Recommendations for best fuel economy in an XC90 T8

[801]

Originally Posted by S90

What year is your car? That will make a difference to the answers.

You should use electric around town, that's the whole idea. You need to use the navigation for it to work out the best usage, otherwise how would it know.

B Mode is regen, I use it all the time, when you lift off it regens power into the battery.

What MPG are you expecting out a of a 2 plus tonne 2 litre SUV?

Ps it’s a 67 reg. comes up as 2018 car in the app.

[sk546]

The earlier T8 were a little less economical (just ICE wise) than the newer ones mostly due to the supercharger. It added a nice whine to the engine and a good low rpm response but less efficient than the newer turbo only setup on the most recent T6 & T8 Recharges.
To get the best efficiency, the best advice I can give is to charge the hybrid battery at every opportunity available. On longer trip, set the sat nav and drive in hybrid mode (to let the computers manage what powertrain is used) and use B mode when slowing down, going downhill or any other opportunity to regain charge in the battery.
The regen on the earlier T8 is very different to the latest models and I completely changed how I drive my current car compared to my previous one.

The long and short of it is, if you are/were expecting a 2.4 ton, not very aerodynamic SUV with nearly 400hp available to be an economical vehicle on long journeys, I'm afraid you will be very disappointed. On long trips with an empty battery, low to mid 30's mpg will be the best you can hope for.
If you are doing alot of shorter trips with the odd longer trips, you will be surprised at the figures you can attain but dont forget to account for the cost of electricity used also, fine if you have a good overnight charging rate but with recent electricity cost rises, as S90 says you may find electric mileage to cost the same or more than fuel mileage.
Thankfully, with my low overnight charging cost my electric mileage costs are still much lower than fuel equivalent costs.

Good luck and enjoy!!

[James77]

Originally Posted by Cull06

54.3 for me. All in B mode. Mostly journeys below 20-30 miles

I think that's really poor 77% on electric and only 54mpg all electric would infinite mpg so the 23% journeys on petrol must be very low teens.

[S90]

Nothing poor about 50 plus MPG on a petrol 2 plus tonne car!

[Cull06]

Originally Posted by S90

Nothing poor about 50 plus MPG on a petrol 2 plus tonne car!

That was my thinking too. I didn’t buy a petrol suv for fuel economy tbh!

I suspect mine could be a bit worse with the figures because the ice has to come on every time at home as we have a steep uphill driveway. Plus on those rare occasions I have a bit of open road Polestar mode goes on..! 😂

[S90]

Exactly!! I think I'm averaging about 39mpg in mine, which is about 5mpg more than my previous T5 which was no where near as quick, didn't have AWD, all be it virtual, and well, you get what you get.

Most of my trips are local 5-10 miles, and I only do a couple or none per day, so I tend to run in hybrid mode and the ICE never kicks in. However the 'mpg' isn't real, it's still costing money, whether it be a gallon of fuel or a 'gallon' of electricity.

I rarely fill up now, but am aware that its still costing me £5 odd to fill up the battery.

Anyhoo, like you I didn't get my car for the economy, I got it for its performance and looks!! 👺

[tojt]

Originally Posted by S90

Exactly!! I think I'm averaging about 39mpg in mine, which is about 5mpg more than my previous T5 which was no where near as quick, didn't have AWD, all be it virtual, and well, you get what you get.

Most of my trips are local 5-10 miles, and I only do a couple or none per day, so I tend to run in hybrid mode and the ICE never kicks in. However the 'mpg' isn't real, it's still costing money, whether it be a gallon of fuel or a 'gallon' of electricity.

I rarely fill up now, but am aware that its still costing me £5 odd to fill up the battery.

Anyhoo, like you I didn't get my car for the economy, I got it for its performance and looks!! 👺

Assuming you're charging around 17KW (What mine seems to charge when empty) for that 5 that must still mean it's quite a lot cheaper than what you would see paying for the fuel, at least for city type driving ? Or do the UK have super cheap fuel at the moment ?

In my market fuel prices have dropped a lot from the peak and are currently also state subsidised, but even so, it's almost half the price charging on a public charger that have similar pricing here as your home rate.

If I instead charge at my home rate it's for me around 4 times cheaper using electricity and that number will only improve when state subsidies goes way and fuel tax once again increases.

[100K+]

Think I can use "B mode" in power and AWD modes only. In Hybrid and pure modes gearbox defaults to "D mode". What I have noticed is in D mode the engine revs in a higher gear than I would drive, so I select "B mode" in power and manually change up the box. A great feature is when slowing down for roundabouts / junctions the gearbox auto changes down for you, so you just need to change up to maintain progress. I have found you can "double change" by pushing the lever x2 in rapid succession. I don't notice any retard when in B (unless i'm in too low a gear) and don't use "recharge" function as the recharge costs more in lost MPG than recovered via recharge.
Also as others state running in pure mode is almost as expensive as petrol, as i don't have cheap electric and thus pay full wack.
Cheers
Bob

[James77]

Originally Posted by S90

Nothing poor about 50 plus MPG on a petrol 2 plus tonne car!

But you're not getting 54mpg it's skewed due to electric use. If you separated the two sole electric use and sole petrol the petrol miles would be in the teens. These farcical combined mgs are just marketing bumf.


All that matters is are you happy. Personally I won't touch hybrids I'll go full electric when I can and petrol (or sadly mild hybrid) but never a hybrid.

[pjm84]

Originally Posted by S90

What year is your car? That will make a difference to the answers.

You should use electric around town, that's the whole idea. You need to use the navigation for it to work out the best usage, otherwise how would it know.

B Mode is regen, I use it all the time, when you lift off it regens power into the battery.

What MPG are you expecting out a of a 2 plus tonne 2 litre SUV?

I have a 3 litre petrol PHEV SUV that weighs in at 2.5tonnes. I've yet to get below 30mpg with a flat battery even with spirited driving. With a flat battery its about 32 (at 80mph) to 37mpg (at 65mph). I'm sure with the right road and conditions I could probably nudge 40mpg.