[John2]

The Outlander seems to keep a minimum of 30% charge in the battery, according to the ecotricity rapid charge points. At this point the ICE fires up and you are effectively running in standard hybrid mode.

A few weeks ago I was suffering high anxiety late at night in driving rain and headwinds with the dash showing no charge in the battery and the fuel guage on empty. Perhaps I was worrying needlessly and would have had a few miles left in the battery when the ICE ran out of fuel. Or not.

I remember the Gen3 Prius drive system was reported to shut down if there was no fuel. Perhaps Toyota were worried about people wrecking the battery with a deep discharge.

 

[Nick]

Can't comment on Outlander, but if you run out of petrol in an Ampera then it allows you to use a little of the reserve battery capacity. Presumably it hopes that this will enable you to find a petrol station. Eventually however it will stop.

 

[Stubbo]

Manual warns against it as if it tries to switch to the engine it could damage the cat amongst other things.

 

[CW4]

The only time I was in this situation, the battery had long been at __._ when the total remaining went from 30 to __._ in an instant. I then did another 12 miles at 40-50 mph to the nearest garage. When I had "brimmed" it, the pump showed just 40 litres, leading me to be think there must have been at least another 25 to 30 miles of careful driving.

 

[Olivier]

yes, both gauges are quite conservative. The first and last time I filled up, petrol warning light on, I still had 7 litres left. But having experienced barely making it to the petrol station on a stuttering engine because of a blissfully optimistic gauge on a previous car, I much prefer this.

 

[Edd Beesley]

The Outlander seems to keep a minimum of 30% charge in the battery, according to the ecotricity rapid charge points. At this point the ICE fires up and you are effectively running in standard hybrid mode.

A few weeks ago I was suffering high anxiety late at night in driving rain and headwinds with the dash showing no charge in the battery and the fuel guage on empty. Perhaps I was worrying needlessly and would have had a few miles left in the battery when the ICE ran out of fuel. Or not.

I remember the Gen3 Prius drive system was reported to shut down if there was no fuel. Perhaps Toyota were worried about people wrecking the battery with a deep discharge.

Try it and see!

And the Prius did let you drive without petrol, but with a battery capacity of 0.4kwh it didn't go far! With my plugin kit added I once managed to go about five miles with no petrol.