I’ve had my brand new DS4 E-Tense for 2 months now. My driving mostly short distances in urban areas and the car is mostly an electric car to me. When driving longer distances the map assisted destination can optimize the battery really well that there is about 0 energy left on arrival. I’ve tried occasionally the E-Save functionality but it does not save my battery and I still end up to zero electricity left. I wonder if it’s because it’s winter here and all the energy goes to heating up the car. Yes, it has been a real winter from -30C to 0C for 3 months in a row. Does your E-Save work as expected that you can save battery for last 10km?
It will only do its thing when you’re driving in any other driving mode than Electric. Meaning: yes it works like advertised on mine and it actually should work like this on yours too 
In order to make use of the saved electricity, only then you’re supposed to switch to Electric mode, telling the car ‘hey it’s okay to drain the battery now’.
Unless you’re right about the extreme cold, with the car needing the battery power for climate control. I personally don’t have experience with those temperatures but I do know the battery drains way quicker in the cold when the climate control is active. Not just due to the fact that battery capacity drops.
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Good to know it has a chance to work. It must be the cold weather for me that makes it fail. But still I’m wondering why the car goes to electric at slow speed even the battery is below the 10km save mark? I could think it should try to save the energy but it’s like giving up. Does your car drive electric on slow speed even it below the save mark?
I haven’t tried to set it up to save all of electric battery. Should the car drive on petrol only when I set it up to save maximum energy? The manual says the car should fire the petrol engine even to reload the battery to the desired save level but that does not happen to me at these below zero temperatures. May be I bought a summer car.
Good question, mine also uses electric at lower speeds even though the 10km mark has already been reached. But only slightly. I have a feeling it only takes energy usage of driving into account here, not climate. It will not turn on the petrol engine when it detects battery is dropping because of climate control, even though you’re standing still or at very low speeds. It will only turn on the petrol engine when the driving itself consumes more battery than a certain threshold.
About the ‘save all of electric battery’ (you’re probably referring to the MAX setting in E-Save), again it will only do this when you’re in any other driving mode than Electric. It will indeed use the petrol engine to charge the battery, but only while driving. Possibly even only on higher speeds. In practice, I noticed it just sticks to a lower gear with the revs higher than normal. As far as I know this behavior doesn’t change depending on the temperature. But again, I’m not experienced with the low temperatures you mentioned.
Slight addition, in case you have either 10km or 20km set in E-Save, the car will also charge the battery to those levels if below. Not just the MAX setting.
It was above zero temperatures all day yesterday and I had a chance to test the maximum E-Save setting. It really tried to fill up the battery while driving warmed up car around 40-50km/h. I let it fill up from 88% to 93% before I stopped the foolishness. So, that works as expected at least. Very likely the 10km or 20km setting works as well above zero conditions too. The petrol consumption with maximum E-Save was pretty high, indeed, 8.7l/km for a 5km driving within city limits, where as hybrid does it around 2.0l/km even in winter as long as the battery has capacity left.
BTW: Finnish winter killed the 12V battery in a month. I wonder if the battery installed was original part at all because it was Exide 72Ah battery. The new 12V battery is written “PSA original part 72Ah” but no brand at all. My car stood outside as new in cold for 2 months before I picked it up. I suspect the car retailer needed to replace the battery before they handed over the car to me but that Exide didn’t work too well. The car is with 3 year warranty anyways so I can’t care how many 12V batteries they need to replace for free to me. Did your car come with PSA original or the Exide 12V?
Just picked up on this thread.
My E Tense is currently in the workshop because the Welcome Lights only work intermittently, same with the keyless entry.
The DS “Master Technician” at the dealerships thinks the two 12v accessory batteries need charging due to the due sitting idle for a long time at their compound ?
Apparently there are two 12v batteries on the E Tense and also the main electric drive battery.
The two 12v batteries are classed as maintenance batteries, they are used to start the engine, operate the start-stop, welcome lights, key less entry ect ect.
The technician told me to have E-Save use absolutely no electric at all you have to set the car in “comfort” mode, and E Save at Max, this will then only have the car use the petrol engine.
Apparently any other mode will still use some electric power even if E-Save is set to “Max”.
I havent tried this yet, but will do when I get the car back !
So, just had the car back from the dealership.
I tried the idea of putting the car in Comfort mode with the E-Save set to max, it did indeed only use the engine, no electric power was used at all.
Out of curiosity I did the same in the other modes, Sport & Hybrid, they both used electric when the revs were low, even though the E-Save was set to max !
Sport actually used electric & engine through the full rev range.
The technician said if you set the car to Max on E-save but still drive in Hybrid or Sport the car will override E-Save , which is what it did.
Obviously Electric mode will completely override E-Save.
Unfortunately it doesn’t really explain it like this in the manual.
Hi,
My car uses electricity even in Comfort mode with full e-save but this is only true when fully charged. Kind of the same behaviour as if you’re driving with 0 charge.
It will let charge drop to 99% and then recharge to 100%.
Will try Hybrid mode and e-save today and see if it consumes charge or not.
Seems odd that the functionality between similar cars differs.
The e-save works the best in the highway but not in the low speed city traffic. What i’ve noticed is that it does not charge the battery fully to the target with petrol engine. Last time I put e-save to 10km on when there was only 4km battery left in the highway. The car charged to 8km battery in 10 minutes or so but the petrol consumption was 10.2l/100km during the charge, then it dropped to normal 7.0l/100km for my 120+km/h highway speed. But it never went to 10km estimated level. So, one can exchange petrol to battery but only in the higher speed.
Hi, did a testrun with Hybrid mode this morning.
5 degrees celsius outside, 98% charge when starting my commute.
