Hybrid disappointment!

[Peter H]

Hello,

My name is Peter H,

I have driven Mercedes for the last few years, during this time, I have had an E350, a CLS 350, an ML350 and very recently (only a week ago) an C350E.

All of the Mercedes I have owned shared the same properties, silk smooth drive, excellent finish and abundant in technology and given the aforementioned. I have been very pleased with.

That said my current vehicle, the C350E, has proven to be the most disappointing.

If anyone is considering this vehicle, I would urge them to reconsider.

One of the main drivers for my purchase was the electric range, proposed by Mercedes as upto “19 miles”.

The distance to my place of work is fractionally under 7 miles, I thought “ this is great, I can get to and from work in a single charge, = 14 miles.

There is not a snowballs chance in hell of reaching barely more then half the “claimed” 19 mile range.

To say I am bitterly disappointed would be an understatement.

The best “Electric only” range I have achieved is around 10.5 miles.

When you consider that from my home to work is predominately downhill, then this is much worse.
From my house to the town centre is 2 miles, this is entirely downhill. My house is 725 feet above sea level, the town centre is 350 feet. The distance is 2 miles, the distance traveled is 2 miles, the electric range consumed is 2 miles. Given that the vehicle could have “rolled” most of this distance I would have expected slightly better?

Following my disappointment, I looked through the internet to find that I was not alone ( I wish I had done this before?)

I found literally dozens of C350E owners asking the same questions;

Why does my car show only 13 miles when fully charged?

I only travel a few metres and the distance drops to 11 Miles?

(I have experienced this)

Let me say that I am a very pragmatic person, if I am doing something wrong then I am eager to understand what it is I need to do to correct this?

That said, the information I have seen indicates that it is not just me, but rather a “shortfall” of the Mercedes” claimed mileages.

The car is a typical Mercedes “beautiful “
I love the car however, I am disappointed by a claimed electric range which is simply not achievable.

And one final point. Had I been aware that the the electric range was only 10 miles, then I would not have been disappointed.

While it is entirely possible that I will receive a response from the forum, given the comments from other C350E owners, I do not anticipate an answer from Mercedes.

If anyone can advise on how it may be possible to increase the electric range of the vehicle, then I would be pleased to hear from you
Many thanks.

Peter H.

 

[John Laidlaw]

Welcome Peter
The claimed and actual shortfall electric only miles is common to many marques not just MB
That said yours does sound quite off the mark
My i8 claims 21 miles, the actual at the moment is 14-15
Which is fine for me as my drive to work is 11 and I plug in there too
The only factors which can improve your chances are :-
Keeping the car garaged/ undercover
Improvement in ambient temps
Switch off all auxiliaries especially ac
Driving like miss daisy

 

[Headhurts]

This time of year hybrid performance is terrible due to the colder weather extra auxiliaries being run.

When I had my E300 Hybrid it would do very little running on hybrid and indeed the engine kicked in all the time when moving off but come the better weather a massive improvement.

I took one of the new Toyota RAV4 cars for a test drive a week ago and it was showing an average of 27mpg which is worse than my E350 which is averaging 34mpg at moment.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[LostKiwi]

Cold weather will negatively affect range. In the cold people run heaters, seat heaters, rear window demist etc all of which are heavy consumers of power. Additionally physics dictates battery efficiency declined with lower temperatures so range reduces further.
I was talking with a Tesla taxi driver in Amsterdam a while back and he estimated his range in winter was some 30% less than in summer.
I would imagine that once temperatures increase the range will improve significantly.

 

[rorywquin]

Like fuel consumption, the range figures will have been obtained under optimum conditions.

