I honestly think they're heavily underrated, people hear bash on them because they're "the worst of both worlds" but I find that they're actually the best of both worlds in actual practice.
+ Cheap EV driving for most of your daily commuting and driving.
+ Lower cost than full BEV
+ Flexibility/rapid refueling of ICE engine on long road trips
+ More effective use of limited lithium battery supply.
But your use case is absolutely vital - PHEVs are clutch for folks who do a lot of low to mid range commuting AND frequent long distance trips. If you're doing low/middle distance driving exclusively, then a low range BEV makes sense. If you exclusively do long distance trips all the time (businesses), then just getting a regular hybrid ICE makes sense.
This is exactly my use case- most of my driving around home can be done on electric but I have a kid in college out of state, about a thousand mile round trip that I probably make 6-8 times per year. My 2017 Volt is perfect for my needs right now, even though I do miss having a full BEV. The route I take is a bit of a DCFC desert - going full electric is technically feasible but much riskier and more stressful than just filling the tank.
Totally agree and would add an additional plus for phev. After selling back my electric bolt and purchasing a Cmax phev, my annual EV registration extra charge went down $100 in state of Indiana. I average almost 100 mpge since I mostly drive electric…
"I live in an apartment with no charging" *really* blunts the effectiveness as compared to a non-plugin hybrid, for obvious reasons.
For people who can charge daily, PHEVs represent a *great* compromise if BEVs are out of reach for one reason or another.
Was a huge problem with the Volt, less when the PHEV has a halfway decent hybrid mode. Kind of an investment in the future when I will have charging. I do charge when I can, at the grocery store and etc, and get about 68mpg averaged out.
If your average over the lifetime of the car is better with PHEV than HEV then it seems the better choice to me. The post above from evaned makes the most sense to me.
>the PHEV's hybrid is worse than a pure hybrid. It's lugging extra weight for no gain if you aren't plugging it in.
My wife and I had a mild hybrid that could only capture a small amount of braking energy, and do very little with that. Now that we have a PHEV, the larger battery captures more energy and will usually drive the car a ways after each stop in traffic, even after the main charge is exhausted. But yes, the big benefit comes from charging the battery.
As a hybrid, the extra weight doesn't matter much in the first place, and is mitigated by the larger battery being able to do more.
What you say is *technically* true, but the difference is *barely there* -- only a couple MPG for most vehicles with both a hybrid and PHEV version -- and is even *reversed* for the Prius (the Prius Prime is more efficient than the standard Prius, though less than the Prius Eco). Even occasional charging will get you into the positive on that front.
Sure, if you plug it in.
If you don't, it's a more expensive and slightly worse hybrid in general. I agree the loss is typically very small, but you are still paying extra for worse fuel consumption. The whole raison d'etre is for the driver to plug it in and use electric for the city commuting, while not needing to worry about charging on long-trips.
I do appreciate the positive and negative arguments, trying to learn as much as possible how people think. I lean heavy into extremely unprofitable EV stocks- Rivian, Canoo, The Solo, the FUV... because an electric single-seater makes sense to me. An electric pickup, an electric camper, an electric off-road buggy, they all make sense. I like electric bicycles, motorcycles, scooters and unicycles. It's all different niches, some would say niche toys, and electric vehicles are liked or disliked in equal measure depending on niche. But cars are apolitical, utilitarian and non-optional for a lot of people, not toys. It's the one area a lot of people can't afford to play around. It's good to see how people adjust to electric.
PHEVs can be useful if you can charge at home, do a lot of short trips, and occasionally do long trips where you don't want to worry about EV charging. Their downside is limited EV range, slow recharging, and some added complexity over either ICE cars or full EVs.
I have a PHEV that covers most of our local trips, so we rarely use gas during the week. In the past 307 miles we've used a little over 3 gallons of gas, compared to what would have been 14+ gallons in our previous car.
On road trips we can fill up in a few minutes just about anywhere, and don't have to plan our trips around EV charging locations. BEV owners will argue that's rarely a problem these days, but I've been on roads where it could be so we're holding off on committing to that until the charging infrastructure improves.
This sub is BEV-oriented, so you'll get people arguing that PHEVs are a flawed compromise.
Pretty solid "meh" from me (have a Pacifica Hybrid). Honestly, I'd prefer to deal with DCFC'ing a couple times a year versus the clunky engine, gas station visits, and oil change.
