[Roadkill401]

By comparison, my Niro gets far more mileage to a full tank. For my 45L, it tells me I can get about 850km, compaired to my old Ford Edge that you'd be happy to get 580km to a full 70L tank. I would let it get down to the 20-30km distance shown before I knew I had to fill it, but I did know that even when the car said you had zero km left, you could easily get another 30km out of it. I had never run the car dry. But you know that the price of gas in my area seem to go up and down at a certain cycle, and your far better off to fil the tank on a wednsday or thursday night after 8:30pm than on a Friday-Monday as the price seems to jump by an easy 10-13c / L.



Now I don't know about the Niro. How accurate is the distance remaining gauge? I am more curious to know how many km you really can get out of a tank of gas, so filling it at the 1/2 way mark doesn't really tell you much as I have yet to find a car that doesn't seem to use the fuel far faster in the bottom half of the tank from the top.

 

[cockedandglocked]

I don't want to find out. The scary dashboard message about damaging the hybrid battery if I don't refuel soon has made me not want to push my luck. Yesterday I let it get down to about 10 miles remaining before I filled up, that's as far as I was willing to take it. I filled the tank with 10.5 gallons, and according to Kia it has a 11.9 gallon tank, so I could have theoretically gotten another 60 miles out of it, but I hope to never test that theory.

 

[cockedandglocked]

Also, it's not "using" the fuel faster during the bottom half of the tank. The fuel gauge isn't linear. Nearly all cars are that way, for some reason. Every car I've ever owned has been that way. The first half takes forever to use, the second half goes much faster. But rest assured, it isn't because you get less fuel economy on an empty tank, it's because the gauge is configured that way for some reason. I'm sure there's a marketing reason for it. Probably because people get excited when their needle still says full after driving 150 miles. "Wow, I didn't use ANY fuel for the last 150 miles!"

You get better fuel economy on a lower tank, than a full tank. You will get worse fuel economy if you constantly keep it full, than if you kept it closer to empty, regardless of what the gauge makes you think. More fuel weight = worse gas mileage, plain and simple.

 

[deltasmith]

Really? Your local price of gas at the pumps goes up and down by 10 cents/liter every week? Here in the US that would translate to 40 cents/gallon fluctuation every week, and if that were happening, it would be a major political crisis. While we in California pay more for gas than just about any other location in the USA, at least the fluctuation is usually slower than what you are putting up with.

I don't know how reliable the remaining mileage estimate is. Given all of the stuff we hear in the news about auto manufacturers cheating on emissions, it has occurred to me to wonder if they might also cheat on the fuel economy. A really easy way to do that might be to have the odometer report that you'd traveled a full mile or KM when you'd actually only traveled 90% of that distance. Does anyone actually check odometer accuracy? Seems to me like the manufacturer has multiple incentives to exaggerate mileage you've actually driven, and I have to wonder if anyone is looking over their shoulder in this respect.

But regardless of how accurate the odometer and the remaining mileage estimate is or isn't, I think it might be a mistake to push the envelope in this regard.

I used to live in a part of Maine where winter storms could bring local power outages that would last for days or maybe even more than a week. When that happened, not only was my house struggling to stay warm, but also I was struggling to find a gas station that had electricity to run the pumps. Now I live in southern California and I worry less about winter storms but more about earthquakes, fires, possibly evacuation orders, and how far I might be able to travel in congested traffic on short notice without having an opportunity to fill my tank. I try not to let my fuel gauge ever run lower than 1/4 of a tank because of that. When I consider how much I pay for insurance, buying gas on a day or at a place where the price is higher than I'm accustomed to still feels wrong, and I always prefer to take my business to the gas station with the best price, but paying a bit more at the pump to ensure that I am always prepared for emergencies feels cheap compared to what I pay for insurance.

 

[yticolev]

You will not damage your hybrid by running low on gas. The scenario Kia envisions is completely running out, and going into limp mode on battery. Yes, if you limp too far, it could shorten the life of the battery but reports of those doing it report the car going very slowly (limp mode) and then turning off completely presumably to avoid battery damage.

I have filled my tank with zero estimated range three times now, and each time have filled within a tenth of a gallon of rated tank capacity (which is 11.9 gallons) and one of those times hit 11.9 gallons on the nose, 11.90 to be as precise as the pump. So it is fairly accurate close to the zero range point. At some point I will run out and know the true capacity but for now, I'm pretty confident that I have perhaps around 20 miles left at "zero range" from the extra capacity in the fill tube of just gasoline. And then at least a couple miles of battery limp mode range.

 

[lafe005]

My very crazy time... 13 km... (8 miles)... To go! and 912km (567 miles) done..

 

[Roadkill401]

Very impressed. I am still working towards getting an 850km to the tank. But then again, my Niro is still in the break in stages, so I am using that as an excuse.

