Hybrid suitable for low mileage urban use?

[Nickstah]

Hi, my elderly mum is thinking about buying a nearly new Auris 2016MY.  She travels around 5000 miles per year, mostly short urban trips and prefers auto transmission.  Therefore, the Hybrid seems like a good choice compared to the 1.2 Auto (even if the payback for the hybrid premium on fuel economy is questionable).  She occasionally goes on holiday or leaves the car standing for 1 to 4 weeks at a time.  Her local Toyota dealer has told her that there might be issues with the Battery if she leaves the car standing for extended periods, to the point that they suggest parking the car in the dealers garage when she goes on holiday (!).  So my question is, with the low mileage short trips that she does, and occasional extended periods with no use, will there be issues with the Hybrid system or 12v Battery discharging?  Or would she be better off going for the normal 1.2 Auto?  Grateful for any guidance.

[Beyond the Blue]

This is the type of driving I do now since retiring. The mpg has took a big dive now as I am only doing a coupe of miles every other day, now around the 30-35mpg region. I haven't really left it standing for more than 3/4 days but don't have any issues with the Battery, however it very rarely kicks in anyway now. My advise would be to forget the Hybrid.

[chrismorrow]

My grandmother has the hybrid touring sports. I have the 1.2 turbo, manual. I must say, the hybrid is perfect for her? Easy to drive, it's been around a while now so hardly anything to go wrong, she does around 5000-6000 miles a year, many short trips around town, however now and again I do take the car out and give it a good blast. Only think to have a slight concern about would be the 12v Battery, when she is away I just put it on a trickle charger and never had any problems at all. Even though I have the 1.2 turbo, the hybrid is much more easy to drive And to be honest, the 1.2 is a new engine, we don't really know if it has any faults or issues as yet, that 1.8 hybrid lump has been around a while now and I know it's pretty reliable and it doesn't mind short trips.

[Slasher_uk]

I would say that's exactly the kind of thing an hybrid is aimed at, lots of Battery use keeping the ice use to a minimum.

[Nickstah]

Thanks for your replies.  To "Beyond the Blue", are you saying that your car rarely runs on electric power because you cannot regenerate enough power on short trips?  And therefore it runs on ICE all the time with 30-35 mpg?  Sorry I wasn't quite clear what you meant.

[FROSTYBALLS]

From what Beyond the Blue has said, they're doing a lot fewer than your mother's mileage (approx 90-100 per week).

[eygo]

it will depend on the length of journey to get the best milage from the car as the ev mode wil work best when the car

has reached normal temperature so if someone is only going 1 - 2 miles first thing in the morning then you probably

wont get the best milage if you are doing a 5 mile journey around town then you will start to see the benefits of the hybrid system

[Beyond the Blue]

4 hours ago, Nickstah said:

Thanks for your replies.  To "Beyond the Blue", are you saying that your car rarely runs on electric power because you cannot regenerate enough power on short trips?  And therefore it runs on ICE all the time with 30-35 mpg?  Sorry I wasn't quite clear what you meant.

Since retiring I now run my wife to work and back twice a day. The journey is 3 miles and a good 2 miles of this is in slow moving traffic. The engine never reaches optimum temperature on these short trips. When standing in traffic the engine very rarely  knocks off and never accepts using EV button saying either "EV cannot be used due to insufficient Battery power" or for some other reason. If I switch the mode switch to see if either the engine or Battery is driving the wheels it rarely shows the Battery doing any of the work. This is completely different on a long run when it performs perfectly. So I will stick with my advise which is, unless you are using the car to do at least a run of 5 miles or so in one trip, forget the Hybrid model.

P.S. My mileage is, from a cold start:-

Very short trips 30-35

Medium trips     40-50

Long motorway runs 55-65

Best ever 72 (being a complete nuisance to other motorists)

[Anthony Poli]

2 hours ago, Beyond the Blue said:

Since retiring I now run my wife to work and back twice a day. The journey is 3 miles and a good 2 miles of this is in slow moving traffic. The engine never reaches optimum temperature on these short trips. When standing in traffic the engine very rarely  knocks off and never accepts using EV button saying either "EV cannot be used due to insufficient battery power" or for some other reason. If I switch the mode switch to see if either the engine or battery is driving the wheels it rarely shows the battery doing any of the work. This is completely different on a long run when it performs perfectly. So I will stick with my advise which is, unless you are using the car to do at least a run of 5 miles or so in one trip, forget the Hybrid model.