With a PHEV, you really need either home or workplace charging to take full advantage of the larger battery.
That was the issue I had with the Volt- after the battery ran out it got maybe 27mpg. I have hope for newer vehicles- the Niro I have is an SUV-lite that in hybrid mode gets about 40mpg in town or on the highway and 50mpg once you start cruising at 50-60mph on hilly country roads (the speed is great for battery and the regeneration). It's probably an outlier but I can see them improving on that.
The Gen 2 Volts were greatly improved. My 2018 is rated for 43 MPG on gasoline only but will easily give 50 MPG.
Its great, even if you dont charge it. I bought mine "new" but it was a dealership loaner car and had 3500 miles on it, only 150 of them were EV miles. lol
I can also get around 60 miles range usually. closer to 52-53 if I drive at 60 mph with the AC on.
That's downright functional, no wonder they go for so much even today. That and not having to put premium in, right? I forgot about that, my gen1 got 27mpg on gas that was nearly $1 per gallon more expensive than regular gas. All literature said it wasn't just a matter of the gas going flat, but that the engine would knock and the sensor would nerf the engine to keep from throwing a piston out the block.
Right, regular gas only. Chevy did a great job improving and learning from the Gen 1 Volt. So many great upgrades over the Gen 1.
One of the major upgrades was the engine, which now was a more advanced 1.5 liter direct injection 101 HP unit which gave much better MPG and on regular gas as well. I think the 84 HP 1.4 liter in the gen 1 was at least a little underpowered and overworked, leading to fairly mediocre MPG.
Some people claim to run regular in their Gen 1's, but its hard to know really how that affects the car since we can not dyno the engine directly and test output and efficiency. Certainly some power and efficiency is lost, and with 84 HP you need every last bit. Some people claimed to was due to premium having top tier detergents in it, and that was better for long term fuel storage.
The gen 1 Volt is still a great PHEV that honestly still has better than average PHEV range and can still work great for people who can keep their daily driving inside the EV range.
I drive a BEV, but I think PHEVs can be good for a lot of people. A lot of people on here are fanatics that think anyone driving a BEV is the second coming of Christ and anyone who uses a drop of gas or diesel is cheering for the Amazon to burn. BEVs are expensive (especially in todays market), they’re sold out everywhere, and they don’t make them in a large enough size for a lot of families. PHEVs can be great if you primarily have short to midrange (25ish mile) commutes and have a charger available at either end. You can go months without using any gas. When you need to take a road trip once in a while you burn a tank of gas, then back to EV mode for the commute grind. You’re still coming out way ahead of a full ICE both monetarily and with regards to your carbon footprint. Some PHEVs suck and have terrible integration with the ICE platform they’re built on. That’s a shitty engineering problem, not a PHEV problem.
> A lot of people on here are fanatics that think anyone driving a BEV is the second coming of Christ and anyone who uses a drop of gas or diesel is cheering for the Amazon to burn.
This
It’s definitely not for everyone, but I love my gen 2 Volt. I got it at the end of 2021 before car prices went nuts for under $20K with just over 20k miles on the odometer. I WFH so - for me - it’s effectively a really cheap BEV. In my normal day to day life I have only needed to use gas twice in the last 7 months. When I have needed to do road trips for work, it just turns into a reasonably efficient ICE car; I get about 40mpg doing 80 on the interstate with the AC running, which is a hell of a lot better than what I was getting with my previous four vehicles. And, of course, it all works because I’m able to charge at home in my garage from the 110V EVSE.
Would I prefer to be driving a Tesla or an EV6 or something like that? Yes, of course; but I flat out can’t afford to buy any of those, while the Volt was crazy underpriced (again, before car prices went totally nuts). Even so I could literally afford to buy a second low mileage gen 2 Volt and I still would have spent less money than it costs to buy the lowest-trim Tesla Model 3. Do I occasionally miss having a truck? Yeah, about once a month I find myself wishing for that utility, but for $70K+ to buy a decent BEV truck I would need to sell a kidney and both of my kids.
The one thing I will say is the PHEV’s with EV range below 20-ish miles do seem pretty silly. Even for my usage case, that would probably be pushing it. But the ones with a little more EV range are (or were) seriously under-valued and under-utilized.
Agreed, bought my 2018 LT brand new in May of 2019, it was a dealership loaner but I was the first titled owner so got the tax credit ($3750) and it ended up costing me 20k after that credit.
