 | Home > General & Technical (L663) > 400e Charging HV Battery from Engine |
 
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| Cwe1941 Member Since: 08 Mar 2020 Location: Cheshire Posts: 35  
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From an L405 p400e owner perspective, no this is not possible.
The engine will very slightly charge the battery to ensure there is a minimal amount always available, but not to add significant charge. May be different on the L663 of course...but I doubt it |
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12th Feb 2025 11:46am |
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| o-ren-ishii Member Since: 25 Jul 2023 Location: The Hague Posts: 40 
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got the l663 P400e, same. It charges a little bit (up to a few percent) with petrol running. You can charge it significantly more by running of a mountain while braking (got up to 50%).
Why do you want to charge it, because energy wise it's wasting by converting of course ? |
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12th Feb 2025 12:00pm |
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| Gareth Member Since: 12 Dec 2011 Location: Woodford Posts: 1116 
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I don’t think so. My friend has one, and it has regenerative braking which harvests power back to the HV battery, but in normal driving with the petrol engine it doesn’t, unless decelerating. I thought this was the normal situation for a plug in hybrid. 2021 Defender 110 X-Dynamic HSE D300 MHEV
1966 S2a 109 aka Betsy |
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12th Feb 2025 12:01pm |
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| Tuath Member Since: 12 Feb 2025 Location: UK Posts: 13
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Thanks for the quick replies - that is a lucky save!
Given the off-road / pure target market of the Defender I would have assumed this was possible, so good to know (even if it knocks the Dender of the list). Seems this is a feature limited to some German / Scandinavian cars, like Night Vision with animal detection. o-ren-ishii – no it’s not about wasteful conversion!!  We are split across 2 locations at the moment, one in the south with 2 full size PV arrays (hence PHEV as free fuel for local day-to-day in the summer especially), the other is extreme north and very remote. We cannot always charge in the far north (no PV there yet and very sparse charging points), and keeping full electric range (and then replenishing it after refuelling with petrol) gives us a tangible reserve (and in some bad weather cases has already saved us when fuel stations are out of petrol – which is quite common up there in the winter). Other option is a jerry of fuel (like I keep in the TD5), but that takes up space, and eventually loses octane.
I realise our circumstances are niche, just glad there are cars that can do this and that I know the new Defender is not for us before buying one!! Thanks again for confirming, expensive mistake avoided… Last edited by Tuath on 12th Feb 2025 12:22pm. Edited 1 time in total |
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12th Feb 2025 12:13pm |
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| Tuath Member Since: 12 Feb 2025 Location: UK Posts: 13
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PS. Just for the record I can confirm that the Touareg R hybrid, BMW i8 and Porche Cayenne (at least the 2017 model) all have the ability to actively replenish / charge the HV battery from the combustion engine whilst driving (should anyone be searching in the future) - strangely these oddities happen to be the only hybrids we've owned, so I just assumed it was standard in all PHEV's (which is clearly wrong). Luck save, as I said - thanks everyone!
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12th Feb 2025 12:19pm |
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| TexasRover Member Since: 24 Nov 2022 Location: Paris Posts: 1144  
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I recently rented some sort of Mitsubishi soft-roader car thing which was hybrid. My son wanted to try it out, it cost a little bit more to rent.
Arrived at the rental place (avis or something) to find that no we don't charge the battery, so you start with 1-2%. We drove ~1200km mainly motorway and it barely got above 5% ever. We never had the opportunity to charge it, so it's benefits were limited to regenerative braking, probably saving mainly in city traffic. Was not really worth paying more for, especially if the rental company probably pocketed the tax benefits, which is probably one of the main reasons for the technology to be developed. I am sure it's great technology in the right conditions. |
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12th Feb 2025 12:39pm |
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| Tuath Member Since: 12 Feb 2025 Location: UK Posts: 13
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If you have 6kv+ of PV array on an original feed-in tarrif at home a PHEV makes fantastic sense (we receive payments for total power generated, not just what is fed back to the grid so slow charging in the summer means we get free mileage in terms of fuel, but also payment per kwh for using it too!!).
