Initial Experience with C5X PHEV

Ken W

Ken W

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Hi Fellow Froggers,

I suppose it is time to reveal that the Queensland Citroen Dealer managed to snare and I managed to purchase the only C5X PHEV that has come into Australia this year. Late last year , Citroen Australia placed an order for 15 of these cars to be used as demonstrators for dealer network but Citroen only managed to ship one car of this order in January. As it was realised that this almost non- supply would cause the release of the PHEV model to be delayed for a second time, Citroen Australia agreed to Brett Cullen’s request that the car be sold to one of his customers.

I picked up the C5X from Brett Cullen in Nambour on a Friday afternoon 15th March and we set out for the Devonport Citin on the following Saturday morning to catch the Spirit of Tasmania from Geelong on the following Monday. We travelled the Pacific Highway to Raymond Terrace then the Hume Highway to Albury and onto Geelong the next day. We were very glad Brett managed to get the Australian navigation maps downloaded just before we picked up the car.

The PHEV version has adaptive dampers that allow a Comfort, Normal and Firm modes. I’m not sure yet what mode it uses in Electric, there is a choice of comfort or normal in Hybrid mode, and Firm is used in Sports mode. The suspension feels quite compliant which makes the car comfortable on the road but using the comfort mode with a bit of a load onboard on some of the older undulating sections of the Hume Highway results in hitting the progressive bump stops at the rear. The electric motor appears to be geared through the 8 speed gearbox and has enough torque to spin the front wheels quite easily. The petrol engine revs out with a nice burble when accelerating out of a service station and up to 110km/hr as my partner found.

It was hit and miss as far as recharging the battery while travelling (unless you have planned for it) and the limited electric range did not really help fuel consumption much on the highway. We managed to get 600km range out of the 40 litre petrol tank by running down into the reserve section of the gauge. If you do manage to get a full charge overnight and you put your destination into the Navigation System the next day, it will use the battery charge to enhance the Hybrid operation to improve fuel consumption and exhaust the battery as you arrive at your destination. I bought a 10m extension lead at Coffs Harbour Bunnings that had 10 amp plugs but thicker 15amp wiring and managed to use that to charge from a couple of motel rooms and our rellies house in Hobart. I also managed to purchase a Type 2 to Type 2 single phase charging cable from Supercheap in Wodonga so I could use commercial chargers where I could access them. I used a Chargefox charger in the Council Carpark in Devonport 3 times which allowed me to cruise into the Show and Shine in Electric mode. On the way home the motel where we stayed in Goulburn had 5 x Tesla chargers spread around the carpark and I used one of them to get a free full charge into the battery. Since we returned home about 4 weeks ago, we have hardly used any petrol from our last fill on the Gold Coast and have been cruising around Brisbane on Electric Mode just recharging it overnight.

When running in hybrid mode with the cruise control on, the car will not speed up down hills but will activate the regenerative braking to feed energy back into the battery and keep the speed at the set level. Without the cruise control set, the default mode for regenerative braking works by feeding a small amount of power back to the battery on overrun in Electric mode and then this is boosted when the brake pedal is depressed and brake lights activated. Power is fed to the battery down to about 10km/hr after which the brakes are then applied. There is also a B mode selectable on the gear mode selector that applies a larger regenerative braking as you lift off the accelerator. The only downside to this one pedal operating mode is that the brake lights are not activated until you complete the stop by applying the brake pedal.

Petrol consumption on the trip to Tasmania and back was 5.5litres/100km and we around town we are getting about 50km out of each full electric charge. Since we returned to Brisbane 4 weeks ago, the car has mainly travelled around town for about 700km in electric mode. I just let if fully charge overnight most nights. I am working on putting a small solar charging system together that I could use during the day for partial top-ups if we need to travel more than 50km a day. When you turn the system off at the completion of a drive, the dash displays a summary of the fuel and electric use during the drive. It reports that we are using a minimum of 17 kWh/100km on a good drive and up to 20 kWhr/100km on a more difficult drive (See pics below). These results compare favourably with other EV cars.

Overall, we are thrilled with the C5X PHEV. It meets all the criteria that we had for the replacement of our C5X7 as our main around town car with a capability to do long trips without range anxiety.