Charge immediately dropped to 94% during warmup of cabin etc.
Then after 10minutes it slowly started to charge battery up to 100%.
In my car both comfort and hybrid works the same way.
In the diagram it`s only the last 40minutes that involves my commute, the first 20 is from local runs to the store etc yesrday evening.
Mine also uses electric in comfort mode and E save on Max, but its very very little, usually just to pull off or if driving very slowly, less than 10mph.
In comfort mode and with E save set to max the engine kicks in almost immediately on my car, in fact if I have the car in comfort mode and E Save set to max I have to intentionally drive very slowly for the engine not to kick in.
I also tested this recently on a loan DS4 a few weeks ago when mine went into the dealership for a check , and the loan DS4 did exactly the same thing, the engine kicked in straight away in comfort mode with E save set to max.
It seems to be, at least in my experience, that the engine takes priority if the car is in comfort mode but only if E Save is set to max, it will still use electric but not as much as if the car was in any other mode.
I queried this with the technician at the dealership, he tried to explain it.
In simple terms, this how he explained it.
Every mode on the car is programmed to use to use a mix of combustion & electric.
- Sport mode uses both to give more power.
- Hybrid uses both to be more economical.
- Electric mode is just that, electric.
So the first 2 modes will always give a mix of both even with E Save set to max, because thats what the car is programmed to do, it will still try to save electric because you’ve selected E Save, but it will push electric into the mix as a priority.
Technician said, selecting E Save with these 2 modes can confuse things because you’re asking the car to save electric but you’re also asking the car to use electric to support those 2 modes.
The third mode, electric, well it’s obviously just electric power.
However, even though Comfort mode is programmed very much like Hybrid, it alters slightly when it’s combined with E Save on Max, this is when it changes slightly, because comfort mode will NOT try to push electric into the mix if you tell the system to save max electric by using E save.
The other 2 modes want to get a mix of both Electric & combustion, it’s the way they are programmed, but Comfort mode is happy to just go along with combustion if you set E save at max.
I guess it sort of overrides the hybrid system ?
Not sure if this makes sense but thats how it was explained to me.
If I’m honest, it all still confuses me why some cars seem to differ from the next one ?
I think it says in the manual that E Save will “save” the electric until you want to use and put a limited charge back into the battery.
For example I dont think you could start with 100%, use 10% and then expect E Save to top it back up to 100%.
I’ve seen on mine that E Save will nudge the level back up but not to where it started from.
Another thing I was told by the sales guy is that you can manually adjust the sensitivity of the regenerative braking so that it can put more charge back into the battery, he said it’s done by using the gear paddles on the steering wheel when the car is in full electric mode ?
I’m not sure though if this correct, because over the last few days I noticed that the regen braking on my car didnt seem to be as noticeable when slowing down , so I popped the car into full electric mode and tapped on the + gear paddle but nothing happened, the regen didnt increase.
I was chatting with my son about this and he said the regen braking on his PHEV Vauxhall Astra, which is almost the same car underneath as the DS4 , automatically adjusts itself depending on how much charge is in the battery, so for instance if the battery is almost full the regen braking wont be as noticeable, but as the battery level drop the regen braking gets more noticeable.
I did actually charge the car the night before I noticed the regen not being as noticeable.
So my sons theory makes more sense than what the sales guy said.
But I’d be interested to know if anyone knows a way how to manually adjust the regen braking ?
I’ve recharged my battery from 50% to 100% with e-save during a longer ride, totally possible 
But I’m almost always in Comfort mode which surely helps.
Petrol engages in both comfort and hybrid almost instantly, but - it can use fully electric below 30km/h if the charge is high enough.
Also tried the paddles to alter the regenerative braking without success 
If I have charged at work before going home, choose Max e-save and comfort mode I most often get something like 20% fossil free distance over 42km with full charge when I get home.
I guess the tech knows what he’s talking about, my salesguy said something similar.
But he also told me that the active chassis works when doing 150km/h, manual says up to 130, the adaptive matrix headlights would be better than the advanced leds on my V60CC - no they are not 
I fell for the good looks of the car and the sales banter 
I’m starting to realise that all the techy stuff is not all it was cracked up to be . 
It’s a beautiful car and comparing it to a f.ex. Cupra For mentor, our tech works just fine
Just got to adapt to the few quirks there is…
Before I got this DS4 I looked at everything from Subaru, BMW, Audi, Merc, Lexus - DS4 was the one that I truly enjoyed driving while the feel and looks of the interior makes me feel at home!
It’s a tad small though, without my wife’s XC70 I would have been forced to choose a more family friendly car…
If I’m honest, I was getting super frustrated with some of the techy stuff, especially the so called “Welcome” lights and keyless entry.
It is not Welcoming, and the keyless entry is nothing but keyless, at least on my car anyway !
It can be very Hit & Miss whether all the lights come on and locks unopen when I approach the car, or perhaps just the locks might unopen but no lights, or just lights and no locks, theres no pattern on which way it will work from one day o the next.
The cart is going into the workshop again next to try somme suggestions from DS UK.
I wont be holding my breath !!
I really hope that they fix the issues this time.
It’s such a good car in all other areas!
I’d say the welcome lights and keyless anomaly is related to the 12V battery. My car did the same before the 12V battery was replaced during the winter months. These nice to have remote functions may go to power save mode or something when the voltage drops.
Good point .
The first time the car went to have this looked at they said the accessory battery was down to 25% capacity, so they kept the car in overnight to charge it up, when I collected the car, to my surprise every did seem to work, but for just 2 days, it then reverted back to where it was previously.
So maybe the battery or batteries ( I believe there are two accessory batteries ?), need changing NOT charging ?
I’ll mention this again when iot goes in next week.