Potential Leon PHEV buyer and convert from Skoda

[DavidY]

Hi Everyone,
I'm David, I live in the UK, and am a potential new SEAT customer after having Skodas for many years.
I still like Skodas, but my Octavia is starting to age a bit, and some of the current deals on new Leons are looking tempting so I may convert over, especially as the Leon Estate has the 1,5 PHEV powertrain which so far hasn't made it to the Octavia. (It's in the Superb but that's too big a car for me.)
Currently trying to find out if the flappy paddles will control Regen in pure EV mode...

 

[Syphon]

Hi David! Keep us posted if you end up joining the SEAT Community!

Cheers,

Scott

 

[Seastormer]

Hi Everyone,
I'm David, I live in the UK, and am a potential new SEAT customer after having Skodas for many years.
I still like Skodas, but my Octavia is starting to age a bit, and some of the current deals on new Leons are looking tempting so I may convert over, especially as the Leon Estate has the 1,5 PHEV powertrain which so far hasn't made it to the Octavia. (It's in the Superb but that's too big a car for me.)
Currently trying to find out if the flappy paddles will control Regen in pure EV mode...

Welcome to SCN, hope you do try a SEAT or CUPRA as they are great cars and you won't be disappointed after the Skoda.

 

[Richiepoos]

Hi Everyone,
I'm David, I live in the UK, and am a potential new SEAT customer after having Skodas for many years.
I still like Skodas, but my Octavia is starting to age a bit, and some of the current deals on new Leons are looking tempting so I may convert over, especially as the Leon Estate has the 1,5 PHEV powertrain which so far hasn't made it to the Octavia. (It's in the Superb but that's too big a car for me.)
Currently trying to find out if the flappy paddles will control Regen in pure EV mode...

I jumped from an Octavia estate to Cupra Leon PHEV estate and love Cupra. Nice and sedate when you want it to be and an absolute hooligan when you want that too! It's not as simply clever as the Skoda but it is very similar (obviously) in many ways.
As far as I'm aware the flappy paddles will only change gears unless there's been an update for the new facelifted model. The born has flappy paddles to do what you mentioned (no gears so nothing else for them to do!)
You'll spend hours on here - beware! There are a lot of interesting and knowledgeable people on this forum.

 

[DavidY]

I jumped from an Octavia estate to Cupra Leon PHEV estate and love Cupra. Nice and sedate when you want it to be and an absolute hooligan when you want that too! It's not as simply clever as the Skoda but it is very similar (obviously) in many ways.
As far as I'm aware the flappy paddles will only change gears unless there's been an update for the new facelifted model. The born has flappy paddles to do what you mentioned (no gears so nothing else for them to do!)
You'll spend hours on here - beware! There are a lot of interesting and knowledgeable people on this forum.

Thanks for the welcome to you and the others who posted above.

Which engine do you have in your Cupra? Is it the 1.4 PHEV or the 1.5 PHEV?

I'm looking at the SEAT Leon rather than the Cupra, pretty much purely because the SEAT version is cheaper (a lot cheaper with this month's deals).

It probably won't surprise you to know I'm a member over on Briskoda, and I'm pretty sure someone said on there that with the 1.4 PHEVs, you can hold one of the paddles (I guess a long pull rather than a short pull) and it will kick in more regen.

But armed with that information, I had a test drive at the weekend in a SEAT Leon PHEV with the 1.5 engine. This was a hatchback and I think it was pretty new - I may have been the first punter to drive it.

I only had a short drive and I didn't have much time to figure out all the info on the dashboard, so I may not have got this right, but I think it had the following behaviour...

The car was in Eco mode and Full Electric mode rather than Hybrid (sorry they may not be the correct names for the modes).

So on a dual carriageway I took my foot off the pedals and tried pulling the paddles. When I pulled the left (?) paddle a few times, the dash flashed up "M6", "M5", "M4" etc, and the car was slowing more with each paddle pull. At first I thought the petrol engine was running and it was engine braking, but I then became more sure that the engine was still off, and the M6/M5/M4 were indicating increasing levels of regen (and of course less regen if you went back up to M5/M6 again). A long pull on the right paddle seemed to reset it to auto regen.

I imagine if the petrol engine had fired up at that point it would also be in those gears, but I'm pretty sure the petrol engine was still off.

So that seems like clever behaviour, and I did like it as it gave you a lot of control.

The downloaded PDF of the SEAT Leon manual from 11 2024 does say that paddles can change regen. (Side note - thank you SEAT for still having downloadable PDF manuals - Skoda are now much worse here as you can read the manuals page by page on a website).

