PHEV S-mode regen

[ernieb]

Over the last couple of days I’ve been playing with the regen when using the Select S-mode.

When driving on a level road I’ve found with the PHEV  in EV mode selecting S-mode while slowing down for say a roundabout puts the car into S-4. I know this is a pseudo gear mode but looking at the energy meter the needle moves more into regen as if you’d braked slightly more.

Once stationary and the car in S-mode, it stays in S-4, in fact I’ve subsequently found out that selecting S-5 or S-6 when stationary, still allows the car to pull away so the selection has no effect that I can see when moving from a standing start.  Selecting a lower “gear”  than S-4 when decelerating will very momentarily show a better regen but it’s not sustained.

If the car is going downhill then selecting a lower “gear” seems to sustain the regen level slightly and more effectively brakes the car.

My initial thoughts are when driving in EV mode is that using the S-mode might be easier to control the regen and speed when going downhill but probably not worth the pain if on the level, just a light touch on the brake gets the same results. It would be easier if the car had paddle shifters.

 

I’ll try to play with the S-mode when I’m next in hybrid mode and see what happens.