Kia Niro UK Forums

Something i was thinking about today about the PHEV ,

Say for instance you jump in your car and your on a motorway at 60/70 mph in EV mode and have been for 25/30 miles and your range goes down to 0 miles and the car needs to switch over to HEV mode.

Surely it cant be good for the engine if its still cold , to suddenly be doing 70mph ??

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i guess it depends on various factors. It is easy to assume that when in EV mode, the engine is as good as off,but does anyone on this forum know all the tech details? We know that it starts the ICE to provide heating, but it does not necessarily use it for motive power. So, it could potentially run the engine up in a gentle, controlled way to distribute the oil and bringing it up to temperature, before connecting it drive the wheels.

But perhaps switching it on from cold at motorway speed might not be as bad as you think. At least in your scenario the car is already up to speed. Maintaining the speed will only impose a comparatively light load;. The scenario that concerns me is when you have been driving on EV, get to the motorway and put your foot down to accelerate hard, putting the completely cold engine under a heavy load.

The car must be designed to cope with that as there is no normal way to prewarm the engine especially in summer.

The car cant be designed to cope with that though , its a basic internal combustion engine , which would mean cold oil and sudden rapidly moving internals.

I am not sure but it feels like, when you change over the electric continues to run as well as the petrol for a while, so the ICE is not suddenly propelling the car, someone who has their car longer than me will be able to correct me if I am wrong

For me it is interesting, but a rather academic matter. The engine has a 7 year or 100,000 mile warranty after all, and how many of us will keep the car that long?

Akula wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 8:20 pm The car cant be designed to cope with that though , its a basic internal combustion engine , which would mean cold oil and sudden rapidly moving internals.

Perhaps the car has an electric oil pump to pre lubricate the engine

AlanHo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 7:32 am For me it is interesting, but a rather academic matter. The engine has a 7 year or 100,000 mile warranty after all, and how many of us will keep the car that long?

Mine is a 4 year lease & looking like about 60 - 70k miles so fair point!!!!