Happy to answer any questions?

Cheers, Ken W

Photos are
1. On Delivery Day
2. Sneaky Motel Room Charging
3. At the Show and Shine with Jack Gibneys C5X Petrol
4. Yes it is a Hybrid
5. At Double Lagoon near the Great Lake
6. Electric Trip Summary: 34 km left in Battery, 14km trip



C5X on Delivery Day.jpg
Sneaky Motel Room Charge at Raymond Tce.jpg
2 C5xes in Devonport 2.jpg
Hybrid Insignia.jpg

At Double Lagoon.jpg
Trip Summary.jpg
 
Good summary Ken. My only comment is that portable solar blankets produce well below the advertised amount and are unlikely to add much range.
 
Interesting account, but I have some questions.

Isn't the point of a hybrid avoiding this charging to-do? I had thought that the C5X would not need this hassle.

How did you get from Raymond Terrace to the Hume? Did you go through heavy Sydney traffic or skirt around outer suburbs? Was it the bumpy old narrow Hume or the motorway?
 
She looks superb and probably the lightest paint colour available too.
I am left wondering ... why has the supply issue been so painful ?
It is almost like the distributors are not taking this market seriously.
Green with envy !!!!!
And no bloody inaccessible spheres to worry about. My son in law has a Tesla model Y .. and in Darwin for his home to office run has never had to pay for a recharge. Ever, though I suspect that will have to come to an end.
Please keep us informed and when the sun returns detail how good the air con is. The Tesla can have its air con initiated via his phone, a useful feature, but it never sits in the Darwin sun anyway.
 
Ken, you have just sent me to the Citroen Australia website ( still no mention of a PHEV that I saw ) ... still no new car dealership in Brisbane and East Coast Commercials at Acacia Ridge are listed as a service centre. Their website is showing a used low Ks Petrol C5X already, probably ex Sydney. We can only hope that some movement on the distribution/dealership side is slowly happening.
Continental Cars in Sydney are offering 3 barely used petrol C5X today too. I might get to see one in the flesh soon, having seen a C5 Aircross in traffic only once in SE QLD.
 
PeterMol said:
Good summary Ken. My only comment is that portable solar blankets produce well below the advertised amount and are unlikely to add much range.
Click to expand...
Hi Peter,
Yes you are right. Once you are into battery powered cars, you are in the big league when it comes to the power levels required. With the CX5 PHEV taking about 10 kWhours of power for a full charge you need to use a 10 amp 240 volt charger for a bit over 4 hours continuous. It's like running your kettle or toaster for just over 4 hours. You would need at least a solar system with 2kW output over 5 hours, a clear view of the sun and good weather to get anywhere near the amount required and about 10kW of batteries to buffer the system so you can charge when convenient for you.

I've been doing some experiments with a 48Vdc to 240Vac inverter with 1.6kVA output power and the 12Vdc to 240Vac 2kW inverter I have in my campervan. I strung 4 x 12 volt batteries together and managed to get the 48Vdc inverter to supply 7 amps at 240 volts into the car charger but it only ran for 2 minutes before the battery voltage dropped so far the inverter cut out. This shows the importance of having good batteries. The Campervan setup performed better as I have 2 new 120 amphour lithium batteries and I manged to increase the ev battery by 5% over 15 minutes of running while supplying 7 amps of 240 volts into the ev battery charger. Each battery was contributing 85 amps to the inverter.

So that shows I have some of the components to be able to charge it from solar down the track if it starts to make sense.

Cheers, Ken
 
The battery capacity is a fraction over 12 kWh, but you would not habitually want to charge it fully anyway. Also leave some capacity headroom for storage of recovered energy. The maximum charge rate will be something like 3.7. A 10A socket should give about 2.2, which is like running a 2 bar radiator flat out. Remember anyone with a smart meter is probably on time of use billing so there are times of the day and year where charging the car will be relatively expensive. Usually, a single-phase home 'fast' charger is 7.4 kWh (=32A 240V), but you can't take full advantage of that with this particular PHEV. A 15A socket and cheap 15A charger cable (c$250) is about the max for the PHEV. In strong sun a typical rooftop system could keep up and one o the larger Tesla Powerwalls would also do the job as they max out at about 3 kW continuous before you add solar. A friend tried charging an EV using an off-grid gen+batteries system and it wasn't happy to do so, probably because the power was not 'clean' enough. Be mindful of how much you discharge those camper batteries as you can very substantially shorten their life if used improperly. They will not take the extreme discharge in the same way as for an old Edison / phone exchange battery.
 
