People who own plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) often like to talk about how infrequently they have to buy gas, or how far/how long they can go on a tank of it. The truth is that this can vary widely depending on how one drives their PHEV, but it can be relatively easy to do this if you don’t frequently drive distances that greatly exceed the maximum distance a full charge of the hybrid battery provides.
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After 18 months of owning the Kia Sorento PHEV, I have managed to drive over 1,000 miles on a single tank of gas two times. In both cases, it took me 2 -3 months to cover that distance and in both cases I did not drive much beyond the maximum distance a full charge of the hybrid battery can take me until late in the timeframe (when I took one or more trips that measured hundreds of miles long). In those 18 months, I have put gas in my PHEV 16 times, 13 of those times being fill ups and only 3 being “top offs”. Interestingly, 13 of those 16 gas stops happened in just 4 months of my total ownership, which means I took a lot of long trips in those four months, and far fewer in the other 14 months I have owned my Kia.
But how exactly did I manage to go so far on a single tank of gas? What were my driving patterns like in the months in which I achieved that distance, and what were my patterns like the rest of the time, when I only got between 500 and about 900 miles per tank of gas? The first time I managed to go over a thousand miles between fill ups was in late spring to early summer last year. After a road trip to the Oregon Coast in late May, I didn’t go on any trips requiring more than a gallon or two of gas until early August. That means for the most part, I made trips of about 40 miles or less each time I drove. In fact, since I keep track of almost every single gas powered drive that happens in my Sorento PHEV, I know that in the 2+ months between fill ups, we drove 13 trips that used at least some gas. The most significant use of gas in that timeframe was actually due to me lending my Kia PHEV to my father who forgot to charge it up during the 65 miles or so that he drove it. The second time I went more than 1,000 miles between fill ups is now. I haven’t gassed up since early January, before setting out on a roughly 200 mile road trip with all 6 seats and cargo area full. The longest trip I have taken since that road trip has been about 35 miles total, and almost all of our gas use (about 1.5 gallons total) in that timeframe was due to the need for cabin heat, since the Sorento PHEV must burn gas for cabin heat. I don’t expect to need to put gas in again until late next month, before driving across the state to attend a memorial service, which will be an over a 600 mile trip, meaning I’ll be gassing up twice, most likely, in April.
Outside of the months where I just didn’t do much driving beyond the range of a full charge, and the months when I took lots of long trips that required one or more tanks of gas, my driving patterns were either full of short-medium distance drives that required the use of some gas (a gallon or two here, a half gallon there), or lots of shorter trips that required the use of some gas for heat, fuel maintenance, or just short spurts in hybrid mode of 10-15 miles or so. In these months, I typically would only gas up every 6-7 weeks, and that was in part due to a longer trip coming at the end or beginning of the stretch.
So there you have it, the relatively easy, mundane path to getting 1,000+ miles per tank of gas in a plug-in hybrid SUV. Would you be able to achieve similar results more or less often in a PHEV? Would you struggle to do so? Might that affect your decision to own a PHEV versus a fully electric or fully gas powered vehicle? Please leave your questions and comments below.
Image courtesy of Justin Hart.
Justin Hart has owned and driven electric vehicles for over 15 years, including a first generation Nissan LEAF, second generation Chevy Volt, Tesla Model 3, an electric bicycle and most recently a Kia Sorento PHEV. He is also an avid SUP rider, poet, photographer and wine lover. He enjoys taking long EV and PHEV road trips to beautiful and serene places with the people he loves. Follow Justin on Twitter for daily KIA EV news coverage.
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Hi Justin,
Hi Justin,
Thanks for your analyses and observations, including those relating to PHEV's. We are looking at the Sportage PHEV and have a few questions:
1--We live in Seattle (you too, correct?). Any comments about how much you've needed to engage the gas engine for heat with your Sorento PHEV? And does the gas engine engage when you're running A/C too?
2--At least in the olden days, I'd often hear that it is important for the health and life of a gas engine that it be driven for more than a few miles in and warmed up especially in cold weather. The engagement of the engine for heat in PHEV's would not seem to comply with that advice. Do you foresee that gas engines in PHEV's may pay the price for this light usage in cold conditions in terms of furture issues?
