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SEAT Leon TwinDrive

New range-extending version of the SEAT Leon promises 166mpg and 39g/km

SEAT Leon TwinDrive front cornering

By James Foxall

November 2011

  • Rating:
The Ecomotive line-up currently accounts for 47 per cent of SEAT’s UK sales, and the firm plans to increase that with a Leon plug-in hybrid Ecomotive, due in 2015.

Called the TwinDrive, the car is one of several versions of an all-new Leon that’s due to be unveiled at March’s Geneva Motor Show. We’ve tried the technology that will underpin the new model in an existing Leon.

Video: watch CarBuyer's video review of the SEAT Leon

 

Under the skin is the VW Group’s 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine linked to a 116bhp (85kW) electric motor. These either work independently of each other or combine to give a power output of 159bhp.

The lithium-ion batteries, which sit under the boot floor, are charged via a socket next to the front foglamp. As with other range-extending EVs, a full charge takes about eight hours from a domestic supply, or two hours from a high-voltage fast charger.

Turn the key and the silence tells you the TwinDrive starts every journey running solely on battery power. It’ll do 32 miles in this mode and hit a 75mph top speed. Yet push a button on the centre console, and this Leon reverts to being a regular hybrid.

It does so in such a seamless manner that you barely notice the internal-combustion engine firing up. The really clever part of the TwinDrive, though, is the control unit integrated into the sat-nav.

This lets you programme how you use plug-in power. If, say, you have a 20-mile motorway commute before 10 miles of urban driving, the car can be told to save its mains-generated power for the town section. And if you exhaust the cells, the 1.4-litre engine can always kick in to turn generator and recharge the battery. As a result, this Leon has a total range of 562 miles.

At high speeds, a clutch engages and the engine and electric motor work together to maintain momentum. On the motorway, the engine is so refined you can barely hear it, and even under hard acceleration its noise doesn’t become unpleasantly harsh.

The extra shove from the electric motor’s 600Nm of torque gives a handy turn of speed, particularly between 30mph and 50mph.

However, the car’s economy figures are its most eye-catching asset. SEAT claims it will return 166mpg, with a CO2 figure of only 39g/km. A premium of £2,500 is expected over the diesel.

On current form, that puts this Leon’s starting price at around £20,000, making this new string to SEAT’s bow a very attractive proposition indeed.

For an alternative review of the latest SEAT Leon visit our sister site carbuyer.co.uk

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9 Comments

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Im holding off on buying a new car untill this comes out...

By Leonidas on 14 November, 2011, 11:53pm

Hmm.. I wonder how long...

...before we start to see this technology linked to the satnav and the inclusion of green zones where the car is asked to run in electric mode based upon GPS position.

Sounds like it could go that way.

By dofty on 15 November, 2011, 12:57am

Sounds Good

I like it, however 2500 more than the Diesel, they might have a hard time selling that to the public!

What manufacturers are going to do until diesel is banned is always have the list price of hybrids or ev's higher than diesel, instead of the other way around!

We need diesel vehicles to be banned in towns and cities, Co2 isn't the problem, it's all the other emissions that cause lung disease and cancer and E.U tax is based on Co2, and Co2 doesn't give you cancer!!! I don't think man is warming the planet, and the planet isn't that warm, as the peak year was 1998!

http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

Cars are gone way too over priced in Europe, and more people can't afford them. They want people to buy electric and hybrid ? then they need to sell them at the same price or cheaper, then people will buy them!

By Mad_Lad on 15 November, 2011, 8:41am

Tony vRS

I wouldn't buy one, but at least it would be better than have the motorway hard shoulder being littered by dead Nissan Leaf's.

By tonyf on 15 November, 2011, 9:48am

Poor perf

A combined 163bhp and still 0-60 in 12, that is slow for that amount of bhp

By the way the electric motor bhp in the main article appears to be different from the At A Glance figures.

By ShouldHaveBetterThingsToDo on 15 November, 2011, 10:25am

Oops!

Sounds the way to go.

However, the BHP and Torque figures quoted for the electric motor are an obvious nonsense, and absense of the figures for the petrol engine.

