Tour fuel record & more Observations

ODO    Fuel   Trip   Place
14278  26.1   0      Near Home (Do not include)
14553  31.3   275    Bairnsdale
14798  32.6   245    Cann River
15023  33.65  225    Bermaguie
15349  37.02  326    Bega ***
15528  22.7   179    Cann River
15767  31.94  329    Sale
15995  26.68  228    Village Loch
16095  12     100    Home (fuel estimate)

You can see after our scare coming back into Bega we filled a bit sooner than normal on the next one.

The road from South Durras to Eden was a pleasant drive.

The PHEV doesn't have great range when towing but with only a 45 liter tank a couple of Jerry cans would get close to doubling its range. That said, a range of around 300 km is fine for us at the moment.

I always hit "Charge" as soon as departing a site. The battery might then last anywhere from 250km (first day) to 100 km depending on terrain. The hillier it is, the less likely that the battery will last. When the battery bars disappear, the engine is much more likely to drop out of direct-to-road mode and run as a pure generator for a couple of minutes or so - and when climbing.

We had a running joke for the first 6 days that I never remembered to plug on the OBD2 dongle. I rightly am not allowed to fiddle with EvBatMon while driving but Mrs. EV managed to get a few figures of interest.
When the battery bars are gone, the PHEV will not let the battery drop below around 24% SOC (real). It then charges it up to around 29 to 30% then drops back to direct-to-road (parallel hybrid). On the flat and level at 100 km/h it manages to hold battery level without going into series hybrid (generator mode).

So the PHEV takes good care of the battery pack even though the bars rarely come back when travelling at speed. The battery range can get up to about 4 km when cruising around a township looking for the caravan park. I generally turn "Charge" off at this point so we can run EV into the park.

Once more thing. It is REALLY unusual for me to have to use brakes at all when on the highway. Even down the mountains - B5 regen handles it all. I did dial the caravan brakes (via electric brake controller) down to 0 once or twice so I could touch the brake peddle for more regen. A bit Anal really and I understand the dangers of doing it (a momentary button would be nice).

Caravan distance: ~1817km.

Nine days touring

We took the van away for nine days just before Easter - touring up the east coast from Melbourne as far as Batemans Bay. We only stayed for two nights at two places, otherwise moving every day.
I'll fill out some details in the next few days but in the meantime here is the summary. Essentially the trip was largely uneventful PHEV wise.

Our site for two nights at Buchan on the outward journey.

We charged the car nine times including the night before leaving home. All charging was done using the EVSE (brick) with the 10A plug (it draws about 6 Amps) plugged into the side of the van
Total distance traveled was 1817 km. Fuel used was 228 litres. Fuel economy for the trip was 12.5 l/100 km.

The "largely uneventful" event was what we thought was a near miss running out of fuel coming back down the coast into Bega. With 26 km to go into Bega, the remaining distance estimate on the dash suddenly went from 50 km to "---". So there we were with battery distance at "---" and combined distance estimate at "---", counting the kilometers. I swapped driving style to "EV efficiency  mode" using what little skills I have gleaned driving my EV over the past four years to get the most distance for the least energy expended.

I kept reassuring my other half that we wouldn't just stop - that we would get more warnings and the car would have a couple of km under it's sleeve. We became less stressed when we only had about 6 km to go - figuring that at least we could now walk into Bega. As we pulled into the first petrol station in Bega, the dashboard beeped and suggested we "refuel". We put 37 liters in the tank - which I later verified as holding 45 liters. So it wasn't that close after all.

Mirror problem solved

I have been having trouble keeping the cheap SCA (SuperCheap Auto) towing mirrors secured to the PHEV mirrors. I have kept my older magnetic door mirrors (just in case) but don't like using them as they have a reputation for scratching the door glass.

Anyway the trick is to cross the straps. Secure the first strap from closer to the car to the outside then do the other strap. Then tighten them again. The slight protuberance of the mirror indicator lense holds them in place perfectly. Before doing this I had to re-position and tighten them every 60 km or so (they kept sliding to the outside of the cars mirror) - now they stay in place all day.