Egonvdv

I'm a bit confused about how the different drive programs work and should be used.

So far I've only driven it to work and back so fully electric (EL program); no issues there.

But the other day i did my first longer drive of 80kms.
I Left with a full battery, drive program economic ("E"), GPS on and I was under the impression that the car would find the right balance for the programmed drive..
But when I arrived the battery was still 75% full?!

Am I to understand that it's up to me to decide when to switch from full electric to mixed (and back)?

Egonvdv

Nobody with a hybrid that can give me some tips ? :-)

superswiss

Most members here are from North America, and the hybrids aren't sold here. A bit of googling turns up the following video that might answer your questions. This guy does a lot of videos explaining how stuff works in various Mercedes vehicles. Might wanna check out his channel.

Egonvdv

thanks

I saw that video , but it doesn't really explain in detail how the different programs work.

I think it's a matter of being actively involved during your drive and switching between programs as you see fit,

IE: When driving in hybrid and i have 15kms worth of battery power, then it's up to me to switch from hybrid to battery 15kms before the destination.
Provided i can charge there of course, otherwise it's better to keep it for the next leg of the journey...

superswiss

Generally, yes it's up to the driver to pick the appropriate mode. There isn't really an intelligent mode that tries to figure it out for you. Goes for non-hybrids, too. One has to deliberately switch to the sport modes if they wanna drive in a more sporty manner. The thing is the car really doesn't know what your plans are at the destination, so using up the battery while driving on the motorway for a while wouldn't be a smart idea if for example at the destination you gonna be driving around in a city for a bit and want to do that in electric mode. Some hybrid rentals I drove in Europe, for example the Audi A3 e-tron, had three hybrid modes. Electric, Preserve battery and Hybrid. The Preserve battery is similar to Battery Level explained in the video. Basically preserves the battery charge, so you have enough to drive fully electric at the destination. Fully electric cars usually have a setting where you can tell it how much battery you wanna have left when arriving at the destination, so it plans the charging stops accordingly.

Egonvdv

thanks
in the manual it explains that when driving with GPS on, the car "knows" where you're going and calculates accordingly.
in my mind it would do so in a way that battery is fully used... ,
but now that I think about it; this would not be very practical, as it mean you'd have to charge at each stop .. ;-)

superswiss

Exactly. Arriving with an empty battery is not necessarily what you want. It can calculate the most efficient use of the engine and the electric motor over the course of your route, but that doesn't mean it necessarily has to use all of the battery charge. It's also about efficiently recuperating energy that you can use at a later time. It doesn't necessarily have to be used up for your current trip to be efficient. Just take an extreme example. Let's say you are starting your trip at the top of a mountain and drive downhill for 80 km. If you start with an empty battery at the top, you'll likely arrive with a full battery at the bottom, because it recuperated as much energy as it could.