Starting up

Fast and furious or slow and steady?

Scenario: urban road, no one ahead or behind. Starting from standing still and accelerating to the maximum admitted speed of 50 km/h.

Method n.1: start using the electric engine up to 20 km/h and then forcing ICE with HSI just above the upper half of the ECO area.

Method n.2: immediate ICE usage, by pushing HSI over ECO.

Test n.1:

You can clearly see the electric peak at 5 sec, where ICE turns on.

Test n.2:

Here, electric contribution is nearly absent, given the immediate ICE usage.

Observations:

- Time:
To achieve the same speed, the electric start needs 20 seconds versus 14 of the engine start.
Note that in both cases, we're talking about a relaxed start, not a sporting one.
Both starts are anyway enough to dab a preceding car starting at the same time at our same traffic light.

- Fuel:
1: 0.01909781 litres
2: 0.01972395 litres
immediate ignition burns more fuel

- SOC:
1: SOC goes down about 1%, but by the time we reach target speed, SOC value has recovered what we lost
2: Even in this test, SOC maintains its starting value.

While interesting, values involved in this test are of little magnitude, so nothing conclusive can be inferred.