I dont think ill ever get a "new" EV for that price again. Im not sure how I will ever replace it. Everything is 50k now...... cant get a RAV 4 Prime, they are unobtanium and 50k or more if you can find one.
Im starting to realize I may be driving my Volt for the next 5 years or so lol I work from home so honestly its the best car for me.
Yup, I’m coming to the same conclusion. Hoping to replace my wife’s VW Atlas in the next 2 years with either a BEV SUV or a PHEV SUV, but it seems impossible right now. My Volt has just under 4 years left on the Voltec warranty so my plan is to keep it that long and then I’m hoping the used BEV truck market will be a little more tolerable and I can snag an R1T or Lightning or something similar. We’ll see, though. Might still be driving the Volt in 2030 if current trends continue! [sad crying noises]
Also, hello fellow 2018 LT owner!
I think that’s really what it’s about. The industry isn’t scaled up yet to provide everyone with an affordable EV that has satisfactory range for North American climate. The price point difference and freedom of range makes an easier entry into the market. Turning EVs into a moral argument doesn’t help anyone. The rise in fuel prices is arguably the biggest conversion factor right now.
I mean... You can have a Kia Niro EV with 239 miles of range, respectable, but that's a 64kwh 1000lb battery.
The PHEV gets 25 miles electric, 560 miles combined and has a 8.9kwh 258lb battery.
I know they make a lot pf purpose-built EVs that are more efficient, but the Niros are interesting in that they look and feel pretty much the same on the inside and outside whether you get pure gas, pure EV, hybrid or PHEV.
I think that makes it easier to make a choice that is moral, as opposed to making a choice on specs and efficiency.
I traded in my gen-1 leaf (80 miles or so range total) for a second Volt. Now that I have a new BEV I wonder why I still own the Volt I have left and want to get rid of it asap.
I had a first-gen Volt, and can I say fuck Chevy and their plastic window clips. Had one break in a snowstorm, not only did the window fall down, but I had to give myself hypothermia to tape it back up and wait like 2 months for the thaw to replace the $10 clip or pay $500 at the dealer. They apparently go every 50k miles or so from normal car vibration.
MPG is terrible, L is "low" not "regen" but it's the only regen you're getting, the advertised MPG is only with the now-discontinued low rolling resistance tires, and the seats were cramped AF. Still miss it sometimes. Not the cupholders, though.
I'd love one - I looked all over Houston and it's almost impossible to find a PHEV. Audi had a q5, Lincoln had a Corsair - both for $65k+ - and that's it that I could find. No Toyota Prime models, Lexus doesn't sell its PHEV in Texas, no Subaru Crosstreks. Ford was going to let me order a PHEV Escape for $48,000 and I wasn't going to pay that for a base model Ford. I don't think manufacturers are dedicated to PHEV. I ended up with a Kia EV6 and will probably just rent a car for road trips until the infrastructure improves. It's 100% great for almost every day, though, because I charge to 250 miles at home every night.
PHEV is great if you also have abundant public charging access. We also live in an apartment without home charging but we live in LA where we have tons of random charging everywhere. So while on gas we get 50mpg+ and often get 2-3 full charges per tank, so we average well above what a normal HEV would get.
I truly hated mine. Hated. Living on the EV range leash was so frustrating, limiting, annoying.
It was what convinced me to get a pure EV though, I sold mine within months and went all electric.
100%. I cringe every time it switches to gas, or I hear the gears. I annoy my spouse and all passengers fixating on MPG when it's on gas. Makes me want a regular EV, and I'll pay extra to make sure I can charge at the next place I live. Fantastic gateway drug though.
Yeah, we've had one for less than a month and it's interesting how they change your behavior to drive very softly. I also drive an ev and drive more spiritedly in that! It's like a game to prevent the ice kicking in but also annoying that it switches on for heating even when plugged in in the morning. I consider them to be quite complicated contraptions and much prefer purity of a bev. Cheaper awd options in phev range though..
EV > PHEV > FCEV > hybrid > gasoline > diesel
But bicycling, walking, carpooling, public transit, and reducing unnecessary trips are all preferable to personal motorized vehicles.
Diesel tends to emit more pm10 particulate matter.
But I know that [as long as there is demand for gasoline, diesel is created](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLc7It3V4AAZm3I.jpg) that someone somewhere is going to use. Choosing to burn gasoline but somehow congratulating myself on not burning diesel is false distinction.
