Most economical hybrid cars

Designator

Ok so I’m wanting to upgrade my car soon , but only upgrading to something that makes sense . Currently driving a diesel Mondeo getting about 47mpg average and spending about €80 weekly on fuel . Not a fan of electric cars but I’d definitely go hybrid if it was economical . Have heard of bmw 330e and 530e doing upwards of 125mpg ? Any truth to this? Or what hybrids would you guys recommend that can reduce my weekly fuel bill?

the_amazing_raisin

Looks like you're doing around 1000km per week based on that fuel spend and consumption?

A hybrid or PHEV will not help in that case, unless you do 20km 6 days a week and the remaining 880km on one day. Otherwise they'll be operating as a petrol car the rest of the time

Honestly the best bang for your buck is a second hand EV or just stick with your current car

Gumbo

Based on what you’ve posted you won’t save unless you go EV.

Stick with what you have.

Lena11

I have my new Petrol Hybrid just under a week so not enough milage on it yet to get a true measure (I moved from a small diesel that got 4.5l/100KM). As of yesterday evening 83KM of my 188KM were "Emission Free" and the calculated l/km had dropped from 8.1L/100km to 5.7L/100km and I hope it will drop quite a bit more (spec on car said 4.7 - 4.8 but that is in ideal conditions). Renault Captur E-Tech 145

DrPsychia

There are two types of hybrids.

One is a regenerative hybrid. These have a really small battery(1-1.5kWh) which is regeneratively charged by braking and the petrol engine. (it turns kinetic energy into electricity). Toyota is the leader in regenerative hybrid technology, although they try to pass it off as a "self-charging hybrid" which misleading, as it gives the impression that these vehicles never need to be plugged in or fuelled, which obviously isn't the case. It allows you to away from traffic lights using the battery but the engine will kick in if you accelerate hard, the engine typically kicks in after 30-40km/h if accelerating slowly.

The other is a plug-in hybrid. These typically have a 8-9kWh battery. You plug these in at your home charger overnight, it should take about 3hrs to fully charge. Most new plug-in hybrids have about 40-50km real world range when the weather is warm like this summer. But the electric range halves in winter time due to increased air density and more rain. Plug in hybrids are good if you do a mixture of city/short motorway driving. Fuel efficiency will drop on long journeys. If you do mostly city driving you may not have to refill the petrol tank for a month. Plug-in hybrids only make sense if you can charge at home as public charging is very expensive. One of the downsides of a plug-in hybrid is that the battery has a lot of cycling due to the small battery capacity so your range will drop overtime.

BMW plug-in hybrids are best avoided unless you can afford to buy new as they can be very troublesome and costly to repair outside of warranty. If you can afford one they are a nice place to sit. However almost everything is an optional extra €€€€ so prices rise quickly if you add a bit of extra spec

Kia have most reliable plug-in hybrids in my opinion and are well kitted with tech(7 year /150k kilometres warranty, when serviced every year or 15k kilometres).

Toyota hybrids are the most reliable, you see lots of them as taxis. If you're not bothered about speed/performance then I believe you'll love the Toyota. They new come with a 10 year warranty or 185k kilometres for the battery/hybrid engine( when serviced every year/15k kilometres). You might see 55 mpg on a Toyota hybrid this time of year but it will drop to 40s mpg in winter if doing lots of city driving.

Assuming you do 45k Kilometres per year going by your fuel spend and average mpg, I don't believe a hybrid of any type is for you. It's either electric or diesel again.

What is your budget? Do you have family/kids to cater for? I know you don't like electric but It would dramatically drop your Fuel expenditure. Assuming you drive 120km per day average for the year, with an electric car it would cost you €2/day to do your commute depending on your night rate.

ELM327

Thats not the mileage where any hybrid would save money

Stick to an efficient diesel or go full ev. Phev or hybrids are really good at short city driving or the odd short run, with the convenience of knowing you can drive 1000km in a minutes notice - albeit not the best option.

Most modern EVs now have a real world range of 250-450km, so doing 120km per day you'd be fine at even the shorter range options but you could have a new tesla model 3 for 40k that has 300km real world range for instance.

coolbeans

Stay where you are if you're not willing to go electric as that's the only way to save on fuel. For what's its worth I've done 25k km since mid Jan in an electric car. Costing me about 1.9€/100km which sure beats the 7.5€/100km in my Peugeot 508. My longest journey is 2×140km trips at 120kmph on motorway. I never charge away from home as I don't need to and wouldn't have the patience for it. Don't let unfounded prejudices against electric stop you from going electric if it makes sense. Hybrids are a bit of waste of time if you're doing big miles IMO.

the_amazing_raisin

For the sake of comparison, if you're charging at home then something like an ID.4 will cost around €28 per week to charge doing that mileage

That's at the cheapest night rate available of 14.75c/kWh and assuming 19kWh/100km and a weekly mileage of 1000km

So €50 saved per week or €2600 per year

Worth factoring that into any purchase decisions

BTW, you probably wouldn't need something as big as an ID.4, just giving an example from my experience. A smaller EV will likely be even cheaper to run

kanuseeme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058304919/most-economical-hybrid-cars

The only way a 3,5/30e gets 125mpg is driving on electricity for 3 times the amount of petrol driving, I had a 2017 330e, 20 to 30 km on electricity and 7 l/100km 40 mpg. Newer models have a bigger battery, so more electric range but petrol consumption would be the same.

Over a year and 10000km my car returned 180 mpg, I could easily do 150 km on electricity a week just for school runs and weekly shopping.

I just got a BMW 2 series, done a 320 km airport run got 49 mpg, smaller 1.5 l engine with 45 km range, I have done another 80 km since on electricity and it now shows 65 mpg, I expect for the next month or more that I will get closer to 200 mpg as no long range trips planned.

So there is truth for me in it, for you and what car to recommend would need more information on daily driving and access to chargers at home and at work and budget.