[crazycoffeegirl]

Hi all,

I'm taking a trip next week that's approximately 1k miles each direction. I've only had my sorento for a few weeks and only charge it at home with the charger that it came with. Does anyone know if we can use public charging stations, how long it might take to charge it back up at one of these stations so i can run in electric mode at times, and have opinions on if it's even worth it to do?

 

[TheSyndicate]

You can use L2 chargers as well as L1. The L2 will still take over an hour if you are near empty. Unless you are stopping somewhere for an extended period of time then it is not worth it. Not to mention if you are charging at a place that charges by the minute rather than the KWH delivered it may cost more than the gas equivalent.

 

[DoublePlugs]

Hi all,

I'm taking a trip next week that's approximately 1k miles each direction. I've only had my sorento for a few weeks and only charge it at home with the charger that it came with. Does anyone know if we can use public charging stations, how long it might take to charge it back up at one of these stations so i can run in electric mode at times, and have opinions on if it's even worth it to do?

You can use L2 chargers as well as L1. The L2 will still take over an hour if you are near empty. Unless you are stopping somewhere for an extended period of time then it is not worth it. Not to mention if you are charging at a place that charges by the minute rather than the KWH delivered it may cost more than the gas equivalent.

Pretty much what Syndicate said, but to add one thing... I have a PHEV already, had it since 2017. When we do longer road trips there are two times where I will try to charge if I can. One is a lunch stop - if we actually sit down to eat somewhere, I will look up ahead of the trip where there are public chargers in the approximate areas we will eat lunch and try to hit those if we can. The other is of course overnight, if a hotel/resort has chargers that's a bonus, but even if there is a public one in a short walk of said hotel/resort I might do that too.

The charging speed, and minimal miles you get out of it, don't make it worth it to charge unless you can be plugged in a while.

 

[vehpotneros]

A fully depleted battery takes well over 3 hrs - close to 4 - to charge at maximum rate on an L2 charger. PHEVs do not generally have super high speed charging capability like BEVs, and the Sorento is no exception. In general it does not make sense to charge in the midst of a trip. If you stop for an overnight and the rate is cheap, then sure.

 

[GPETERS]

When taking long trips, should you set the vehicle in Smart, EV or Hybrid mode?

 

[crazycoffeegirl]

from what i can tell the hotels i'm staying at don't have charging stations and there aren't really any within a short walk either which kind of sucks. So I think my plan is to switch it to Hybrid mode as soon as I leave the house since it's about 30 miles to the main freeway that I'll be driving on and I don't want to deplete the battery in case i need it for shorter jaunts later. Anyone know or have experience with what percentage the battery will stay around if i do this and it was fully charged to start?

 

[Sloop John]

Anyone know or have experience with what percentage the battery will stay around if i do this and it was fully charged to start?

Seems I read somewhere that the battery will never go below 20%.

I thought that was your answer, but I have since tried to verify it and can't.
So now, you ought to assume the batteries can be fully depleted before ICE kicks in -- at least until someone with knowledge answers.

 

[vehpotneros]

@Sloop John - lots of people here with PHEVs are very happy to chime in with their experience. Might be better to wait on them before guessing.

PHEVs will not fully deplete the high voltage battery. The min charge state before the vehicle switches into HEV mode is 14%. The battery may continue to dip below this during HEV mode depending on driving conditions, but you will be locked in HEV mode and can't drive far (or fast) without the ICE engine starting up. Can't recall off the top of my head what the absolute min state of charge is before the ICE engine fires up at a stand still (sitting still while running the A/C is a great way to test this) - I guess it's 9% or so.

All of these are the displayed battery charge state. This is different from the actual battery charge state, which is invariably greater. There is reserve battery capacity that isn't displayed to account for cell degradation over time. An OBD2 reader might get you the actual state of charge. Regardless, just go by the displayed state of charge.

HV Li-ion batteries DO NOT like to be 100% fully discharged. This is bad bad bad. Recall that there will be some self-discharge while the vehicle is sitting - I have no idea how much but something on the order of 1% a month is my guess at an order of magnitude. The charging logic will do everything it can to ensure that you basically can't discharge the HV battery, from limiting the extent to which you can discharge during operation to maintaining a bit of "reserve" charge, etc. It's not something you really have to think about on a daily basis.

My advice is always...just drive. Do what you can to charge when you can. Don't sweat it if you can't. I wouldn't think twice about hopping in and taking off on a break-neck, 3,000 mile, coast-to-coast, no time to stop and charge, interstate slog. It's not my cup of tea, but based on my long distance driving experience in this car, it can handle it no problem.

All that said, my habit is to kick it into HEV or Auto mode once I'm on the interstate at the beginning of a long, long drive - especially if I know there's no charging at the end. This saves me some charge to use at my destination where I'm more likely to be driving around locally where the EV mode is the most beneficial. If you leave it in EV mode it'll run down to the 14% cutoff and then lock into HEV mode until you can charge.

 

[crazycoffeegirl]

I've learned a few things while on this trip so far! For me, 75-85 mph will net you approximately 31-ish mpg. If I switch it to auto vs hybrid, it goes into EV mode more often (I think), but it's really hard to tell because it doesn't seem to want to go into EV at those speeds. When I dropped down to 65-70 mph, my mpg went up to 32 almost 33. I went from 32 electric miles (fully charged when left) to about 9 miles (40%). I think most of that use was getting on/off the freeway and if i let off the gas for a minute. Not too bad for 10+ hours on the road so far!

 

[vehpotneros]

I've learned a few things while on this trip so far! For me, 75-85 mph will net you approximately 31-ish mpg. If I switch it to auto vs hybrid, it goes into EV mode more often (I think), but it's really hard to tell because it doesn't seem to want to go into EV at those speeds. When I dropped down to 65-70 mph, my mpg went up to 32 almost 33. I went from 32 electric miles (fully charged when left) to about 9 miles (40%). I think most of that use was getting on/off the freeway and if i let off the gas for a minute. Not too bad for 10+ hours on the road so far!

That's great! About reflects my experiences as well. 32 MPG is what I plan for on interstate drives in HEV mode. With the climate control off I find I can cruise comfortably in EV mode at 76-78 MPH, but obviously limited to the available range. I don't tend to push into the 80's, for fuel economy as much as risk of $$$ tickets (most interstates in my neck of the woods are posted at 75 or 70). As far as I can tell, Auto mode is pretty preferential to HEV mode when at interstate speeds, especially with less than 50% battery charge.

Safe driving!