We’ve shared a couple of articles recently on the reality of driving a fully electric vehicle and we are now pleased to share advice from one of our team, on how to get the most out of your plug-in hybrid vehicle.
"I drive a Ford Kuga and on a full charge it has around 32 miles of electric range to play with. Now, this might not sound much but it’s great for local driving, most of my day-to-day business mileage fits into these parameters so some weeks I rarely use the petrol mode.
I try to ensure I’m using electric power whenever I’m in town, for me it is this kind of driving that feels suited to electric mode.
You definitely get to know your car as you drive it and instinctively drive a bit more gently. I definitely drive slow and steady, braking and accelerating calmly……think no sudden movements!
My car has various modes to drive in, from normal to sport, slippery and deep snow (haven’t needed that one yet!), but my preferred mode is ECO which definitely improves efficiency and gets the most electric range. It doesn’t feel much different, the car pulls away smoothly and slowly when compared to sport mode.
My husband tends to do motorway driving and has found that using cruise control gets the best results when it comes to using electricity. Even if we’re doing a long journey, we make sure we’ve got as much range as possible, we generally plug the car in when it’s at home or at his work.
When we chose our hybrid, we knew it wouldn’t give us a massive electric range, so we don’t feel guilty or uneasy about using petrol mode too. I think that’s quite important, don’t get to hang up on always driving electric, otherwise the lack of range will get annoying in this type of car.
Personally, I’m not going to drive around freezing cold to save electric range, if it’s winter, the heaters are on! Some guides will tell you that not using the heaters or air con save range, and that’s true, but in my mind you’ve got to still enjoy driving and being in the car.
Overall, I like the flexibility of this plug-in hybrid, it was a great ‘intro’ to alternative fuels and now there is more choice of fully electric on the market that are the right size for our family we are going to be thinking about fully electric for our next family car."