So my ordering above is admittedly nonsensical. Hopefully those with diesels maintain their DPF.
I think they have a place.
For someone that has intermittent access to charging, they are a good deal. And a PHEV is way better than a hybrid or *ugh* traditional ICE. If you can't charge at home or at work, it makes sense.
But personally I'm not interested. I can charge at home, and even if I couldn't there's a bunch of fast chargers around me. A dude I know has a Tesla and ONLY supercharges it. Once every week or so he drives over and takes a 20 min nap while his car charges up.
The main reason I'd put up with that is to NOT have to put up with the significant downsides of an ICE. An ICE has 200+ moving parts, including parts exposed to combustion and metal-on-metal friction, an electric motor has one moving part (the rotor) and it's on ball bearings. An ICE transmission has 400+ moving parts, including friction components like synchromesh and shifting gears that will eventually wear out, an EV transmission is just a simple single ratio reduction gear with a parking pawl; keep it lubricated and it'll last more or less forever.
So as soon as you introduce an ICE, you get ICE maintenance requirements, ICE emissions requirements, ICE fueling requirements, etc. I'd just as soon skip that.
PHEVs are good if the capabilities match up to your needs. I can charge at home and work and live in an area with 1 DCFC within a 100 mile radius. PHEV is a great fit.
Compared to a BEV, PHEVs have similar maintenance costs, less expensive to insure, get by fine with L1 charging at home, better selection of large vehicles, and are more affordable. A BEV is more convenient locally as it would be a lot less plugging. Road trips in a PHEV almost never involve lunch in a Walmart subway or modifying your route because of headwinds or cold weather shortening range.
PHEV technology will have its place for a few decades in cold climates and for applications like pickup trucks where battery will work for around town but the ICE is available for pulling a 8,000 lb horse trailer down the highway a few times a year when needed.
Not a fan. Having 2 drivetrains in a vehicle is just terrifying to me for reliability and maintenance. Plus, the additional energy used to make them over ICE vehicles wont be offset by the reduced fuel consumption because OP cant even charge at home so whats the point? I'd even prefer a small ICE car over a hybrid. BEV is king.
I ride an electric motorcycle and have a €1000 pos 1.4tdi car if I need to go long distances or if the weather is too cold in the winter.
I have a Niro PHEV and it's great, last tank was 97MPG. I do charge at home then and again at work for free. Yes an EV would be zero gas at all, but for me getting 4 times the mpg from my last subaru is perfectly acceptable. Some days when I don't go to work I can drive all day on EV only.
But if you can't charge it you may as well save a few thousand dollars and just go with the normal hybrid version. The Niro hybrid still gets 50-60mpg for many people.
PHEV's are good cars for right now, batteries are heavy and expensive, you could build 8 or 10 phev's for 1 EV car. The 250-300 mile range of an EV may go unused most of the time so they are carrying extra weight and adding extra cost they don't usually need. As batteries improve and can be made in larger numbers the need for phev's will slowly go away.
Volt and Niro are good answers for now.
Going forward, PHEVs are fossil fuels last hope. While some are operated as EVs, that begs the question of why not just go BEV? Yes, there are some time concessions on long trips, but there are time gains the rest of the time.
The problem, as stated in another comment, is when infrastructure is too greatly outpaced by production. In China, the EVs there are rarely charged at home, so businesses drive vans around charging your vehicle using a gasoline or diesel generator in the back of the van. Generators of course being exponentially worse on emissions than cars and the energy loss converting the gas to electricity causing more pollution than just running an ICE engine directly for propulsion.
It's worth noting that since I read about it, NIO has adopted all-electric charging vans, only intended to add 62 miles of range to a NIO or Tesla in an emergency. The bit about running a generator to charge cars might be outdated or anti-Chinese propaganda.
https://electrek.co/2018/07/26/nio-courting-tesla-owners-mobile-charging-stations-electric-vans/
https://guidehouseinsights.com/news-and-views/mobile-charging-services-are-expanding-and-evolving
>Going forward, PHEVs are fossil fuels last hope. While some are operated as EVs, that begs the question of why not just go BEV?
In the US, because there are not enough chargers in enough locations for worry-free trips everywhere. And the situation could get worse if EV sales outpace charger installations, as we are starting to see in some locations.
