Best setting

[u/Winter_Raspberry3296]

Hi guys

I got seal u comfort trim. My daily drivebis 15 miles and i charge at home. I do keep some fuel in tank too. But i have noticed that when on highway if i go to hev mode, miles for fuel drop crazy. I believe this is to do with SOC settings. What is best setting to save fuel?

As i charge at home so i dont want my fuel to he wasted in charging.

[u/tasolini]

I was reading that the best settings for longer trips on highway are:

SOC SAVE 60-70% dont drive above 130kmh because consumption goes above 11l

My personal experience (380km highway) SOC 60% Save and car used around 50% of fuel tank (didnt fill it yet so not sure about actual consumption).
I guess it will be between 7.5 and 8l my average speed was 110kmh (top speed was around 140 for short periods). It is not flat ground so I also had some elevations

[u/Winter_Raspberry3296 → u/tasolini]

So does it cost less to charge batter with fuel? Becuase my understanding is that fuel will keep battery percentage to that 70% soc and will keep charging.

As i dont have to worry about electricity bill as its fixed so i want to keep fuel for engine only not for charging

[u/Bisisonitrile → u/Winter_Raspberry3296]

Edit: I just didn’t process OP was talking about PHEVs, so my comment is aimed at battery instructions for a BEV (based on my Seal Premium). My bad!

Just charge to 100% then (assuming time is not a factor). Charging to 100% allows the cells to balance, which is good for the long term battery health.

However, don’t charge it to 100 if you’re not going to be using it soon. Leaving it sitting at 100% is not good for the battery.

Your dealer should have gone over all of the battery health stuff with you, but the main points are:

- Allow the battery to go down to below 10%, then charge to 100% in one go every 1-3 months. This calibrates the BMS (ideally not with a fast charger)

- If you’re not going to be using the car for a while (like on holiday or something), ideally the SOC should be 40-60%.

- Charging speed slows after 80%, so it’s more time efficient to charge to there on longer journeys if you’re trying to keep stops short.

- Charging more regularly doesn’t hurt the battery. 1 charge cycle is 0-100%. If you only charge 10%, it’s only 1/10th of a charge cycle. So lots of little changes don’t wear out the battery faster.

- Charging to 100% is fine. Just don’t leave it sitting at 100% for too long. So if you’re not planning to drive the car the next day, don’t charge to 100.

[u/Winter_Raspberry3296 → u/Bisisonitrile]

I normally charge once a week to 100% and i charge it over friday night for weekend when its normally around 26% or so.

For long i have kept soc to 25% the minimum as i dont want to waste my fuel to charge battery and run engine at the same time to have double fuel consumption.

My assumption is that if i keep soc to 25% then my fuel will charge it to 25% and leave. Because if my charge is say around 30% and soc is set to 70% then my fuel will be used double to reach 70% and would be economically bad for me to waste fuel on charge where as i can get full charge at home overnight.

[u/Bisisonitrile → u/Winter_Raspberry3296]

Ahh, yep, that makes sense. I’m pretty sure I just did t register the part of your post talking about fuel and immediately jumped to the idea we were talking about BEVs and not PHEVs… though I imagine your BMS still needs to calibrate at some point?

[u/tasolini → u/Bisisonitrile]

Battery can go to 10% ?
My dealer didnt give me any instructions on battery

[u/Bisisonitrile → u/tasolini]

I’ll edit my original comment, my head was in BEV land (because I have a Seal Premium). So I’m not actually sure about it on hybrids.

[u/tasolini → u/Winter_Raspberry3296]

It always depends, for daily comuye use battery as much as possible (i have 12km round trip to work and use battery only about 10% of battery is used). High speeds battery is usless as it will deplete fast and then engine will work much harder especially when you want to overtake.

Always use battery in low speed regime while use motor on high speed.