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by r00fus 3063 days ago
Was considering a Pacifica - does it not do pure-EV mode?
1 comments

It does pure-EV. Advertised range in pure-EV is about 30-36 miles. We have only owned it since October 2017. The actual range we get in pure-EV has been about 20ish give or take a few miles either direction.

My comment related to the gas engine is under cold temperatures. Chrysler doesn't let you control any aspect of how the gas engine turns on or is utilized. From what I understand most the PHEV give you the ability to somewhat override the car. Ie set a preference for the gas engine to come on or tell the car that you want "max EV range." The Pacifica does what it wants to do in terms of gas/electric hand-off. It seems to be heavily temperature dependent. I'm sure Chrysler programmed it to use gas when its cold as its more efficient to warm up/heat the cabin when cold using the gas engine. I would say based upon one winter's experience. Anything much under 35/40F will result in significant usage of the gas engine no matter the electric charge.

When it was in the mid-20s here (not uncommon) my wife could drop the kids off at school and make her round trip commute (11 miles) and it would use the gas engine significantly during that trip to warm up the van.

That being said, we just did errands over the weekend and it used 100% EV until the battery was depleted - the temperature was 50+ outside the entire time.