 

[cockedandglocked]

I ran my PHEV all the way to 0 miles yesterday, mostly because this thread made me curious. I timed it so that I pulled into the gas station exactly when it hit 0 miles remaining. The tank took 11.4 gallons.


This tells me that I had about 0.5 gallons remaining, or about 20-25 miles.


By the way, I got 560 miles on that tank, with only 1 charge - so with no charges, it would have been about 535 miles (860km), or 47mpg. Pretty impressive considering that 400 of those miles were during steep mountain driving, in freezing temperatures, at high elevation (7,000-9,000 feet)

 

[yticolev]

Your PHEV tank is only rated for 11.4 gallons. You certainly had some miles left though, I'd guess 15 to 20, at least if you top off every fill. Just filled up yesterday (at $2.11 minutes before it jumped to $2.59) at 11.87 gallons. Fourth fill now right at rated capacity. Wasn't convenient to run out, in part because I wanted the good price.

 

[djs]

Really? Your local price of gas at the pumps goes up and down by 10 cents/liter every week? Here in the US that would translate to 40 cents/gallon fluctuation every week, and if that were happening, it would be a major political crisis. While we in California pay more for gas than just about any other location in the USA, at least the fluctuation is usually slower than what you are putting up with.

I don't know how reliable the remaining mileage estimate is. Given all of the stuff we hear in the news about auto manufacturers cheating on emissions, it has occurred to me to wonder if they might also cheat on the fuel economy. A really easy way to do that might be to have the odometer report that you'd traveled a full mile or KM when you'd actually only traveled 90% of that distance. Does anyone actually check odometer accuracy? Seems to me like the manufacturer has multiple incentives to exaggerate mileage you've actually driven, and I have to wonder if anyone is looking over their shoulder in this respect.

But regardless of how accurate the odometer and the remaining mileage estimate is or isn't, I think it might be a mistake to push the envelope in this regard.

I used to live in a part of Maine where winter storms could bring local power outages that would last for days or maybe even more than a week. When that happened, not only was my house struggling to stay warm, but also I was struggling to find a gas station that had electricity to run the pumps. Now I live in southern California and I worry less about winter storms but more about earthquakes, fires, possibly evacuation orders, and how far I might be able to travel in congested traffic on short notice without having an opportunity to fill my tank. I try not to let my fuel gauge ever run lower than 1/4 of a tank because of that. When I consider how much I pay for insurance, buying gas on a day or at a place where the price is higher than I'm accustomed to still feels wrong, and I always prefer to take my business to the gas station with the best price, but paying a bit more at the pump to ensure that I am always prepared for emergencies feels cheap compared to what I pay for insurance.

I agree with this 100, plus there is a possibility of water and contaminants at the bottom of the tank. Not a great idea to be bottom feeding off the bottom of the tank. As this gentlemen say's that he fills up when he reaches 1/4 tank, this is Extremely Sound Advice. Relative to natural disasters, I had gone to Yoga one morning and saw a small line at a local gas station, didn't even know the hurricane was coming, I had about 1/4 tank not knowing if I'd have to abandon my car on the side of the road. That was Sunday, Monday stations ran out of gas, then were refilled, so I got gas Monday at 9pm and evacuated Tuesday AM, got lucky. People get really stupid in a natural disaster, they hoard, they'll have 4 cases of water in their cart, one left on the shelf, they'll grab before you can walk over there.

 

[brandent]

I presume the warning levels differ by HEV vs PHEV and maybe even 2017 vs 2018. Don't know. But I presume they have the same size gas tank and same reserve amount of gas. For reference I have a 2018 PHEV version and I can get 600 miles on a tank but that obviously differs wildly depending on short vs long trips. But my commute is 45 miles each way (90 round trip) so the other day I decided to see what warning might come one. Obviously my battery drains and it goes to HEV mode after about 20 miles (it's cold). The low gas thing came on at 40 miles to empty on the gasoline. But then at no point did it give a critically low fuel warning or anything like my other car does. I took it to 3 miles of gas (and of course 0 EV) and no other warnings. I was going to go further but was home and my wife grabbed the car to go somewhere and filled it up. Bummer. I presume at 0 miles it'll say something more earnest. When 'drained' like that the battery is still at about 12-14% when I plug it in so there would be a good couple miles of EV at low speed left if you ran it completely out of gas. It seems that 0 miles EV occurs at approximately the same battery reserve as a full hybrid battery. Maybe I'll drive it around town until it runs out of gas just to see!

Oh and all those scary 'you'll hurt the battery' warnings? Those are lawyers making those warnings. Once or twice or whatever will do no harm. It's not some kind of sudden damage, it's more like long term life gets taken off. Sort of like if you slam on the brakes all the time. Your brakes will wear more quickly.