Hi Seasink,

In Hybrid mode, you can only use the limited power coming from regenerative braking and the petrol engine to charge the battery. Every time you convert energy, there are losses as conversion efficiency is only 80 to 90%. The advantage of the plug-in Hybrid is that you have a head start on other straight hybrids and can take on 50km of trips a day without the car producing any CO2 or other emissions. You just have to set up a system where it is easy to charge the car overnight.

We needed to get to Geelong in 3 days so we took the Pacific and Hume route because with the 4 lane highway all the way, we thought it would be safer, better and easier than the degraded two lane inland route. We took the toll roads through Sydney. Northconnex followed by Westconnex and then 'southconnex' to the Hume. Luckily it was Sunday so no delays and only a lot of 80km/hr and $25.00 of tolls for a reasonably stress free transit. The sections of the Hume where they used the old road as part of the 4 lane upgrade were very undulating though and required us to slow down a bit from 110km/hr.

Cheers, Ken
 
Thanks for the reply Ken. I had assumed that this car was like driving a Prius or Camry.

I asked about the missing link in your route account because it was the most "interesting bit". You actually followed all the appropriate motorways and paid multiple tolls for the shortest times. I had wondered if you had found one of the untolled routes after you crossed the Hawkesbury River on the M1 freeway. They save money rather than time.

PS Names: The tunnel connects to the M2, which goes into the Westlink M7 and on to the Hume. It is a rather long bypass but avoids much traffic.
 
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Ken, I cannot imagine a better and more "connected" owner for the new C5X .... You are already on the next level of technology.
I suspect I prefer steam !
 
Hi Ken
you sat on that little gem of information (your purchase of the only C5X hybrid in the country) for a long time!! Well done and I hope your purchase gives you plenty of Joy for years to come.
Cheers, Robin
 
I appreciate you initiating this thread, Ken. It's what I had in mind when suggesting 'Impressions' threads in my recent post in the long-running 'Inchcape' thread.

I have owned a 2021 Mercedes Benz EQA250 BEV for about 2 years and as most of our motoring is in the city and near country, I've always been able recharge the high voltage battery with our 16.3kW home solar system and Beny (Chinese) wallbox. I time EV battery recharging to coincide with sunny weather, so (capital cost aside) our energy cost is the 5 cents per kWh not fed back to the grid. Our EV energy use is not dissimilar to the C5X PHEV: high 16s to around 18kW in summer (higher for short journeys) and low 20s in winter (heating the car certainly chews up energy!).

The main EV-related things I like about the Merc are the economical energy cost (in our circumstances), the silence and the extensively configurable regenerative braking system. The Merc system allows you to select 2 levels of regenerative braking, a 'normal' setting (a bit like engine compression deceleration in an ICE vehicle), a coasting setting (like a manual vehicle in neutral) and 'D Auto', where the car applies the setting according to perceived need. A lot of people like D Auto; I don't, as in my experience you're never quite sure what's going to happen in any given circumstance.

You mentioned that in cruise control mode, the C5X PHEV uses regenerative braking to control speed in downhill situations. The EQA250 does the same; it also employs battery regeneration in 'speed limiter' mode. Does the C5X PHEV have a speed limiter function and does it use battery regeneration to limit downhill speed? I recall my last 'modern' Cit - a 2015 C4 Picasso (5 seater) - had cruise and speed limiter. I use the speed limiter on almost every journey, so for me it's an important feature.

Whilst I currently own a Mercedes, I retain a strong allegiance to the Citroen marque and although the C5X is a bit larger than I'd prefer, the C5X PHEV is a tempting prospect, supply and backup issues notwithstanding. Whilst the EV aspect is important to me, other criteria are also important.

