[Webby]

So our outlander is really my wife's car and I don,t get enough time to play with it.
Trying to find the best way to charge it. We do it at home but let's say she uses all that and goes over to petrol. Is it better to get to the destination and charge up on petrol or just carry on driving on petrol. Have not figured out how to leave the motor charging and locked up.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

It is never a good idea to charge the battery from the engine.

Whenever you convert energy from one form to another there are always losses. When running on petrol you want to reduce the losses as much as possible and so you will always waste energy if you convert the energy in petrol into electrical energy and then to chemical energy in the battery only to convert it all back again to drive the wheels later.

Better to take it directly from petrol to the wheels without the intermediate step of going through the battery and hence with less loss.

 

[AndyG]

I would never charge on petrol, it would cost more money than just using the petrol to drive the car.

Edit………..Paul types faster

 

[Jimbo]

The car recharges as you drive by harvesting energy that would otherwise have been lost.

Just running the engine without driving will turn about 30% of your petrol into electricity and waste the rest.

Better to just plug in when you can and enjoy the efficiency of the hybrid when it switches over to petrol.

Edit: Just seen the other responses - Looks like we're all in the ball today!

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

At least we are all signing from the same hymn sheet on this one... makes a nice and pleasant change

 

[Webby]

Good good