[maximil]

I am having a test drive of a PHEV next week. Somewhere on here I recently read a thread which had an excellent write up of the various drive modes, but I can't find it.

Could some kind person help please?

Thank you.

 

[sdb123]

EDIT: The forum software won’t allow me to link to an existing thread due to me being new.

Post #19 of the PHEV fuel economy thread (a few threads down the page) is what you’re looking for.

 

[maximil]

Thanks for the reply.

Sadly your link doesn't seem to work.

 

[Shiki2000]

Guess you mean the useful info from ampma

Well... the owners book explains those modes. The problem is that they are in different places and do not relate that to real life experience.

Of course max e drive only uses electric engine (with some exclusions like if the car needs 4wd or the temperature is very low). That’s the mode I’m using as standard when the car turns on because most of my daily routine allows to rely on electricity only.

Auto e drive tends to be better if you are on a long trip (by long I mean more than 50km) and you don’t want to care about when to use each modes. The car will choose the drive train mostly by the speed and the road inclination. Basically at any moment it compares the electric and petrol and turns on the one that will be more efficient.

Save mode will try to save as much electricity as possible so that you can arrive to a town with maximum range. I have only used it once or twice when I new I would be facing city traffic later and wanted to save energy for that.

Regarding to driving modes, I was familiar to those from my previous BMW, and was easy to cross them with the electric modes. It does change the throttle and gearbox response. Electronics mostly.

Green mode saves energy by using the higher gear possible if on petrol, and acceleration will be gentle. It also acts on the climate control, so it won’t spend too much energy. One particular thing you notice is that in this mode the car will coast automatically. It’s nice if you are on flat roads and let the car sail, but I realized that in little time you can make coasting by using the foot in the accelerator and then you have the advantage of recover some energy on stops. I now barely use this mode.

Sport mode is obvious if you don’t read forums, it will just make the car sportier! Suspension is harder, steering also, accelerator is highly responsive and the combustion engine kicks in constantly. Gears are also. Always one level down from what normal driving would be. That is a car prepared to react instantly and run fast. Of course that can lead to battery regeneration as the car has a lower gear and the combustion engine on all the time. But let’s remember that is a side effect, and if you check the onboard computer by the end of the trip you will see high fuel consumption and high electric consumption as it will kick both engines when you hit the pedal. Overall that mode should be only used to have fun and never mistaken with any type of savings. Ok, you’ll get 30% more battery than on green, but look how much fuel has gone!

Mid mode is a configuration for normal use, and an equilibrium of power and saving.

Nowadays I tend to use max edrive and mid with a bit, but now not conscientious pedal work (so it can regenerate when possible). When I know I’ll need battery longer than the initial range, just switch to auto edrive and run.
If I come home late, after a stressful day, roads empty already and only me on the car... I turn sports on and find myself smiling.


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[ampma]

Guess you mean the useful info from ampma

I’ll write a book over this!


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[maximil]

Thank you, that's the one. I can now do the test drive with a good idea what is going on.

 

[Shiki2000]

Thank you, that's the one. I can now do the test drive with a good idea what is going on.

Cool, have fun!

The toggle for Max / Auto Edrives and Save mode is second from the left. Bank of five toggles in front of the gear stick. Then there is a Green / Mid / Sports toggle on the far right in the same five bank. Just to make it more confusing, there is another Sports mode using the gear stick. Simply push it to the left when you are in D mode. Once in that sports mode, pushing down, manually moves you up a gear and pushing it up, manually moves you down a gear.

 

[maximil]

Brilliant, having read and reread the modes write up, that was going to be my next question.

 

[Shiki2000]

SOrry, forgot to mention as well, is that you don't have to manually control the gears when in Sports mode using the gear stick. Is automatic there as well, unless you start manually controlling it. Hopefully others can elaborate more, as I've not actually manually controlled the gears the few times I've used the sports mode.

 

[Tim in Scotland]

I have never used the steptronic/ sport mode in my OHEV but used it in all my Range Rovers to prevent up shifts when in low ratio gears off road, but the basic idea is that you move the shifter to the left to get a sequential gear change that can be manually activated by pushing the stick forwards to go up a gear and pull it backwards to drop a gear BUT that shift will only happen if the end result revs won’t be too low or too high. If you move the shift to the left then the shift pattern in auto is changed to a more sporty set of ratios were the ECU will allow the gearbox to hold onto revs for longer before upshifts, if you manually shift up or down the ECU checks you won’t be in a rev band to burst the engine or to drop the revs too low and will match the revs by a sort of pre-selection if the gears until it is safe/ not going to damage anything. So by moving the gear stick to the left you can have sporty automatic shifting of manual sequential pre-select shifts. It’s all too clever. In manual shift mode the ECU will also upshift for you if you get close to the Rev limiter so you cannot rev the nuts out of the geabox/engine.
It doesn’t apply in the Mini’s system but in the Range Rovers and other automatic Land Rovers it is a great additional control feature to prevent gear shifts when you might not want one offroad, it is very very effective in those situations compared to conventional automatics with a low ratio and no gear hold facility. In the V8 Supercharged Range Rovers the Sport mode can blip the throttle on downshifts AND spit a bit of flame and thunder out of the tailpipe as a party trick! It’s all in the program of the ECU!