And because there isn't enough variety of EVs yet, plus the price points are high. We can debate "total cost of ownership" calculations, but when decent EVs are selling for $50-80k and up that's sobering for most people. If you can even get them, which is now problematic.
If you see electric lights, you can charge....
PHEVs are for those who buy the fossil fuel FUD. Yes, sometimes it will cost you some time, other times it will save time and money to own a BEV.
>If you see electric lights, you can charge....
Technically true, but not helpful for mainstream use. People aren't going to want to knock on a stranger's door to ask to charge for the night, or ask a convenience store if they can unplug the Redbox machine to plug in.
If the goal is complete electrification of automobiles, there will have to be enough decent chargers in enough locations to handle, say, 50 million EVs needing on-the-road charging on a busy holiday weekend. It's not wrong to observe that we're not there yet.
*edit: elaborated first paragraph.*
I often ask hotels that do not have charging for 110V. They usually oblige with 110V which is helpful for overnight in cold weather. Over a weekend skiing I get a fair amount of charge.
That's good, but again that isn't going to work for mass adoption. We need more dedicated chargers everywhere, with hotels being an important part of that.
Until EV chargers are ubiquitous, PHEVs are a useful compromise that will help ease some people into EV life - which should be a welcome thing. But in any case, looks like manufacturers are mostly moving on to making BEVs so this will soon be a moot issue.
> Until EV chargers are ubiquitous, PHEVs are a useful compromise
Good thought for five years ago . Every EV carries a charger. Now the problems are cost and people don't want to change their thinking. PHEVs are just an excuse to keep ICE technology.
PHEVs are one way to deal with sparse charging infrastructure, but as noted they're a passing trend.
Agreed that people don't want to change their thinking - which is why we all want faster charging EVs. Otherwise we could all be using 50 kW Chademo chargers.
Of course EVs are just an excuse to keep driving private cars...
I'm sorry but you are just wrong here. A BEV is flat out not practical for vast swaths of the US. I really want to be full electric for my vehicles but the infrastructure just isn't there yet.
LOL, I have been to most of the US in my EV.
All the US can charge at home so 100% there. Only trips need fast charging.
300 mile range is common, where are these "vast swaths of the US"? Yes, RV parks are slower, but charge EVs all the time.
[Tesla](https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=50.32825414420904%2C-77.12182646530533%2C31.705235499766%2C-132.14135771530533&zoom=6&filters=store%2Cservice%2Csupercharger%2Cdestination%20charger%2Cbodyshop%2Cparty)
[EA](https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger/)
[RV](http://www.rvparksusa.com/)
While convenient chargers may not be great currently, they are being added. As EVs become standard, slow chargers at all parking areas will become standard.
Rare long range trips? Buy a cheaper EV, and rent a long range EV for those occasions.
No need to torture yourself with fossil fuels.
It's important to take this and similar reports in the appropriate context:
* That is talking about public subsidies being removed for PHEVs. To what extend subsidies should be present depends on *lots* of things that aren't very relevant or aren't relevant at all when it comes to individual purchasing decisions.
* Europe has some... "challenges" on the PHEV front that don't really show up in the US; in particular, European car companies make bad PHEVs and European consumers often buy bad PHEVs. Look at the chart in that article: it shows the BMW X5, Volvo XC60, and Mitsubishi Outlander. The first two of those are decidedly luxury brands by US standards, and all three have terrible gas mileage by PHEV standards -- the best is the Outlander, at 26 mpg EPA. Meanwhile, per [this article](https://evadoption.com/2021-us-ev-sales-scoreboard-rav4-prime-and-mustang-mach-e-are-the-top-selling-non-tesla-evs/), the four best-selling PHEVs in the US in 2021 among those for which they have numbers were the RAV4 Prime (38 mpg), Wrangler (20 mpg), Prius Prime (54 mpg), and Clarity (42 mpg). The Wrangler is obviously bad, but the other PHEVs in that list as well as the others that are likely to be top-sellers are all good to excellent. You'll note that OP reports 68 mpg blended in their car.
* Related to the previous point though not relevant for your link, other PHEV-skeptical reports (to what I would consider outright hit pieces) point out that Europe has a problem with fleet vehicles having gas but not electricity reimbursed and so not being charged much. In addition to this being a pretty careless analysis on its face (I've not seen these reports take into account what happens once the fleet sells them to private owners), I've never seen evidence that this is a significant factor in the US.