3--My apologies if you've covered this in your past work (to some degree I think you did in your "How I get over 1000 miles per tank..." article), but what difference in combined MPG (EV and HEV) do you experience between warmer and cooler seasons? How about MPG in HEV mode between the seasons?
4--I hear consistent reports of Kia HEV's underperforming their EPA mileage ratings, and to a larger degree than, say, Rav4 does. Is that your experience/observation? I am a little daunted by the Sportage PHEV's HEV MPG performance, which has been reported by some to be in the 20's or low 30's. I'm guessing that we would end up driving about 1/2 of our miles within EV range and 1/2 in HEV.
5--Lastly, my spouse and I share a single vehicle. Any comments about EV's, PHEV or HEV options that you'd recommend considering our priorities? We've driven the same Prius for 17 years but my spouse wants more storage, higher seating position and more seat adjustability. We almost purchased a Tesla Model Y but bailed on that based on its ride quality. Main objectives for us beyond my wife's priorities: quality and reliability, ease of use, AWD for winter mountain outings, and size (small is better in terms of being able to navigate and park in Seattle's tight streets).
Thanks for any feedback you can provide.
Dave
Hi Dave, and thank you for
Hi Dave, and thank you for your great questions! I will try and answer on each as succinctly as possible. I would be happy to do an article soon that follows up in a little more detail on all your questions too (stay tuned for that!):
1. Yes, I also live in the Seattle area and though my driving situation may be different from yours (I mostly do short drives of 40 miles or less, and take about 3-6 long trips in the Sorento PHEV, per year. I only have to use the gas engine for heat on the coldest days or when my other passengers demand it (I am driving alone about 70% of the time). When the gas engine is running only for heat, it is very efficient. I get between 50 - 250 mpg on the Sorento’s MPG display when that is all I am using gas for. However, it quickly drops when I am also using it for propulsion. 36.4 is my lifetime gas mileage for 9,000 miles, when running on gas. However, I have only used about 100 gallons of gas to drive those 9,000+ miles, which means you could say I get about 90 mpg as about 60% of the total miles were driven on electricity alone (I have solar panels that make more than 100% of my energy needed for driving electric, so I tend to think of those miles as “free”, even though they aren’t). the gas engine does NOT engage when running the AC, only for heat, unless you have completely depleted the hybrid battery and the gas engine needs to run for a bit to recharge the hybrid battery so it can continue to provide AC (for example if on a long trip, stopped at a light or parked with vehicle on and AC going).
2.I don’t think you have to worry, too much, about the limited use of the gas engine. The Sorento PHEV and most every other PHEV I have ever owned/studied is smart enough to run the gas engine every so often if you don’t otherwise fire it up (about 5-6 weeks seems to be the norm). It will run the engine for about 5-10 miles or 5 - 10 minutes. The Sorento PHEV heats ups its engine remarkably fast when running in hybrid mode (it just takes a minute or two to reach full temp). In general my suggestion is: use the gas engine for heat when you need to, and of course whenever driving longer distances. If fuel efficiency/energy use is important to you though, you have to learn how to drive it gently (accelerating at a leisurely pace to keep it in electric only mode). The gas engine comes on if you accelerate too hard. I have many articles on TN about how I manage to do this and what my results are if you’re interested.
3. The worst mpg I have ever seen for a single trip, using HEV mode only, was about 22 mpg and this only happened 1-time (the day I bought it and drove it home from the dealer, who never bothered to charge up the battery). The best HEV only fuel economy on any trip that I have seen, more than a few times, was well into the 40’s (about 47 mpg as I recall). Between warm and cold seasons, there is certainly some variability, and as I stated my combined life to date average is a little over 36 mpg, but I’ll see mpgs in the upper 30’s and 40’s in summer and the low to mid 30’s in winter, when running in HEV mode. Also, my EV range in warm months has been as high as 43 miles, and as low as 28 miles in winter. The cold definitely detracts from range in both EV and HEV modes.
