use Tesla charging staion ?

[1carguy]

Is it OK to use a tesla charging staion, with the correct adapter?

Thanks for your patience with this newby.

 

[n6nfg]

You can only use a level 1 or level 2 charger. You can NOT use a supercharger (level 3). The level 1 and 2 are AC chargers (120 or 240 volt) while the level 3 is DC high voltage which the Corsair cannot handle.

 

[1carguy]

And are the Tesla "super chargers" marked differently the the lever 1 & 2 chargers?

And what is a good brand of adapters to use, OR a not so good brand to stay away from?

Thanks, dave


I'll answer my own question: looks like the level 3 Tesla chargers are big upright "stations" usually found at hotels, parking garages, etc.

So when you folks are traveling and many miles away from home, what charging stations do you prefer, OR do you not charge, and use the gas engine only?

 

[B_A_H]

PHEVs are meant to use a combination of gas and electricity. Most have under ~50 mile electric ranges which makes them good for operating as EVs for commuting. All but a handful aren't capable of high-speed charging. It'll take 4 hours to fully charge a GT at a L2 public charging station and with that you're only getting back ~28 miles of all-electric range. The closeness in cost of public charging vs. buying gas also makes the logic of public charging a PHEV questionable.

PHEVs are best for folks who can plug them in overnight and have use cases that allow their range to cover their daily driving. Although there's a strange mindset that takes over which I experience myself. I do everything I can to drive EV only and feel like I'm losing the game every time the engine kicks in. Practically, that's not how PHEVs should be looked at.

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[1carguy]

B_A_H,

Completely agree with all you said.

I'm asking all these questions because we are leaving on a 1300 mile trip tomorrow, and wondering about other owners and their travel experience with the PHEV Corsair.

Gonna be interesting to see how the car does with very little charging and lotsa interstate miles.

Stay tuned . . . . .

 

[dogo88]

We took a trip to visit my son in Mass. We live in NJ. Fully charged when we left. Did not do any charging due to the reasons others have mentioned. Basically time and cost wasn't worth it. According to the car computer I drove 633.5 miles. averaged 38.3 mpg and did 229.3 miles of the total on electric. I ran in Normal mode.
Will be interested it your results.

 

[Kiddoc]

We took a trip to visit my son in Mass. We live in NJ. Fully charged when we left. Did not do any charging due to the reasons others have mentioned. Basically time and cost wasn't worth it. According to the car computer I drove 633.5 miles. averaged 38.3 mpg and did 229.3 miles of the total on electric. I ran in Normal mode.
Will be interested it your results.

I travel back and forth to my son’s Philadelphia home. About 280 mi one way. My overall trip mileage is about what you are getting.

 

[1carguy]

1300 mile round trip from Loveland, CO to KC MO. I charged at a hotel the first night, and then a house, in a garage over night. The car sat for 2 nights, then drove home (650 miles). On the way home we were fighting a 25-30 MPH head wind, and temps in the teens, and got 27.5 mpg, driving between 70 & 75 MPH. About 1/2 way thru that drive I switched to "conserve" mode, the wind died down, temps came up, and the mileage did get up to 28.2.

The electric charge only goes to a 22 mile range.

Are these results typicall? I was hoping for more mpg on the hiway, but given the conditions?

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[dogo88]

Sounds typical given your conditions. Anything over 60-65 really hits the mpg. At 70+ it's all ICE. Hybrid may kick in during coasting but not by much. EV isn't a factor.

 

[B_A_H]

I'm guessing using logic that "preserve," by doing what it's designed for, decreases MPG on longer trips. If you're driving let's say 200 miles, normal mode would deplete the HV battery progressively over that 200 miles to boost MPG. In preserve you'd be running primarily in ICE mode. Following that logic, the emptying of the HV battery boosts MPG non-linearly with bigger MPG boosts on a 100 mile trip diminishing to next to nothing on a 1K mile trip.

I agree with @dogo88 about higher speeds. You can run in EV at them but it burns through the HV battery pretty quickly.

Don't forget the Corsair PHEV is quite portly weighing in at 4,500 pounds. The Escape hybrid (non-plug in) weighs 1,000 pounds less. The Civic hybrid weighs 1,600 pounds less. So carrying around a half-ton or more of additional weight makes comparisons to regular hybrids unrealistic.

With a drained battery in hybrid mode the Corsair PHEV isn't going to set any MPG records. For comparison the Lexus NX PHEV weighs the same as the Corsair PHEV and gets a theoretic 36 MPG in hybrid mode compared to our 34 MPG.

 

[dogo88]

I usually run Normal Mode except in winter when I've been running in Excite Mode for two reasons. First the winter has been colder than past winters and Excite warms the cabin up faster. Second, gas is about at the break even point when I did some calculations on when lower gas prices would be cheaper than the 20-30 miles you get charging. And recently our electric rates have gone up to almost $.23 a kw. So the 12 kwh a full charge costs me about $2.76. About what a gallon of gas costs. A gallon of gas goes further even including the extra weight.

For around town and local trips of 50-100 miles I do Normal Mode. When the HVB gets drained it switches to hybrid mode and I can get 45-50 mpg according to the onboard computer, and depending how heavy on the gas I drive. On the highway at the 65-75 mph I'll get the mid thirties mpg driving conservatively.