 

[Peter H]

Welcome Peter
The claimed and actual shortfall electric only miles is common to many marques not just MB
That said yours does sound quite off the mark
My i8 claims 21 miles, the actual at the moment is 14-15
Which is fine for me as my drive to work is 11 and I plug in there too
The only factors which can improve your chances are :-
Keeping the car garaged/ undercover
Improvement in ambient temps
Switch off all auxiliaries especially ac
Driving like miss daisy

Thank you for your very timely response, the first thing I did was to switch of the AC, this made a difference of approximately 1 mile.
Still only achieving my aforementioned 10.5 miles.
The recent “heatwave” we experienced here in the UK, around the 20 degree mark is, according to the MB App, the optimum temperature for the battery , I do keep the car on the drive and the overnight temperature has been rather cool, perhaps the summer may bring an improvement?
If I could achieve the 14 mile round trip to work I would be more than happy.
I have only had the vehicle for a few weeks and I may be able to improve my electric range? Time will tell

 

[Peter H]

This time of year hybrid performance is terrible due to the colder weather extra auxiliaries being run.

When I had my E300 Hybrid it would do very little running on hybrid and indeed the engine kicked in all the time when moving off but come the better weather a massive improvement.

I took one of the new Toyota RAV4 cars for a test drive a week ago and it was showing an average of 27mpg which is worse than my E350 which is averaging 34mpg at moment.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi Robin,
Thank you for your reply and information regarding the electric range and the time of year / temperature .
Hopefully the warmer weather will bring some improvement.
Watch this space?

 

[Peter H]

Cold weather will negatively affect range. In the cold people run heaters, seat heaters, rear window demist etc all of which are heavy consumers of power. Additionally physics dictates battery efficiency declined with lower temperatures so range reduces further.
I was talking with a Tesla taxi driver in Amsterdam a while back and he estimated his range in winter was some 30% less than in summer.
I would imagine that once temperatures increase the range will improve significantly.

Thank you for your response, I realised that anything electrical would affect the electric range of the vehicle and I switched everything off to the extent that I was uncomfortable driving, given the recent rise in temperature.
I can only hope that the summer may bring with it not only a rise in temperature but also an increase in the electric range of my vehicle.
I really appreciate your feedback, many thanks.

 

[Wighty]

There have been other threads about people being dissatisfied with the MB Hybrid side of things , so you aren't alone .

 

[Peter H]

There have been other threads about people being dissatisfied with the MB Hybrid side of things , so you aren't alone .

I now know, and today things got much worse, overnight the temperature dropped to around 4 degrees, I went out around midday the temperature had just got to 10 degrees, I traveled the 2.5 miles into the town, all down hill, my initial range at 100% was showing 11 miles, when I parked the car my range was now showing 7 miles, I drove a quarter mile to the town hall, then drove home.
The entire journey less than 6 miles, I did not make it home, the engine kicked in around 5.5 miles as the battery was now gone.
Yesterday I was simply bitterly disappointed today I am crushed .
While it was not my intention to save any money in fuel costs, I certainly did not expect it to cost more running in electric mode.

I have the vehicle in eco / hybrid mode, the engine only seems to engage when either the battery is down or if you “kick” the throttle, yesterday when I was driving to and from work the engine only engaged when the battery was flat, similar to today.
When I have the vehicle in eco / e-save, the engine engages most of the time.
I don’t think that I am doing anything wrong?
Still waiting to hear back from Mercedes, it will be interesting to see how they respond?

 

[Wighty]

I now know, and today things got much worse, overnight the temperature dropped to around 4 degrees, I went out around midday the temperature had just got to 10 degrees, I traveled the 2.5 miles into the town, all down hill, my initial range at 100% was showing 11 miles, when I parked the car my range was now showing 7 miles, I drove a quarter mile to the town hall, then drove home.
The entire journey less than 6 miles, I did not make it home, the engine kicked in around 5.5 miles as the battery was now gone.
Yesterday I was simply bitterly disappointed today I am crushed .
While it was not my intention to save any money in fuel costs, I certainly did not expect it to cost more running in electric mode.

I have the vehicle in eco / hybrid mode, the engine only seems to engage when either the battery is down or if you “kick” the throttle, yesterday when I was driving to and from work the engine only engaged when the battery was flat, similar to today.
When I have the vehicle in eco / e-save, the engine engages most of the time.
I don’t think that I am doing anything wrong?
Still waiting to hear back from Mercedes, it will be interesting to see how they respond?

I feel your pain buddy , there was a discussion on here at the start of the winter (or last winter , how time flies) about the c350e not working at all at temperatures below zero . They are obviously highly temperature dependent .