However, I do agree with your point in that I don't think I would rent one if away from home. The oddity in our current situation is that a solid 20+ miles of reserve with a full HV battery is also very nice to have, but that is only because of the remoteness and fuel availability issues that can happen. If you visit 2 garages and both are out of fuel, the next nearest is 80 miles away, then even sensible planning doesn't always work - very niche circumstances I guess |
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12th Feb 2025 12:50pm |
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| o-ren-ishii Member Since: 25 Jul 2023 Location: The Hague Posts: 40
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Ah, ok as an alternative to fuel I get it yeah. But your question was to run the fuel engine to charge the battery, right? Or did I mistake your question. Because charging with a cable is definitely possible, I do it all the time. Took the car for a 35000drive last year to pretty remote areas. Haven't done much (if any) electric charging but I really like the regeneration on the way down from the mountains. Makes up for a bit of the horrible consumption haha.  Click image to enlarge |
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12th Feb 2025 1:47pm |
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| Tuath Member Since: 12 Feb 2025 Location: UK Posts: 13
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That looks quite familiar – miles of open shrubland and mountains for company!!
Yep, you are right on the petrol to charge – on the worst occasion thus far we drove all the time with ‘hold charge’ enabled to keep petrol range at max. - when when the petrol situation got a bit iffy (after the 2nd station had also run out of petrol) we switched the car into hybrid, and finally went electric only for the last few miles to the third (which we’d called ahead to so knew they had fuel for us). Once the tank was full again, we charged the car using the combustion engine feature, then stopped at the next petrol station to top the tank right up again so we had a fuel tank and our electric reserve too. Nothing to say it cannot be done just fine without that feature, but it was a real bonus (and provided options) on that drive – especially as we were dealing with snow / ice at the time so progress was slower too. |
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12th Feb 2025 4:06pm |
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| Metisse Member Since: 03 Jun 2022 Location: Wiltshire Posts: 6
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Too many replies from those who assume and do not have an L663 p400e!!
You can definitely charge the battery whilst driving on the petrol engine. Not used it to get to 100% but have used it to get to over 70% charge. Use the centre EV button to select 'SAVE' and it will replenish the Hybrid battery. As to be expected, fuel consumption is very poor when you do this. 2022 Defender 110 HSE P400e Tasman Blue |
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13th Feb 2025 7:36am |
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| Tuath Member Since: 12 Feb 2025 Location: UK Posts: 13
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Thank you Metisse, really appreciated. Consumption is just as poor on the other vehicles, so no surprise there as you say.
Looks like it’s definitely worth a test drive, and probably worth making a list of all these things so we can try them first hand (I’ve learnt not to rely on any dealer for any brand in terms of product knowledge, some are great – but some seem to barely know it’s a car!!  ).
My wife is already keen, so next thing to do is to go convince my Td5 to play nice if we get one! |
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13th Feb 2025 8:45am |
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| pjm-84 Member Since: 12 Apr 2021 Location: Hampshire Posts: 677
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Had it on an Outlander and pointless to be honest. Consumption would drop to low 20s from mid to high 30s. That had a save button and a charge button.
The BMW doesn't do this, but will put charge back in under braking etc. The most you can build up from a flat battery is 2miles. That said it will do mid to high 30s (mpg) from the 3.0l petrol engine. The Save button in the BMW does just that. |
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13th Feb 2025 9:13am |
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| Tuath Member Since: 12 Feb 2025 Location: UK Posts: 13
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Not pointless at all pjm-84 - depends on the situation and your use case.
Pointless around towns and in places like south, central England maybe (we certainly have never used it there in any of our vehicles) - but look at the scenario I detailed above and it reallysaved our bacon! Depends on where you go and in what conditions / circumstances, I do get that only a fraction of these types of vehicle ever get used where they are actually capable of going... |
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13th Feb 2025 9:20am |
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| pjm-84 Member Since: 12 Apr 2021 Location: Hampshire Posts: 677
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So you will use more fuel to charge the car to have less range
BMW obviously thought so and the button on the Outlander was the button of death. It felt like someone had pulled the handbrake on if you pressed it accidental. Used once never to be used again when you're struggling to better 20mpg from a 118hp 2.0l engine. The CVT box made it all feel a lot worse. |
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13th Feb 2025 10:14am |
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