Let’s face it this fuel cost is not coming down anytime soon, in my frustration with the cost of fuel, especially on petrol engines I ran into a story on Facebook that I felt might be helpful to someone like it was to me. Before reading this story I was quite skeptical due to a lot of speculations on the durability of battery-powered engines, the same myths that people have over non-Toyota vehicles, but let me not digress.
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Hybrid SUV
The story is a review of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV SUV and how economical that vehicle is. Not being one to take any claim as gospel truth, I carried out a bit of research on the vehicle and came to some more discoveries about the vehicle that I’ll share after the story.
Here’s the story about this hybrid engine
I keep being asked the question, how much does it cost to charge an electric car? Others ask the question, where do you charge? And still others ask, isn’t electricity more expensive than petrol? Others think an electric car is a tiny little powerless car that looks miserable and is miserable to drive.
I would like to answer these questions and hopefully help people make decisions that will change their cars and their costs of driving…
My journey towards electric cars began with a Toyota Prius Hybrid car which I have driven for about four and a half years. I have enjoyed the car immensely and its economy is amazing. Before the Prius, I used to spend about kshs 12,000 per month on fuel but as the Prius would easily do between 20 to 25 kilometers on a liter of fuel, my fuel costs fell to about kshs 4,000 a month.
This completely converted me and I began reading, researching, and looking for an electric car. Due to having very few charging ports installed publicly, I wanted a plug-in hybrid electric car. This is a car that you plug in and charge but it also has an engine that comes on when the batteries are depleted. I looked at the Nissan Leaf which is fully electric and has a range of between 117 Kilometers per full charge for older versions to 350 kilometers for newer models. This is available secondhand for about kshs 1.5M for an import from Japan.
There is also a new brand Hyundai Kona but the price range was a little high.
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV
I settled on the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV because it gives me an electric drive train for the local town running without the fear of being stuck when charge runs out as it has a hybrid petrol engine. The car is a 4WD SUV and has the smarts and power comparable to any SUV in its range.
A full charge of the car takes about 3 hours and consumes 5 kilowatt hour of electricity. From my calculations, 1 kilowatt hour of electricity costs me kshs 21. This means I spend kshs 105 for a full charge. On a full charge, the car gives me approximately 70 kilometers of driving and it, therefore, costs me kshs 105 to travel 70 kilometers in the comfort of my car. That is like driving from Nairobi to Makuyu or Nairobi to past Kijabe or Mombasa to past Kilifi with Kshs 105.
Electricity is cheaper than fuel, actually, electricity is cheaper even in cooking, cheaper than charcoal and gas.
How do I charge? The car comes with a charger that plugs into a normal home socket and takes about 3 hours to charge. I have driven this car for about 4 months now and I did not even notice a change in my monthly electricity consumption.
Out of my experience, go electric or go hybrid and cut your driving costs…
Are the claims about the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV true?
After reading the story I was sold on this SUV and wondered why they are not so popular on our roads. I decided to do a bit of basic research on a few things that didn’t add up. First I felt the economy on power was a bit exaggerated which happened to be the case. On full charge, most sources that I used stated that the vehicle can only go 22 Miles or 35 Kilometers. But the sources plus the story was not specific on the engine capacity of the car where bigger engines would naturally consume more power.
The other claims on the cost of electricity could not be verified due to many variables on this cost depending on location etc, so I chose not to get into that. I did however research the durability of the battery and I discovered that the warranty of the battery is 100k Miles or 116K kilometers or 10 years whichever comes first, this information is very important if you are thinking about buying this vehicle second-hand because most of them would have clocked 80K miles and above at the time of purchase you may need to get a new battery to go along with the vehicle in such an instance.
On reliability, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is credited with being one of the best hybrid crossover SUVs and has even won a number of awards for this. In terms of aesthetics, the vehicle does have an appealing look and a good ground clearance fit for Kenyan roads.
Now for the cost, to be on the safe side, it would be best to purchase this vehicle new and if considering getting it second hand, you better get one with mileage less that 20K Miles or manufactured within the past five years. The numbers on BeForward are as follows a 2015 2000cc Model goes for 2.5M Ksh at the time of writing this article while a 2020 2000cc model goes for 5.1M Ksh both with Mileage of less that 25K Miles.
This 2019 model would be most ideal as it has low mileage and a bigger engine.
Conclusion
Phev (Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) is the future, and if the mileage of the sample vehicles I have tagged is anything to go by, I wouldn’t be worried much about battery failure. Also, the cost of purchase is the same as other SUVs in the same category if not lower.
