[coder77]

Hey,

I have an x45e on order. I am curious about how the car behaves in terms of performance and gas consumption when the battery is fully depleted.

I assume it will perform much worse and consume more gas than x40i. I make these assumptions knowing that the ICE engine is detuned and the vehicle being heavier due to the battery.

I guess the more interesting question is, what does the car do to always home some energy left in the battery to maximize performance and minimize gas consumption?

Will x45e always consume more gas on longer trips compared to an x40i?

What is the recommended driving mode? I heard there is a hybrid mode and a full electric mode, besides your usual sport mode. I am going to assume using sport mode is a sure way to deplete your battery.

Thanks in advance.

[codex57]

If you do a lot of long distance driving, then yes, the 45e probably isn't for you. You're from LA tho. With LA traffic, that stop and go traffic is ideal for a plug in hybrid.

The car recharges the battery as you drive. Regenerative braking. So, it depends on road conditions as to how much the car can keep up. If it has a couple of miles, it can use the battery to help with acceleration so overall the gas mileage may not be as bad. Pure gas to gas, yes, it's worse than the 40i. But there are a lot of variables.

Sport is gas engine only, so it actually charges the battery the fastest, not deplete it.

I haven't really noticed any real difference between hybrid and adaptive.

[coder77]

Originally Posted by codex57

If you do a lot of long distance driving, then yes, the 45e probably isn't for you. You're from LA tho. With LA traffic, that stop and go traffic is ideal for a plug in hybrid.

The car recharges the battery as you drive. Regenerative braking. So, it depends on road conditions as to how much the car can keep up. If it has a couple of miles, it can use the battery to help with acceleration so overall the gas mileage may not be as bad. Pure gas to gas, yes, it's worse than the 40i. But there are a lot of variables.

Sport is gas engine only, so it actually charges the battery the fastest, not deplete it.

I haven't really noticed any real difference between hybrid and adaptive.

We definitely would not be driving long distances often. I was curious about the occasional road trips. I chose x45e simply because it was cheaper than x40i with the state and federal tax credits and gave me a reason to replace my old 125 amps electric panel.

I am pretty confident it will cost us less in terms of gas and electricity compared to x40i but that was not why I made the choice to buy x45e.

[GordoNx3o9]

I would think sport mode being the most powerful mode is combined ICE and electric to produce the 389 HP?

I drove one today that had battery depleted. Obviously electric mode was disabled. Hybrid mode was trying hard to charge with braking regen. Every minute or so I'd see current MPG as 99 but not for long.

[X5 45e]

Originally Posted by codex57

If you do a lot of long distance driving, then yes, the 45e probably isn't for you. You're from LA tho. With LA traffic, that stop and go traffic is ideal for a plug in hybrid.

The car recharges the battery as you drive. Regenerative braking. So, it depends on road conditions as to how much the car can keep up. If it has a couple of miles, it can use the battery to help with acceleration so overall the gas mileage may not be as bad. Pure gas to gas, yes, it's worse than the 40i. But there are a lot of variables.

Sport is gas engine only, so it actually charges the battery the fastest, not deplete it.

I haven't really noticed any real difference between hybrid and adaptive.

Sport mode is not gas only. You would only have 280 HP of the ICE without 112 HP electric boost. That doesn't make sense.

In sport mode it has both. However it charges more when possible, like you mentioned, to have more battery charge for more electric boost. It uses more battery in sport mode but it also charges more.

[X5 45e]

Originally Posted by coder77

We definitely would not be driving long distances often. I was curious about the occasional road trips. I chose x45e simply because it was cheaper than x40i with the state and federal tax credits and gave me a reason to replace my old 125 amps electric panel.

I am pretty confident it will cost us less in terms of gas and electricity compared to x40i but that was not why I made the choice to buy x45e.

For longer road trips on holidays. I am around 10-11 liter / 100 km over 1000 km with a single full charge when leaving home. Mostly highway and ACC on 130 km/h. With other drive styles it is easy to have 14-15 liter / 100 km.