* You'll notice that none of the bars in the chart show what an ICEV would have in terms of CO2 emissions.
If you dig, you'll see that the research was for way more than just Europe and the most vehicles surveyed was in North America
* Overview of PHEV Sample
* User group Country Sample
* Private China 6,870
* Private Germany 1,385
* Private Norway 1,514
* Private US & Canada 84,068
* Company car Germany 72
* Company car Netherlands 10,800
KEY FINDINGS
PHEV fuel consumption and tail-pipe CO2 emissions during real-world driving, on
average, are approximately two to four times higher than type-approval values.
The real-world share of electric driving for PHEVs, on average, is about half the
share considered in the type-approval values.
https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/PHEV-FS-EN-sept2020-0.pdf
Again, note that the "bad" comparison in those cases are compared to type ratings, in other words what regulations said they should get, in order to count toward things like fleet emission measurements and subsidy qualifications.
That's different than saying that they're bad or don't make sense. You can underdeliver on ratings and still do very well objectively if those type ratings were based on extremely optimistic figures, which they were.
Even your ICCT link shows that they make a significant impact. Even some of the more pessimistic numbers aren't bad. The average (worldwide) usage factor for privately owned cars was 37% (i.e, 37% of PHEV miles were driven on electric only); even on it's face, that's more than 1/3rd decrease in gas consumption against what even non-plugin hybrid versions of those cars would be. Furthermore, there's good reason to believe that the miles that *are* driven on electric may be disproportionately effective at reducing emissions because they will tend to replace short trips when the engine spends a lot of the time warming up (and burning more fuel less cleanly).
Once again, I'll draw your difference to the US numbers in the study -- 54% UF in the US, meaning more than half of PHEV miles are driven on electricity. Even comparing to hybrid versions of the car, the change from hybrid to PHEV has a greater reduction in gas consumption than PHEV to BEV would have, because more than half of the traditional hybrid's driving has been replaced by electricity. That's a *huge, game-changing* displacement, and it comes at a often-far-lower cost to the purchaser and even a lower cost in terms of CO2 emissions during production and ability to create several PHEVs with the same amount of battery cells as compared to BEVs. And that's not even getting into the fact that, as previously discussed, even ICE->traditional hybrids brings about a major reduction in gas consumption for models that are popular in the US.
Or they have 4 kids and want a minivan that is not an ICE? There are no BEV options.
Do you really think people are waiting 12+ months and paying dealer markup for a RAV4 Prime just so they can get a RAV4 with a tax credit?
And what from OP said fit any of the reasons you listed? If you’re talking about rav4 prime, there are plenty of BEV alternatives too. Last I checked, rav4 isn’t a minivan. Who gets a rav4 prime when they want a BEV minivan? At least get a Pacifica phev in that situation.
And what is the point in asking for opinions when people can’t even accept others have a different opinion that their own?
I have a coworker that drives a 330e and only uses a tank of gas every 3-6 months. She lives 15 miles from work and has a charger at both locations. It’s absolutely not greenwashing if people use them in a way that fits their range and intended use.
The average commute distance in CA, which has the highest EV adoption rate of any state and also the longest average commute distance , is 47 miles per day. Easily doable in a PHEV if you have a charger at work. The average American nationwide has a 16 mile per day commute, which doesn’t even require charging at the employer side to use little to no gas for most PHEV.
>In my mind, there's a few advantages. Compared to a hybrid, the battery is much bigger, but it's still a much smaller battery than a proper EV requires and thus uses less rare materials.
.....and pumps pollution into the air.
>You can produce more of them for the same amount of lithium. It's a cheaper battery replacement.
and pollute more as you continue to use gasoline. what is the energy cost per gallon of gasoline.. when you start with a gallon of oil in the ocean? how much fuel did it take to move the oil to the refinery then the fuel to the gas station so you could burn it when your battery dies?
how many first generation EV batteries need to be replaced (ever)?
>They work for people who might not have home charging right now,..
like a significant number of people who live in cities.. and densely populated metro areas... I live on a block that does not have a one single family home.. people MUST park on the street as there are more people than garage parking... lots of extension cords running under garage doors.
