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Before I decided to buy an Amp I of course did plenty of research and read lots of reviews. Quite a lot of them mention the seamless switch to ICE operation, whilst I guess it is true if you were to compare it to a Prius (my mother has one and I've driven it a fair bit) which is fairly obvious when the engine starts and begins to power the wheels, but I still find I definitely know when the engine is running, most notably because its pretty loud to my ears anyway...
Of speeds above 50mph it's not too bad unless its recharging the battery from a stint of uphill driving using some of the battery (assuming driving with an 'empty' battery) but I find at lower speeds when accelerating it makes quite a racket, is this normal?
At the weekend I did a 200 mile round trip, I had driven to work Friday morning (16mi on electric), then drove to the m/way using about 2mi electric, I switched it to hold and did my m/way journey on petrol until I got off the m/way and back into town at which point I switched back to normal. Did all my driving around town etc over the weekend on electric.
So for the return journey I had ran out and was bound by the limits of the ICE. I accelerated quite gently up a slip road to join the m/way (I was behind a campervan so really quite slow acceleration) and suddenly the ICE kicked up a right fuss and sounded like it was running at about 4000rpm. Once I got up to speed it settled into a more regular amount of engine noise.
Further up I hit some traffic and was in a slow but moving queue as the police had closed a lane, for this slow traffic the car chose to run on electric for about half a mile doing 10-15mph. As I reached the front of the queue passing the police officers stood at the side of the road I accelerated, fairly gently again, the ICE kicked in and presumably due to the battery usage just prior went into charge mode and revved the nuts off itself, quite embarrassing as you're driving past the plod.
I learnt that opening the bonnet with the car on will start the ICE so I did so, it certainly didn't sound like it was idling, even just sat there doing nothing it was louder than expected, video below;
Of speeds above 50mph it's not too bad unless its recharging the battery from a stint of uphill driving using some of the battery (assuming driving with an 'empty' battery) but I find at lower speeds when accelerating it makes quite a racket, is this normal?
At the weekend I did a 200 mile round trip, I had driven to work Friday morning (16mi on electric), then drove to the m/way using about 2mi electric, I switched it to hold and did my m/way journey on petrol until I got off the m/way and back into town at which point I switched back to normal. Did all my driving around town etc over the weekend on electric.
So for the return journey I had ran out and was bound by the limits of the ICE. I accelerated quite gently up a slip road to join the m/way (I was behind a campervan so really quite slow acceleration) and suddenly the ICE kicked up a right fuss and sounded like it was running at about 4000rpm. Once I got up to speed it settled into a more regular amount of engine noise.
Further up I hit some traffic and was in a slow but moving queue as the police had closed a lane, for this slow traffic the car chose to run on electric for about half a mile doing 10-15mph. As I reached the front of the queue passing the police officers stood at the side of the road I accelerated, fairly gently again, the ICE kicked in and presumably due to the battery usage just prior went into charge mode and revved the nuts off itself, quite embarrassing as you're driving past the plod.
I learnt that opening the bonnet with the car on will start the ICE so I did so, it certainly didn't sound like it was idling, even just sat there doing nothing it was louder than expected, video below;