The HV battery is never really depleted so there is always some electric boost left for accelerations unless you really deplete it in electric only mode or you have a really crazy driving style. It is different than the 40e I had before. That didn't drive well with a low battery level.

I prefer adaptive mode for longer trips because it adapts the dampers and steering to the road conditions hybrid mode doesn't. Gas respons is quite similar. Eco pro is much more at ease.

Regenerative braking only charges a bit, but al bits help off course. If the car decides the battery needs to be charged it is done with the power of the ICE.

[taybo20]

Battery Control mode charges the battery fastest while driving without a doubt.

[rolin]

I really doubt it consumes more than 40i, even if never charged.
On highway with constant speed the weight of the vehicle makes no difference, that's basic physics. For up/down, start-stop traffic the weight makes a difference, but that's more than offset by having a regeneration.

Mine does 10.5l/100km traveling 140km/h when starting with 0% battery.

[coder77]

Originally Posted by rolin

I really doubt it consumes more than 40i, even if never charged.
On highway with constant speed the weight of the vehicle makes no difference, that's basic physics. For up/down, start-stop traffic the weight makes a difference, but that's more than offset by having a regeneration.

Mine does 10.5l/100km traveling 140km/h when starting with 0% battery.

That is about 22.4 mpg. X40i achieves 27 mpg on highway on paper and supposedly 28 mpg in real life.

[rolin]

1. How is the highway speed defined? 140 km/h is 87 mph.
2. You can't really compare on paper mpg to real life.
3. We can only solve this for sure if someone can test both models in the same roads and temperatures.

[nZtiZia]

Originally Posted by rolin

I really doubt it consumes more than 40i, even if never charged.
On highway with constant speed the weight of the vehicle makes no difference, that's basic physics. For up/down, start-stop traffic the weight makes a difference, but that's more than offset by having a regeneration.

if you really understand basic physics, then you should know that all things equal besides the heavier weight of the 45e, its gas consumption will be greater than the 40i as expressed by
Fr = c • W
where
Fr is the rolling resistance
c is the rolling resistance coefficient
W is the weight (more accurately, the load on the wheels)

by increasing just the vehicle weight, it increases the load on the wheels which increases the rolling resistance and therefore gas consumption.

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nr...sheet_16_e.pdf

[coder77]

Originally Posted by rolin

1. How is the highway speed defined? 140 km/h is 87 mph.
2. You can't really compare on paper mpg to real life.
3. We can only solve this for sure if someone can test both models in the same roads and temperatures.

87 mph is pretty high for US standards. We don't have an AutoBahn here. 65 mph is our usual highway speed limit in CA. Of course people drive 5-10 mph over the limit. I did not pay attention to the speed you mentioned. Fair point.

[finn123]

The battery is never depleted to 0. It always has some juice for xtra boost. In hybrid mode, the car will try to charge the battery so that you have “1km” left to run on electricity. In sport mode, it’ll try hard to charge until the car has at least 10km left. I was able to discharge the battery only once so that boost wasn’t available, but it recharged quickly.

Regarding fuel consumption - my last 900 km trip resulted in around 8.5-8.6l/100km (it’s about 27 mpg if my math is correct) while driving 90-135kmh depending on a road type (the car said about 130 km done in electric). Of course, it wasn’t a constant driving. Somewhere in the middle, I done about 30km in a small city.

[coder77]

Originally Posted by c00lb0y11

The battery is never depleted to 0. It always has some juice for xtra boost. In hybrid mode, the car will try to charge the battery so that you have “1km” left to run on electricity. In sport mode, it’ll try hard to charge until the car has at least 10km left. I was able to discharge the battery only once so that boost wasn’t available, but it recharged quickly.

Regarding fuel consumption - my last 900 km trip resulted in around 8.5-8.6l/100km (it’s about 27 mpg if my math is correct) while driving 90-135kmh depending on a road type (the car said about 130 km done in electric). Of course, it wasn’t a constant driving. Somewhere in the middle, I done about 30km in a small city.

Your math is correct. Google confirms! 27.351 US mpg

All the experiences here seem to favor x45e to x40i as long as you can charge it overnight which I can. It sounds like there is not much difference even if you cannot charge it all the time.

