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Intro and Fuel consumption concern

4K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  yticolev 
#1 ·
Hi All,


My name is Danny. I bought the Niro 2019 Hyrbid about 2 months ago. I am overall happy with it. Mostly I run just on electric as I work from home and my wife works locally. The reason I am writing is because, there are at least 4 days of the week I consistently only travel locally within the 24/26 mile EV range. But on those days, I am still using fuel. I see the miles range of the fuel going down, which I first I thought was just the miles range recalculating but then I started to pay attention to the fuel wedges (sorry not sure of the technical term) and I see them go down over the course of the 4 days. Maybe only 1 but enough for me to know that it isn't just a recalculation of the miles ranges based of my MPG. Also at times I swear I can hear the engine running slightly when I am running on EV.


Has anyone else had this experience. Doesn't seem right to me. Over the course of a month I feel like I am using 1/5 of a tank while on EV only.


Danny
 
#3 ·
We hit a cold spell here in Northern New Mexico and I have noticed that the engine does turn on to heat up the cabin. Also, when I'm stopped and fooling around with the radio or other cabin features, I notice the engine turns on, as well.
 
#4 ·
Congrats on your new car and welcome to the forum Dan.
The Niro has a lot of technology not found in most cars and e it is easy enough to just hop in and drive. However, for those who want to get the most out of the technology they have purchased there is a learning curve that varies a bit depending on certain circumstances. It really helps folks to know how to respond to questions when they know where a person is living (due to climate) and which model Niro they are driving (Hybrid, PHEV, or BEV). Do you mind sharing that info?
 
#5 ·
I have the 2019 PHEV. I live in New York. The weather has been in the 60s until the past few weeks after now its more consistently in the low 50s. I did notice the engine kick in when I first got the car due to fast acceleration but I rarely need to do that now I am used to the car and how it picks up in EV mode. So it sound like the engine may be used to heat the car when needed. Does the amount fuel usage I am have seen sound a lot to the mote experienced people here?

thanks all for your responses.
 
#6 ·
Seems about right to me. I have the '18 PHEV EX Premium for comparison. It takes a fair bit of time for the ICE to warm up at first so it will impact your mileage significantly especially if you primarily take short trips. That seems counter intuitive but if you think about it, normally, within the EV range the ICE doesn't run at all. If you need the heat it will run for several minutes just to bring the coolant up to temp so that it can heat the cabin. On short trips you may be most of the way there with the ICE running pretty much the whole time just for heat. So effectively your PHEV becomes an HEV in the winter. Kind of a bummer but to be expected. It would be nice if the PHEV had the heat pump from the EV, but my guess is that would significantly reduce the battery range in the winter and Kia decided it wasn't worth it.

If you have heated seats / steering wheel you can use those instead of cabin heat if it works for you. I can usually get by on those unless it's below 40 and I have a long ride. That doesn't seem to impact the EV range much.
 
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#7 ·
Yep, it's the demand for cabin heat that is firing up the ICE. However, even though the ICE is running it's not moving the car as long as the battery is over about 18% charge. So your overall MPG will still be over 100, unless you are stopped a lot. Before Fall arrived, I could go days without the ICE even starting. But I won't have weather like that until next May most likely.
 
#8 ·
Hi Danny. I’m a Niro PHEV newbie and have been puzzled by the same issue of engine running in EV mode (see post). My main gripe is that I want to be sat at the lights or in traffic without the engine running since I’ve splashed out on a cleaner, greener car. The PHEV looked great as the vast majority of my use is for short urban trips... I’m in the UK and the mornings are pretty chilly here right now so I guess it’s a warming up issue. Still, would be nice to be one of the quiet, zero emission vehicles sat at the junction... ?
 
#9 ·
Temperature has just dropped here and have caught my car running when stopped at a light. Turn HVAC to off and the engine will immediately turn off. Silence! Shift to neutral and take your foot off the brake (has to be very level so you don't roll), and everyone will think you either have an EV or manual transmission. As a plus, in a number of stop situations, the crawl function is still drawing power. So shifting to neutral preserve electrons (a very small benefit to be sure but will slightly increase your efficiency).
 
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