My only experience with the C5X was a short journey around Murray Bridge during Citin 2023, as a passenger with the late Greg Moorhouse at the wheel. Ride comfort and impact harshness are two very important criteria for me and the latter in particualar is, in my view, a weakness of the Merc EQA250. Whilst we were restricted to low speed, I was quite impressed with the C5X's ride; impact harshness also seemed to be quite nicely suppressed. I'd be interested in others' views on these aspects of the C5X PHEV.

One aspect of the C5X which I (6' 2") found a bit of a problem was the low door aperture. Having spent the last decade or so primarily in SUVs, I've become accustomed to stepping across, if not up into the vehicle. I assume the C5X PHEV is similar to - if not the same as - the C5X in this regard. Have others found this a material issue with the C5X, or no worse than other lower roofline vehicles?

Enough from me. I hope you continue to enjoy the C5X PHEV Ken and I for one look forward to hearing more as your ownership journey continues.

Chris
 
Ken W said:
Hi Fellow Froggers,

I suppose it is time to reveal that the Queensland Citroen Dealer managed to snare and I managed to purchase the only C5X PHEV that has come into Australia this year. Late last year , Citroen Australia placed an order for 15 of these cars to be used as demonstrators for dealer network but Citroen only managed to ship one car of this order in January. As it was realised that this almost non- supply would cause the release of the PHEV model to be delayed for a second time, Citroen Australia agreed to Brett Cullen’s request that the car be sold to one of his customers.

I picked up the C5X from Brett Cullen in Nambour on a Friday afternoon 15th March and we set out for the Devonport Citin on the following Saturday morning to catch the Spirit of Tasmania from Geelong on the following Monday. We travelled the Pacific Highway to Raymond Terrace then the Hume Highway to Albury and onto Geelong the next day. We were very glad Brett managed to get the Australian navigation maps downloaded just before we picked up the car.

The PHEV version has adaptive dampers that allow a Comfort, Normal and Firm modes. I’m not sure yet what mode it uses in Electric, there is a choice of comfort or normal in Hybrid mode, and Firm is used in Sports mode. The suspension feels quite compliant which makes the car comfortable on the road but using the comfort mode with a bit of a load onboard on some of the older undulating sections of the Hume Highway results in hitting the progressive bump stops at the rear. The electric motor appears to be geared through the 8 speed gearbox and has enough torque to spin the front wheels quite easily. The petrol engine revs out with a nice burble when accelerating out of a service station and up to 110km/hr as my partner found.

It was hit and miss as far as recharging the battery while travelling (unless you have planned for it) and the limited electric range did not really help fuel consumption much on the highway. We managed to get 600km range out of the 40 litre petrol tank by running down into the reserve section of the gauge. If you do manage to get a full charge overnight and you put your destination into the Navigation System the next day, it will use the battery charge to enhance the Hybrid operation to improve fuel consumption and exhaust the battery as you arrive at your destination. I bought a 10m extension lead at Coffs Harbour Bunnings that had 10 amp plugs but thicker 15amp wiring and managed to use that to charge from a couple of motel rooms and our rellies house in Hobart. I also managed to purchase a Type 2 to Type 2 single phase charging cable from Supercheap in Wodonga so I could use commercial chargers where I could access them. I used a Chargefox charger in the Council Carpark in Devonport 3 times which allowed me to cruise into the Show and Shine in Electric mode. On the way home the motel where we stayed in Goulburn had 5 x Tesla chargers spread around the carpark and I used one of them to get a free full charge into the battery. Since we returned home about 4 weeks ago, we have hardly used any petrol from our last fill on the Gold Coast and have been cruising around Brisbane on Electric Mode just recharging it overnight.

When running in hybrid mode with the cruise control on, the car will not speed up down hills but will activate the regenerative braking to feed energy back into the battery and keep the speed at the set level. Without the cruise control set, the default mode for regenerative braking works by feeding a small amount of power back to the battery on overrun in Electric mode and then this is boosted when the brake pedal is depressed and brake lights activated. Power is fed to the battery down to about 10km/hr after which the brakes are then applied. There is also a B mode selectable on the gear mode selector that applies a larger regenerative braking as you lift off the accelerator. The only downside to this one pedal operating mode is that the brake lights are not activated until you complete the stop by applying the brake pedal.

