Normally I would do about 12,000 – 14,000 km in a year. Typically about 40 – 50% would have been as return trips of less than 100 km. However in these corona times this pattern has been drastically disrupted. I expect that my first year with my Mercedes E300e will see only 50% of my usual total usage. But the real change is that over 80% of my actual usage has been for return trips of less than 100km. Since April there has been only one “long” trip (480km return).
Nevertheless, I am beginning to draw some conclusions.
The battery of the Mercedes E300e has a total capacity of 13.5 kWh. The usable capacity is about 10.8 kWh. The unused capacity seems to be a permanent reserve kept for all starts and when travelling at less than about 15 km/h. What I actually get is an all-electric range of 40 – 65 km. The 40 km is when trips are predominantly short with very little regenerative charging. This goes up to as much as 65 km during return trips exceeding 150 km where the regenerative charging gives about 10 – 15 km depending upon terrain. Charging the battery (10.8 kWh) takes about 1h 45m.
The nice thing about the hybrid is that running out of battery capacity is of no concern. The petrol tank (55 litres) gives a range of over 1,000 km and is always there as the back-up for short trips which are longer than expected. For long trips the battery provides the start/stop economy and with the regenerative capacity, petrol consumption is minimised in the uneconomic range. When operating in hybrid mode the switchover between petrol and the battery, in either direction, is automatic and almost unnoticeable.
The performance in winter still remains to be seen.
Electricity consumption thus varies from about 24 kWh/ 100 km (short trips) to about 18 kWh/100 km for longer trips. Currently my petrol consumption (which is somewhat distorted by the lack of longer trips) is at about 5.1 litres /100 km.
So far so good.
The k2p blog 