But the manual from 04 2024 doesn't mention this. And the car I'm looking at (which is brand new so I didn't get to drive it) was apparently built in May 2024.

So I don't know whether this paddle/regen behaviour was only just added at the end of last year (how do SEAT model years work?) and a May 2024 car may not have this neat behaviour, or whether it's been there since they swapped over to the 1.5 engines, and the 04 2024 manual didn't describe the car accurately.

Sorry that's a bit of an essay and probably belongs elsewhere.

 

[Richiepoos]

Mine is the 1.4. As far as I'm aware the electric motor uses the DSG too so the 'M' numbers were indicating which gear you were in and it slowed down with engine braking as you changed down. (the M stands for Manual, as you were changing the gears manually) It will also recuperate more then too as you are using the cars weight and inertia. The long pull of the right puts the gearbox back into auto.

 

[DavidY]

Mine is the 1.4. As far as I'm aware the electric motor uses the DSG too so the 'M' numbers were indicating which gear you were in and it slowed down with engine braking as you changed down. (the M stands for Manual, as you were changing the gears manually) It will also recuperate more then too as you are using the cars weight and inertia. The long pull of the right puts the gearbox back into auto.

Thanks for this.

I imagined the electric motor wouldn't use the DSG's gears? As most pure EVs don't have gears you'd have thought they could get away without doing that, and it would give smoother acceleration in EV mode and presumably better for gearbox wear too if it wasn't trying to change gears. I think the electric motor may be part of the gearbox or right next to it though.

However I have set wheels in motion to buy my own, so I may find out more soon...

 

[Richiepoos]

Thanks for this.

I imagined the electric motor wouldn't use the DSG's gears? As most pure EVs don't have gears you'd have thought they could get away without doing that, and it would give smoother acceleration in EV mode and presumably better for gearbox wear too if it wasn't trying to change gears. I think the electric motor may be part of the gearbox or right next to it though.

However I have set wheels in motion to buy my own, so I may find out more soon...

I thought the same and was surprised when it went through the gears and found it a bit strange too. You can definitely feel it go through them. Really not sure how it all links together but it kind of makes sense that the EV drives the gearbox as it has to work in conjunction with the ICE which HAS to use the DSG.

 

[DavidY]

I thought the same and was surprised when it went through the gears and found it a bit strange too. You can definitely feel it go through them. Really not sure how it all links together but it kind of makes sense that the EV drives the gearbox as it has to work in conjunction with the ICE which HAS to use the DSG.

I guess I'd imagined the EV motor would be directly connected to the wheels - eg after the gearbox.
But having Googled it a bit more it does make sense that they've done it the way they have - I believe there's a clutch to join the Electric motor to the petrol engine. This means they can get away with no alternator or starter motor. Trying to start the engine from a motor the far side of the DSG would have been problematic, I imagine.
Anyway I have mine now!
Magnetic Tech Grey as well - I didn't have much choice of colours as these were in stock cars, and the first time I saw one in that colour was when picking up my car, but I'm pleased I got one in that colour despite the metallic white ones being a smidgin cheaper.

 

[paraschivrazvan25]

Hi David, welcome! Good luck with your Leon research.

 

[Richiepoos]

I guess I'd imagined the EV motor would be directly connected to the wheels - eg after the gearbox.
But having Googled it a bit more it does make sense that they've done it the way they have - I believe there's a clutch to join the Electric motor to the petrol engine. This means they can get away with no alternator or starter motor. Trying to start the engine from a motor the far side of the DSG would have been problematic, I imagine.
Anyway I have mine now!
Magnetic Tech Grey as well - I didn't have much choice of colours as these were in stock cars, and the first time I saw one in that colour was when picking up my car, but I'm pleased I got one in that colour despite the metallic white ones being a smidgin cheaper.

Nice colour - same as mine! Have fun. Make sure to launch it a few times and don't forget to have a bash in Cupra mode - both will make you smile!

 

[DavidY]

Nice colour - same as mine! Have fun. Make sure to launch it a few times and don't forget to have a bash in Cupra mode - both will make you smile!

Thanks for that.

I have a SEAT Leon rather than a Cupra, so I suspect I don't have a Cupra mode - I certainly haven't found it so far.
There is a performance mode but I imagine Cupra mode has some extra spiciness?

Also in theory it seems I'm supposed to run in the engine for a bit before going for a "full-send"!? (I didn't know running-in was still a thing, but apparently so.)

Not that I'm doing well at clocking up miles on the engine - been getting used to the EV mode and charging, but the petrol engine hasn't done many miles yet.