 

[Tony Dyson]

With the poor performance of the vehicle/range in Sunny Essex, it begs the real question of performance and customer satisfaction in Northern European Countries where they have proper cold weather?

 

[umblecumbuz]

An international hybrid sales graph would make useful study!

 

[V6Matty]

Peter is this a new car ie 68 plate, sorry I ask as it could be a dead cell in the packs, although that would show up on a scan with star.
That said my hybrid was similar in winter, few miles then the engine would kick in, summer it was a different car, the miles on electric doubled

 

[Peter H]

Peter is this a new car ie 68 plate, sorry I ask as it could be a dead cell in the packs, although that would show up on a scan with star.
That said my hybrid was similar in winter, few miles then the engine would kick in, summer it was a different car, the miles on electric doubled

Hi Matty,
Firstly, apologies for not answering your post sooner, been away and just catching up.
The vehicle is a 66, I bought it from Mercedes As an ex “sales” vehicle it has 18,500 miles on the clock.
Mercedes are going to take a look at the car 1st week in May, first time they can look at it?
I had reported not only the reduced electric range but also the fuel consumption generally.
Overall I am currently seeing 38.9 mpg, a far cry from the claimed 135 mpg.
When you consider that over 50% of my miles are electric and the vehicles mpg are calculated against total miles then I am only getting in the region of 20’s mpg .
I have confirmed this by completely running the battery down and running in esave mode thereby forcing the vehicle to run on the ice, the mpg was 22, on a route which I had previously covered many times in my ML350 which returned 34 - 38 mpg.

I did not buy the vehicle to save money, but I did not expect a vehicle with a claimed 135 mpg to be worse than the ML350?

I have virtually always been able to achieve the mpg of the cars I have previously owned.
I once achieved 45mpg from the ML.
So I do not believe it is my driving, indeed when I check the vehicles “ECO Display” I usually have all 3 bars in the green with the “halo \ glow” around the outside, I assume this means I am driving as I should?

All I can do now is see what Mercedes say after they have checked the vehicle?
Watch this space!

 

[Mike pearce]

Hi Matty,
Firstly, apologies for not answering your post sooner, been away and just catching up.
The vehicle is a 66, I bought it from Mercedes As an ex “sales” vehicle it has 18,500 miles on the clock.
Mercedes are going to take a look at the car 1st week in May, first time they can look at it?
I had reported not only the reduced electric range but also the fuel consumption generally.
Overall I am currently seeing 38.9 mpg, a far cry from the claimed 135 mpg.
When you consider that over 50% of my miles are electric and the vehicles mpg are calculated against total miles then I am only getting in the region of 20’s mpg .
I have confirmed this by completely running the battery down and running in esave mode thereby forcing the vehicle to run on the ice, the mpg was 22, on a route which I had previously covered many times in my ML350 which returned 34 - 38 mpg.

I did not buy the vehicle to save money, but I did not expect a vehicle with a claimed 135 mpg to be worse than the ML350?

I have virtually always been able to achieve the mpg of the cars I have previously owned.
I once achieved 45mpg from the ML.
So I do not believe it is my driving, indeed when I check the vehicles “ECO Display” I usually have all 3 bars in the green with the “halo \ glow” around the outside, I assume this means I am driving as I should?

All I can do now is see what Mercedes say after they have checked the vehicle?
Watch this space!

Hi Peter, just wondering what the outcome was to your Mercedes visit in May. I have had a 68 Plate C350e for about a month now with much the same experience that you have had with the range and economy.Having said that I did buy the car with full knowledge of flaws.
Still love driving the car which is very sensitive to the way you drive it. As most of my journeys are short and local I tend to be in Esave and Emode most of the time. My average MPG for the short time I’ve had it is 48 but have had some better journeys as shown below.

 

[ajlsl600]

Like fuel consumption, the range figures will have been obtained under optimum conditions.

translated "impractical, prob impossible " same as mpg,DONT BELIEVE EM ! REQUEST A REAL ,SAY 2 DAY DEMO.if dealer says no,walk..