There are always many commuters who move daily from the suburbs and provinces that surround the big cities & agrave; to travel to the workplace. For some time we have therefore thought of setting up this format through which we try to analyze the real consumption of a & # 39; car, simulating exactly its use & quot; commuter & quot ;. About a month ago under my clutches & egrave; happened the Kia XCeed Plug-in Hybrid , the latest arrival among the engines that the house offers for this model. How will it be? gone? How much did I consume and how much did I spend to complete my work week? Let's find out now together.
THE CAR 
I'll start by talking quickly about the car I used for this test. As I told you this is the Kia XCeed Plug-in Hybrid , to all intents and purposes an XCeed to which a battery and an electric motor have been added. We are therefore talking about a car that can & ograve; be inserted in segment C as the meeting point between an SUV and a Coup & eacute; . If we want to keep it simple we could say that it is a crossover but the term is; now inflated and in this category falls everything and more ;.
In general we talk about a car that is also fun to drive at times , equipped with precise and direct steering, good road holding and, in the engine we tested, also an interesting starting point when we hit the pedal. Despite the regenerative system, typical of electrified models, I must say that the behavior of the brake is; always predictable and guarantees good performance and reliability.
But let's get to the point. Under the hood there is a 1.6-liter petrol heat engine flanked by a 44.5 kW electric powered by an 8.9 kWh battery. Overall we are talking about a solution capable of delivering up to 141 hp (104 kW) and 265 Nm of torque . The traction is; only front but, certainly thanks to the presence of the electric engine, a large part of the torque is; already available at low revs and makes the car reactive, as I said, sometimes even fun.
The space on board is; enough to travel comfortably, even with two adults sitting in the rear seats. The cockpit is comfortable, the appropriately enveloping seats and the materials used are of good quality, starting from the plastics of the dashboard up to the leather of the seats. In short, the only “ flaw '' to report & egrave; the boot capacity , significantly reduced compared to that of the non-plug-in version. Blame the battery pack, which steals a lot of space and reduces everything to 290 liters.
THE PATH 
Let's go back to us and in particular to our test. As I said earlier, the test consists in using the car for a week exactly as if it were our own car. to simulate perfectly and in the most appropriate way; what could be its behavior in terms of consumption on the journey from home to office is realistic. Specifically we are talking about 50 km for the one-way trip and, obviously, the same for the return one; for a weekly total of around 500 km, one meter plus; less than one meter.
These 50 km include urban and extra-urban roads and, for most of the journey, motorways . This is a fairly demanding test bench for a car of this kind. We know well, in fact, how the motorway and the fast roads represent the situations in which the electric motor is; led to consume more; battery. Surely also for this reason, using only the electric engine, I never reached the 54 km of autonomy declared by Kia. But we'll come back to this shortly.
CONSUMPTIONS 
In order to make the most of the features of the plug-in hybrid engine I fully charged the car battery every evening to be able to leave the next day with maximum availability; of energy and therefore take advantage of the electric motor to reduce consumption. An adapter is supplied with the car which allows you to recharge safely from home using a normal shuko socket. In this mode; it takes about 4 hours and 30 minutes for a complete recharge which go down to just under 3 hours if we use a classic column.
Knowing being able to charge the battery. car every day without too many complications and a & # 39; fundamental aspect and to be absolutely taken into consideration if you are thinking of buying a car equipped with this technology. If you cannot take advantage of this feature, in fact, the advantages in terms of fuel and euro savings are lost, and you will basically find yourself in your hands a car that consumes like a normal hybrid and a little more; or a little less than a recent diesel.
In this regard, I regret the fact of not having had the opportunity; to recharge this XCeed plug-in also in the office; an operation that would have further reduced consumption and would have saved me a few more euros. As I said above, in fact, the autonomy in total electric on my path, is & quot; limited & quot; 48-49 km , enough to cover only the outward or return journey, thus leaving one of the two routes uncovered.
Obviously & egrave; It is possible to choose whether to travel entirely in electric mode, in mode; classic hybrid, or in mode & agrave; automatic, letting the machine choose which mode; use according to the route. With the battery fully charged, by setting the mode; electric I managed to cover my approximately 50 km with an average of 1.8 liters per 100 km , then climbed to 5.8 for the return trip. The average of the total round trip is; therefore equal to 3.5 liters per 100 km.
During the week I tried to change the mode & agrave; driving, to partialize the use of the mode electric and I tried to optimize my driving style as much as possible, obviously with the aim of minimizing consumption. The result? On balance the differences are practically imperceptible and my 5 working days ended with an average consumption always and in any case of 3.5 liters per 100 km which were in reality; revealed 3.3 liters to the refill test. After 5 days and 510 km (traveled with an average speed of 52 km/h) I actually consumed exactly 17 liters of fuel, thus managing to travel an average of 30 km with a liter of petrol .
THE EXPENSE 
But let's do the math for a moment also from an economic point of view. How much I & egrave; cost this week in & quot; partially electric & quot ;? The price of gasoline at the time of the test was 1.59 euros per liter and therefore led me to spend 27 euros on fuel to which approximately 13 euros of electricity must be added for the various recharges (based on my rate of 0.32 euros per kW). The total & egrave; so 40 euros a week to cover my home-office commute for 5 working days.
To calculate the possible savings in economic terms compared to an equivalent car with only heat engine I therefore considered the same XCeed in the version with a 1.5-liter turbo-petrol engine, which has a few more horsepower; but which offers substantially the same couple and which will have; therefore a behavior very similar to the pedal. Based on the consumption declared by Kia (generally underestimated), we are talking about an average combined consumption of 6.3 liters per 100 km and therefore slightly more; 32 liters per week with an estimated cost of 51 euros.
So, taking the sums, we are talking about a saving of 10 euros a week which becomes 40 in a month and about 500 euros in a year . To this must be added any discounts and exemptions regarding the road tax, car parks and entrances in the ZTL which for & ograve; they vary according to regions, provinces and cities.
The environmental factor should not be forgotten. Still considering my commute from home to work, the emissions of the petrol model would reach 72 kg of Co2 per week against the 19 kg of the Plug-in hybrid model . On an annual basis we therefore speak of about 2700 kg of CO2 saved, and sorry if & egrave; little.
PRICE AND CONSIDERATIONS 
price which, as for all electric or plug-in hybrid cars, is; definitely more; high of the versions with more engines; classic. The surcharge is; obviously due to the cost of the batteries and the whole hybrid system and, calculating the savings as above, comes It is difficult to think of being able to re-enter the investment with only savings on consumption , given that in any case it is not; the only aspect to take into consideration.
In this period, however, a big hand in overcoming this obstacle is offered to us by incentives and discounts that can lead to a significant decrease in the cost of an electric or hybrid car. The price list for the PHEV version of XCeed starts at € 37,750 but, by accumulating incentives and promotions of the house, you can get up to € 8,500 discount which bring the figure a little more ; of 29,000 euros which are only 1,000 euros more; of the petrol model mentioned above and with the same equipment. So if you fall into a category of customers that can & ograve; have access to the maximum discount, I tell you clearly, I would not think twice: PHEV for life!
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