Petrol consumption on the trip to Tasmania and back was 5.5litres/100km and we around town we are getting about 50km out of each full electric charge. Since we returned to Brisbane 4 weeks ago, the car has mainly travelled around town for about 700km in electric mode. I just let if fully charge overnight most nights. I am working on putting a small solar charging system together that I could use during the day for partial top-ups if we need to travel more than 50km a day. When you turn the system off at the completion of a drive, the dash displays a summary of the fuel and electric use during the drive. It reports that we are using a minimum of 17 kWh/100km on a good drive and up to 20 kWhr/100km on a more difficult drive (See pics below). These results compare favourably with other EV cars.

Overall, we are thrilled with the C5X PHEV. It meets all the criteria that we had for the replacement of our C5X7 as our main around town car with a capability to do long trips without range anxiety.

Happy to answer any questions?

Cheers, Ken W

Photos are
1. On Delivery Day
2. Sneaky Motel Room Charging
3. At the Show and Shine with Jack Gibneys C5X Petrol
4. Yes it is a Hybrid
5. At Double Lagoon near the Great Lake
6. Electric Trip Summary: 34 km left in Battery, 14km trip



View attachment 241107View attachment 241110View attachment 241109View attachment 241108
View attachment 241112View attachment 241113
Click to expand...
Fantastic report.

The irony is that had Citroen Australia (Inchcape) got their act together with the phev C5, a lot of customers could get it as a novated lease (as part of the EV scheme) which would be a lot more appealing.

Would love to try it. Enjoy.
 
Correct. There is an opportunity for salary packaging where EVs and PHEVs are currently exempt from FBT. Would-be buyers have had nearly 2 years to do exactly that with a few PHEV models from Peugeot that share most of the technology. I guess the holes in the Swiss cheese simply failed to align for a local C5-X PHEV launch thus far. Keep in mind the PHEV FBT concession has a sunset for new vehicles next March 31st, while it will continue for EVs. It seems plenty will gasbag about wanting an EV or PHEV but quickly find reasons not to buy. For anyone keen to make use of that FBT concession, selected e-2008s are on offer from $40K at present vs the original $60K+.
 
Hi Ken
A few questions:
1. How does the ride compare with your C5 wagon?
2. What grade of fuel does it require: 91 or 95 or 98?
3. Where was it built? France or China? I thought I read somewhere that all C5Xs were going to be made in China, even those for the European market. But I'm probably wrong! Again!!
4. Does it have the 'flash Harry' LED headlights that automatically adjust to oncoming traffic by turning off particular LEDs? I'm curious, because probably like many drivers of cars these days with super-bright headlights, I find I have to dip my lights for some of the large traffic/destination signs. The reflected glare is just too much and I've often wondered whether the 'smart' LED headlights reduce the problem of reflected glare.

I'm surprised they only built one to Australian specification, instead of the 15 supposedly requested. The logistics for just one must have been interesting. Maybe they did build 15 and the other 14 went to NZ. I'd imagine their design rules would be very similar to ours.

Thanks & cheers
Robin
 
Hi Robin,
1. Ride is very acceptable, better than C5X7 Tourer when cold but not as good once C5X7 has got warmed up suspension - C5X is always connected to the road by its shockabsorbers and does not have a float mode but neither does the C5X7 except on rare occasions. Could benefit from have self levelling added to the rear suspension a la Picasso.
2. Needs 95 minimum. The Puretech 180 is a development of the EP6 range of engines and has valvetronic on the inlet cam to throttle the engine and improve efficiency. It is a high compression turbocharged engine.
3. All built in China - has Chinese glass and paint but most of the other components seem to be PSA sourced. Build quality seems to be good, paint on the fuel and charge flaps looks a bit thin under bright sunlight. The word is that the production schedule is so filled with customer orders that there is little capacity to build cars that are only to be used as demonstrators. This only appears to be a problem with the PHEV and not the Petrol only model. Maybe they can't get enough batteries or e-EAT8 gearboxes???
4. Has LED lights all round and on auto lights, will even flash some high beam to see a dark road when there is no opposing traffic. Also has a hand level adjustment to allow adjustment when boot loaded. I'll check out the reflected glare problem.

Cheers, Ken
 
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