[X5 45e]

Originally Posted by Welfarebum

There is one situation where it may make sense. I live in British Columbia where we have towering mountains. Every summer, I use my 8-cylinder 2007 Ford Explorer to tow our travel trailer up long, steep mountain passes.

The torque and hp of my Ford is comparable to that of the inline 6 turbo and electric motor combo on the X5 45e.

So if I buy a hybrid X5, I'd want to force the vehicle to preserve battery power or charge it right up to 100% so that I can use it each time we get to the bottom of a steep mountain climb. 1/2 hour later, when we reach a summit, I'd want to force the ICE to start recharging the battery to full capacity in anticipation of the next steep climb.

I don't care about fuel economy on this kind of trip. It's all about having sufficient power to tow my 3500 lbs trailer + mountain bikes + kids + dog + supplies. The rest of the year, we would be using the X5 around town on mainly short commutes, running on electric charge.

My questions: Assuming the battery has no charge and I'm driving my X5 on relatively flat roads or downhill, how long does it take for the ICE to fully charge the battery? How do I force the ICE to charge the battery?... Go into sport mode? And where is the button to preserve the battery charge and not use it?

For your mountain trip I think I would put it in sport mode. In that mode it keeps charging the battery to certain level. You can see if the battery goes down to much you can still put it in preserve battery mode.

You can select charge / preserve battery mode instead of sport and it will charge the battery to a selected % (up to 100%). Charging is quite fast. Much faster anyway than charging on a charger. I tried it this weekend fuel economy when driving 100 km/h went from 9 l/100 km to 14-15.

If I make a trip to the mountains in the winter I want a completely charged battery to be able to pre heath the cabin for a week. I can't charge the battery on a charger where I go skiing.