 

[yticolev]

HEV tank holds 11.9 gallons. PHEV tank holds 11.4 gallons. Easy enough to find on Kia.com

 

[Amyga]

I get the alarm at 50 mi. The estimate is based on avg mpg. It's been winter already in MA so I'm around 50 mpg (was 60 this summer). Just yesterday, I went to fuel with 28 mi remaining (predicted), and the full was 10.3 gal. This was the longest I waited before refueling and the most fuel I've put in. The last two times I went before the 50 mi. mark and put 9.6 and 9.3 gal.

Based on that, I believe there an emergency reserve good for 40-50 mi.



But Now with the cold and highly fluctuating temperatures, I do plan on fueling it more frequently as soon as it goes below the half mark.

 

[tyrelirwin]

I can confidently say there is at least 3L of reserve after you hit '0 range' left.

I drove 57kms after hitting the 0 mark, and was averaging 5.5L/100km according to the car at shut-off.

That means 3L AT LEAST left in the tank (due to no on-road stranding).

That's 0.8 US gallons.

I have a 2018 HEV base model

 

[NiroInToronto]

Wondering how bad of mileage or fuel economy people are getting in their hybrid niro nowadays in the winter?? I'm regularly hitting 6.9L to 7.2L in fuel economy these cold days...what's everyone else experiencing?

 

[lafe005]

Wondering how bad of mileage or fuel economy people are getting in their hybrid niro nowadays in the winter?? I'm regularly hitting 6.9L to 7.2L in fuel economy these cold days...what's everyone else experiencing?

Hi NiroInToronto, since there is not heat pump and the engine is needed for heating the cabin, all HEV (Hybride) and PHEV with their thermal engine has a similar 7.0L/100km (40 mpg) fuel eco in cold winter temperature like we have, BUT, you will get a 3.8 to 5.1L/100km (71 mpg to 56 mpg) in the nice warm summer time.

 

[tyrelirwin]

Hi NiroInToronto, since there is not heat pump and the engine is needed for heating the cabin, all HEV (Hybride) and PHEV with their thermal engine has a similar 7.0L/100km (40 mpg) fuel eco in cold winter temperature like we have, BUT, you will get a 3.8 to 5.1L/100km (71 mpg to 56 mpg) in the nice warm summer time.

Your mpg numbers are all off- you must be using Imperial mpg, which is a bit of an irrelevant unit.

7.0L/100km = 33.6 mpg
3.8-5.1L/100km = 62mpg - 46 mpg

 

[achr]

"The fuel gauge isn't linear. Nearly all cars are that way, for some reason. Every car I've ever owned has been that way. The first half takes forever to use, the second half goes much faster. But rest assured, it isn't because you get less fuel economy on an empty tank, it's because the gauge is configured that way for some reason. I'm sure there's a marketing reason for it."

A few years back, Cadillac put a truly calibrated linear fuel gauge in their cars. The complaints about "Lousy Fuel Mileage" skyrocketed so they went back to the use of non-linear gauges like everyone else. I'm sure it's all psychological. "Oh look, I went 100 kilometers and it's still on the Full Line. This car get's amazing mileage".

To be honest, MOST people don't have a frickin' clue what fuel mileage their vehicle actually delivers. They just go by the gas gauge. I'm a little Anal Retentive about fuel economy and log all my gas receipts into an Excel Spreadsheet so I know exactly what my vehicles deliver.

For what it's worth, our Kia Niro Touring has delivered an overall average of 5.3 liters per 100 kilometers over it's first 9,000 kilometers. That's about half summer and half winter driving. During the summer we averaged 4.6 but now in winter are closer to 6.1 due to the electric steering wheel, seats, cabin heat, and snow tires plus poor road conditions of being wet or slushy most of the time, thus increasing rolling resistance. The combined city/highway rating for this vehicle in Canada is 5.4 liters/100 km and I expect to be right in line with that over the course of a full year.

 

[yticolev]

A spreadsheet is great if you want to crunch numbers (like compare seasonal mileage) but phone apps are less work - effectively spreadsheets with a nice graphic interface with the simple numbers most want. I'm pretty compulsive about mileage myself, and can infer intra tank fill what my current trip mpg is and figure out why (constantly looking at temperature and wind and altitude changes). But I don't need to look at that data after a year or two, I can figure out the most efficient driving behaviors with a lot less data.

 

[cockedandglocked]

I don't log ALL my receipts, just maybe once every 4 or 5 fillups. After a while of seeing the same MPG +/- 1 or 2 every fillup, it just doesn't feel necessary anymore. All I know is that my PHEV gets about 45iish mpg when I never charge it, and up to 70mpg if I charge it every night before my daily 100-mile round trips, and somewhere in between if I don't charge it every night. And my Audi gets about 12mpg on average, or up to 14mpg if I hypermile it