Corrected figures would be useful, if you can wake the somnolent proof reader up.
Smike

By smike on 15 November, 2011, 10:37am

Unbelievable

After the Plug-In Prius and Auris recently announced by Toyota, this is the third new car with unbelievably low fuel consumption and I for one do not believe the claims. What is the revolutionary new technology that makes these cars so much more fuel efficient than the current hybrids? For a total range of 562 miles, of which only 30 come from the battery, the petrol engine has to provide 94% of the range and it must do this on only 15.3 litres. This is equivalent to 157 mpg. Has there been a revolution in engine design to achieve this? No!

The benefits of hybrid technology are reduction in energy waste (regenerative braking and stop-start) and enabling a smaller engine to be used (less energy needed to turn it over). No revolution in this technology has been announced. So what is left? The battery packs are larger than current hybrids, but there is no reason why this should make any difference to the savings from regenerative braking or stop-start. The only effect of the bigger battery is to increase the electric-only range by a factor of about 10. Although a minor part of the overall range, it is very significant in relation to the distance covered in the EU tests on which the economy data is based. In fact, the car could do several such tests on battery power alone. The only logical explanation for the claimed economy is that the EU test protocol is not fit for purpose where cars of this kind are concerned. AE could do us all a service and investigate this.

Finally a warning. When politicians see and believe these figures, they will conclude that the limits for current ECO taxes (VED and London Congestion Charge) are too lax and they will have an excuse to lower the CO2 limits for exemption, and thus increase the tax take!

By mikeo on 16 November, 2011, 5:34pm

Price around 20K

Yeah right... It will end up as c30K 'minus' the 5K government rebate

By haggardpete on 19 November, 2011, 12:10pm

Power-to-Weight

Sadly, the figures for performance are probably true. Once you start lugging around TWO POWERTRAINS, the car gets heavy. As a resulty, the CO2 emissions go up. A hybrid is a battle between the extra weight and the energy savings that can be made as a result. This is why they struggle to meet the economy and ecology improvements that you would imagine.

Once battery technology has improved (that' a big IF) then the weight-of-the-battery savings will help. A more powerful electric motor will not be so much heavier and when fitted to a lighter, higher capacity battery will reduce the size and weight of the petrol engine needed and the amount of fuel that needs to be lugged around. Developments in the internal combustion engine have probably plateaued, but batteries are on the verge of a revolution.

In the next few years, other manufacturers will have their battery EVs on the market and the economy of scale will have started to take effect.

I recently heard about a discovery that making sub-microscopic holes in existing Li-ion cells enabled a mobile phone battery to be charged five times as quickly and hold five times the charge. A demonstration showed that it didn't need to be charged for a week, compared to the usual usage pattern being to connect it to the mains overnight.

This got me thinking, though. It needed five times the current to charge the telephone. That's fine: 1 amp at mains voltage is not a problem. But for a car?

The amound of energy a car needs to undertake a journey is not going to change. Currently charging with a car from a regular power socket - 10 to 13 amps - to fill its battery for a 100 mile range is several hours, limited by the capacity of the mains plug and socket. Unless you have an expensive 60A home charger, it's going to take days to charge a car that has a 500 mile range.

You are likely to use a car with a higher range more, increasing the need to charge it and at the same time reducing the opportunity to charge it. This starts to sound like you will need to leave it on charge all the time that you are not using it when at home.

By alan_jenney on 25 November, 2011, 11:11pm

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Pictures

SEAT Leon TwinDrive front cornering
SEAT Leon TwinDrive rear cornering
SEAT Leon TwinDrive profile
SEAT Leon TwinDrive driving
SEAT Leon TwinDrive centre console
SEAT Leon TwinDrive front cornering

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FIRST OPINION

    The TwinDrive provides the best of both worlds by harnessing cheap plug-in power with none of the range restrictions of a pure EV. Engine engagement is seamless, there’s plenty of power and the control system lets you use the various forms of drive when it best suits. Competitive pricing should be the icing on the cake.

 

AT A GLANCE

    Price: £20,000 (est)
    Engine: 1.4-litre 4cyl turbo petrol plus 116bhp electric motor
    Transmission: Single speed, front-wheel drive
    Power: 159bhp (combined)
    0-60mph: 12 seconds (est)
    Top speed: 106mph
    Economy: 166mpg
    CO2: 39g/km
    Equipment: Power source monitor and controller teamed with mobile phone application, electric windows, air-conditioning, satellite navigation 
    On sale: 2015
     
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