12 cars including two 911s, a Cayman, fast Audis, Golf R and an Alpine
To the amusement of the group I decided at the last minute to bring the T7 as it's first proper trip having only done a few local trips from new
Very impressed with its driving dynamics, comfort, noise levels and the VW travel assist ACC
The main take away from the day was managing the high voltage battery so the vehicle has its full power (245hp) available for the roads where the faster cars are "pressing on"
Without some proactive management the hybrid system will "waste" the precious EV power on the roads where the 1.5 petrol engine would be adequate
Obviously this trip was not the scenario that the vehicle was designed for!
Leg 1 was High Wycombe to Haynes Motor Musuem and I let the car do its own thing ...which meant well before the destination the EV battery was close to zero %
Two hours plugged in to the charger at the museum and with about 66% charge in the EV battery I decided to try something different for leg 2 to Barnstaple via Cheddar Gorge
I found that by manually overriding the hybrid system to keep the current charge when I set off it was possible to retain battery power for the roads where more acceleration was desirable ... However this requires going into the mode menu and turning off the manual setting in the hybrid system and then selecting sport on the gear position switch.
The downside of this is the impact on fuel economy when just using the 1.5 petrol engine
The software seems to be clever enough to work out when the regeneration has put a bit more charge in above the minimum level that has been manually specified that it can use the EV power in certain circumstances. But it can only do this if you have going downhill or braking a lot.
It got me thinking about what you would need to do on a skiing trip so that the precious EV battery was available to provide power the the rear wheels when arriving at the snow line in the climb up to a ski resort.
Day 2 is Lands End in the rain ... Just going to plug into a 150 kWh fast charger while having breakfast so I have a full EV battery to use today.
Group size 12 cars including two 911s, a Cayman, fast Audis, Golf R and an Alpine
To the amusement of the group I decided at the last minute to bring the T7 as it's first proper trip having only done a few local trips from new
Very impressed with its driving dynamics, comfort, noise levels and the VW travel assist ACC
The main take away from the day was managing the high voltage battery so the vehicle has its full power (245hp) available for the roads where the faster cars are "pressing on"
Without some proactive management the hybrid system will "waste" the precious EV power on the roads where the 1.5 petrol engine would be adequate
Obviously this trip was not the scenario that the vehicle was designed for!
Leg 1 was High Wycombe to Haynes Motor Musuem and I let the car do its own thing ...which meant well before the destination the EV battery was close to zero %
Two hours plugged in to the charger at the museum and with about 66% charge in the EV battery I decided to try something different for leg 2 to Barnstaple via Cheddar Gorge
I found that by manually overriding the hybrid system to keep the current charge when I set off it was possible to retain battery power for the roads where more acceleration was desirable ... However this requires going into the mode menu and turning off the manual setting in the hybrid system and then selecting sport on the gear position switch.
The downside of this is the impact on fuel economy when just using the 1.5 petrol engine
The software seems to be clever enough to work out when the regeneration has put a bit more charge in above the minimum level that has been manually specified that it can use the EV power in certain circumstances. But it can only do this if you have going downhill or braking a lot.
It got me thinking about what you would need to do on a skiing trip so that the precious EV battery was available to provide power the the rear wheels when arriving at the snow line in the climb up to a ski resort.
Day 2 is Lands End in the rain ... Just going to plug into a 150 kWh fast charger while having breakfast so I have a full EV battery to use today.