[evodz]

Just another reference point, I just did a 170 miles round trip over the weekend. Majority of it was on the freeway(with a decent amount of inclines too). I had the destination plugged into the Nav and drove on adaptive. I reached my destination with 18 electric miles left, drove the car for about 5 miles on full electric while I was in the city before driving home in adaptive mode again.


Didn't have enough battery on the way back and it would fluctuate between 0 - 2 miles as I was driving

I guess long story short, I was did 33 MPG on this trip which I thought was pretty good

[YuicyYumboYack]

Originally Posted by evodz

Just another reference point, I just did a 170 miles round trip over the weekend. Majority of it was on the freeway(with a decent amount of inclines too). I had the destination plugged into the Nav and drove on adaptive. I reached my destination with 18 electric miles left, drove the car for about 5 miles on full electric while I was in the city before driving home in adaptive mode again.


Didn't have enough battery on the way back and it would fluctuate between 0 - 2 miles as I was driving

I guess long story short, I was did 33 MPG on this trip which I thought was pretty good

Wow that's a lot better than I would've thought. I have no frame of reference as I'm still waiting on delivery, but good to know.

[finn123]

Originally Posted by coder77

Your math is correct. Google confirms! 27.351 US mpg

All the experiences here seem to favor x45e to x40i as long as you can charge it overnight which I can. It sounds like there is not much difference even if you cannot charge it all the time.

Indeed, before the trip, I averaged 0.2l/100km and done about 3000 km charging every night at home.

[popper]

5300 total miles:
1751 electric
3549 ICE

34.8 mpg

300 miles was sport mode through mountains -need I say more

[evodz]

Originally Posted by coder77

I am pretty confident it will cost us less in terms of gas and electricity compared to x40i but that was not why I made the choice to buy x45e.

I'm in CA too and ran the numbers and was unable to find a scenerio to come out ahead with the 40i (for my situation atleast).

[rolin]

Originally Posted by nZtiZia

by increasing just the vehicle weight, it increases the load on the wheels which increases the rolling resistance and therefore gas consumption.

At highway speeds the rolling resistance is negligible compared to the air resistance (drag), which only depends on the speed of the vehicle and the drag coefficient.

[nZtiZia]

Originally Posted by rolin

At highway speeds the rolling resistance is negligible compared to the air resistance (drag), which only depends on the speed of the vehicle and the drag coefficient.

care to show a working formula for this? (BTW i majored in physics prior to going into anesthesia.) to reiterate, you said weight makes "no difference" yet basic physics proves OTW. while the rolling resistance may be "negligible," it does increase with increased weight.

common sense also dictates that when vehicle weight increases, so do other forces that will require more effort on the ICE (thus, increased gas consumption) which include traction (a specific type of friction between the tires and road surface) and overcoming the tire's resistance to inertia.

practically speaking, i'm sure others will agree if the 45e didn't have any electric power available to the ICE, it would consume more gas, but as we've read, it will try to keep some power in reserve whenever possible.

[rolin]

I will try to prove my point.
Let's focus on constant speed and no incline, it simplifies a lot. And I also said "On highway with constant speed".
So, in these conditions you basically spend your energy (being fuel or electric) for overcoming rolling resistance and air drag.
- Rolling resistance depends on weight, but not on the speed
- Air drag depends on the cube (!) of the speed, but not on the weight
At lower speeds air drag is negligible, you only need to overcome the rolling resistance. If you tried to push a vehicle in neutral, you would know that it's hard to accelerate it (you might need help), but once up to speed (2-3mph) it's not that hard to maintain that speed. So, lets say with a puny human power of 200-300W (0.3kW) you can overcome all the rolling resistance of the vehicle.
The power you need to maintain highway speed is very different though - my estimate is around 30kW for a vehicle like X5 (the car reports it BTW). So, out of these 30kW, only 0.3kW are the rolling resistance, which depends on the weight. The rest is air drag. So it doesn't matter that the weight of the vehicle changes these 0.3kW to 0.4kW, it's still negligible.