P.S. My mileage is, from a cold start:-

Very short trips 30-35

Medium trips     40-50

Long motorway runs 55-65

Best ever 72 (being a complete nuisance to other motorists)

Just incase you weren't aware, but the car runs on electric without using the EV button. If you the energy display on the dash or touch display, as long as the arrows are going from the Battery to the wheels then its running on EV.

The manual doesn't make this point clear, on later models a car shaped EV symbol lits up, to tell you that the car is on EV.

[Anthony Poli]

On 25/02/2017 at 0:36 PM, Nickstah said:

Hi, my elderly mum is thinking about buying a nearly new Auris 2016MY.  She travels around 5000 miles per year, mostly short urban trips and prefers auto transmission.  Therefore, the Hybrid seems like a good choice compared to the 1.2 Auto (even if the payback for the hybrid premium on fuel economy is questionable).  She occasionally goes on holiday or leaves the car standing for 1 to 4 weeks at a time.  Her local Toyota dealer has told her that there might be issues with the battery if she leaves the car standing for extended periods, to the point that they suggest parking the car in the dealers garage when she goes on holiday (!).  So my question is, with the low mileage short trips that she does, and occasional extended periods with no use, will there be issues with the Hybrid system or 12v battery discharging?  Or would she be better off going for the normal 1.2 Auto?  Grateful for any guidance.

One option would be is to add a second Battery in tandem, to stop those worries. 

My mother is 83 this year and drives a Yaris hybrid, the car isn't driving every week and sometimes its been a fortnight or 3 weeks and there hasn't been any issue with getting into the car or starting. I would suggest looking for a car that doesn't have keyless entry if you are concerned about the Battery running down during long periods of sitting idle.

[eygo]

i am sure you can turn off the keyless entry system,i know i can on my IS hybrid i only remembered

this after my Battery went flat over christmas time as i hadn't used my car for 3 weeks,

if i have to leave my car for a long time again i will disable the keyless entry as a precaution.

[ian rooke]

Hi its not the tracton  Battery you have to worry about its the 12v Battery its a lot smaller than a normal car Battery so has less capacity and is less tolerant of a small drain for a long time, it only starts the computers not the engine, the traction does that. So just make sure it is kept in good condition

[IanML]

It sounds to me that the answer, as someone suggested above, is a trickle charger, provided the car is kept in a garage.  Good quality ones come with a harness, which attaches to the 12V Battery terminals and offers a socket at the other end to plug in the charger, so there's no messing with croc clips.  It will keep the charge fully up, and prevent the Battery sulphating through lack of use.

The Battery will probably last the life of the car with that regime.

[Anthony Poli]

It sounds to me that the answer, as someone suggested above, is a trickle charger, provided the car is kept in a garage.  Good quality ones come with a harness, which attaches to the 12V battery terminals and offers a socket at the other end to plug in the charger, so there's no messing with croc clips.  It will keep the charge fully up, and prevent the battery sulphating through lack of use.

The battery will probably last the life of the car with that regime.

Some chargers have quick disconnecting leads so you leave the clips on the Battery. Unplug and go.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Alan1234]

Surely if your doing 2-10 miles a day you would be better off in a Nissan Leaf electric car or similar 

[don21]

Have to agree with Alan1234. WE have a Leaf and I have just bought a 2016 Excel Hybrid. My wife commutes 60 miles a day in the Leaf and I would say the range is easily about 85. I have only had the Auris for two weeks but did own a Prius a while ago. The best I have managed on my 20 mile total commute is around 50mpg and it seems to me that short journeys of a mile or two are not what the hybrid is ideally suited for.

The Leaf is a terrific car and it would seem in this case ideal for the OP to consider. There are now loads of used ones available and Battery degradation does not seem to much of an issue in the U.K. climate. The do depreciate rather rapidly so used is the way to go.

Still loving my Auris Hybrid.

[eygo]

the OP does say its for their elderly mum,its a possibility they may forget to plug it in to charge the batteries

and not every one has off road parking where they can have a charging station fitted,

personally there is only 1 EV car that i would consider and thats the tesla as you have a good range ,

if you could have an inductive charger fitted into your drive so you only need to drive over the charging plate

then a leaf or the like maybe alright for everyday driving as it would always be fully charged and ready to go.