4. The fuel/energy performance issue is very simple to explain. Anyone, and I mean anyone saying the Sorento PHEV (and I assume the same would be true for the Sportage) underperforms its EPA ratings is either a) driving it harder than necessary or b) may have some kind of mechanical issue. I do NOT drive my Sorrento PHEV very hard, ever. In fact other than doing a couple performance tests (of acceleration) and the extremely rare case where I have to accelerate quickly to avoid or get around something, I never push the accelerator past about the 50% mark. If you do drive aggressively, or like to punch it to race between stop lights, you’ll get worse results, but that is true of any vehicle. Kia designed their PHEVs to maximize efficiency, and that is exactly what they are capable of as long as you drive with that mindset.
5. A PHEV is perfect for two people sharing one car (because it can cover all the bases/more easily meets needs). The Kia Sportage PHEV is the same powertrain as my Sorento and gets a little better EV range and fuel economy in HEV mode. It is only about 6 inches shorter and 1 in narrower, I believe (so is a fairly large compact SUV). If it seems too large, look at the Kia Niro PHEV as it gets the best fuel economy and EV range of all of Kia’s SUVs/crossovers and is quite spacious for being the smallest PHEV they offer. Since I also own a Tesla model 3, I would say if you can make all your trips in an EV confidently, you could address the stiff ride(?) simply by fitting a Tesla with taller tires (they all come with low profile tires) and or a softer suspension set up. Kia’s EV’s are great alternatives, as are Hyundais, Fords, GM’s etc. I love my Kia Sorento PHEV though, and would recommend it to anyone wanting an extremely efficient mid-sized 3-row SUV.
I recently bought a 2023 Kia
I recently bought a 2023 Kia Nira PHEV and am getting used to it.I am an old guy, 76 years old, and mostly retired except for one PT job. I have had the Kia Niro now for about 7 weeks and have about 350 miles, so obviously I do not drive much. The car was delivered to me by the dealer with a full tank of gas. So far, 100% of my driving has been electric which is great.
But being the consummate worrier, I wonder if it will be best to occasionally switch to driving on gas even though I could make that same trip using the EV mode. Will the gas in the gas tank "get old" / do some damage eventually, etc if I don't use it for, lets say, a thousand or two thousand miles?
BTW, I live in Oregon outside of Portland and my pt job is in Portland one day a week and the RT is only 25 - 28 miles. Thanks in advance for your advice.
Hi William! Your concern is
Hi William! Your concern is appropriate and not unusual. But worry not! Your Kia is “smart” enough to force the gas engine on periodically so that your fuel doesn’t get too old. On my experience, Kia PHEV’s force the gas engine to run at least every 6 - 8 weeks, so I I would expect your gas engine will need to run at some point pretty soon. When it does, it will simply idle the engine for about 5-10 minutes and you can drive the car as normal while this is happening (the idling should help keep your battery charged). If it does not do that, and you just want to set some general guideline for how long your gas is good for, other PHEV makers force their PHEVs to consume the remainder of a tank once the 11 or 12 month mark has been reached since refueling. So, again, if the Niro doesn’t simply force you to burn up the remainder of the tank once the gas in it is about 1 year old, you may simply want to plan on using up the majority of it in that timeframe, which may mean running the gas engine for heat, going on a longer drive that would require using gas, etc. If you have difficulty using up 1 full tank of gas in about a year, I suggest that you only fill up half way after your current tank runs dry (or possibly even less). Happy electric motoring!
Hi William! Your concern is
Hi William! Your concern is appropriate and not unusual. But worry not! Your Kia is “smart” enough to force the gas engine on periodically so that your fuel doesn’t get too old. On my experience, Kia PHEV’s force the gas engine to run at least every 6 - 8 weeks, so I I would expect your gas engine will need to run at some point pretty soon. When it does, it will simply idle the engine for about 5-10 minutes and you can drive the car as normal while this is happening (the idling should help keep your battery charged). If it does not do that, and you just want to set some general guideline for how long your gas is good for, other PHEV makers force their PHEVs to consume the remainder of a tank once the 11 or 12 month mark has been reached since refueling. So, again, if the Niro doesn’t simply force you to burn up the remainder of the tank once the gas in it is about 1 year old, you may simply want to plan on using up the majority of it in that timeframe, which may mean running the gas engine for heat, going on a longer drive that would require using gas, etc. If you have difficulty using up 1 full tank of gas in about a year, I suggest that you only fill up half way after your current tank runs dry (or possibly even less). Happy electric motoring!