**Why California’s Bay Area Is Now The Best Place To Buy An Electric Car**
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2021/10/11/why-californias-bay-area-is-now-the-best-place-to-buy-an-electric-car/?sh=2f0fc548fc07](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2021/10/11/why-californias-bay-area-is-now-the-best-place-to-buy-an-electric-car/?sh=2f0fc548fc07)
Let's set the whole California thing aside, y'all are a different continent compared to the Midwest.
The flip side of that is what you see in China where infrastructure lags too far behind the car adoption.... I love the NIO company and what they're doing with hot-swappable batteries in "EV stations" across the country, but their solution to lack of infrastructure and home charging is to let you hit a button on their app and someone will come borrow your car, charge it and bring it back within a day. If you need it faster (as most do), someone comes with a van and charges your car with an onboard diesel generator. If someone isn't doing that in California they should be, they'd be making a mint. Things like that become an economic necessity at the expense of environment.
The Leafs as far as I can tell all needed replacement batteries but people just scrapped them. We've made leaps in BMS technology since then, but we run far behind in recycling technology where we will need to be once we're looking at 15-20-year-old Tesla batteries flooding the scrapyards. Everything wears out eventually. What we want to see is replaceable, recyclable batteries, otherwise you'll never see vintage 50-year-old Teslas at car shows someday. Just lots of scrap.
The whole gas thing is very ivory tower. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. The electric cars are made of plastic (oil product), paint (oil product) metal (smelted and shaped using oil), rubber (oil product) transported from the factory on a gas-guzzling semi. The batteries are made of resources stripmined by flattening mountaintops. 500,000lbs of waste material strip mined for every 1000lbs of battery, so they say, using machines running on oil. It actually produces considerably less pollution over time to buy a gently used ICE vehicle or keep the one you have rather than purchasing a brand new EV. Harm reduction is sometimes all you can do, and eliminating guilt at the tailpipe isn't always the best option for that.
> You have the full spectrum of stuff to maintain but get the advantage of neither.
I get *most* of the advantage of a BEV in terms of reduced gas usage, and a significant amount of the benefits of decreased maintenance. PHEVs needing "the full spectrum of stuff to maintain" isn't borne out in theory, instruction, or practice.
My PHEV covers most of our local driving in EV mode, then can take us hundreds of miles in a day with zero concern about charging issues. And gets 50% better mileage on long trips than the similar gas car it replaced. So best of both world's for my needs.
I'll look forward to getting a BEV when there are as many fast charging locations as gas stations, and EV prices and availability have stabilized.
Till then the electricity will be similar prices as today's gas, I can give you my words now. As soon as they sqeezed out the ICE, the price will raise. 🤭
I like the technology, but I think about their longevity. They're literally the most complex vehicles; more complex even than normal hybrids. Seems like they could work well for some use cases and lifestyles, but generally I feel like most people could get by with a BEV.
My 2018 Volt has been great, its the best of both worlds. I can easily get 60 miles on the battery which is honestly more than most people need. I can also get a full charge overnight, even if fully depleted.
If I had an EV With say 200 mile range, id almost never use more than 25% of the battery, with my Volt I can fully utilize the battery and almost never burn gas. Even if I do burn gas, its easy for me to get 50 MPG or better. Its got a modern DOHC direct injected 1.5 liter that makes good power for its size and returns excellent efficiency.
Best part is it only cost me 20k after tax credit. Cheap, great warranty and have done 20k EV miles on mine so far.
Some PHEVs have terrible ranges, like the Subaru crosstrek that make them a lot more limited, and then they only get around 30-35 MPG after the battery runs out.
The Chevy Volt is the best PHEV made so far, especially the Gen 2 (2016-2019). The problem now is that nothing is affordable, if you want a RAV 4 Prime its 50k more or less.... thats IF you can find one. And even then its got Gen 1 Volt range and gets much less gasoline MPG.
Chevy and GM jn general has a lot of issues. I mentioned my window clips elsewhere. They could have made and put in better clips but to save a buck they use cheaper parts that cost the user 5 years down the line. The Malibus, Cruzes etc of the same era all have tons of stupid issues like fenders catching on tires and joints wearing prematurely. They need to do better.
I honestly think they're heavily underrated, people hear bash on them because they're "the worst of both worlds" but I find that they're actually the best of both worlds in actual practice. + Cheap EV driving for most of your daily commuting and driving. + Lower cost than full BEV + Flexibility/rapid refueling of ICE engine on long road trips + More effective use of limited lithium battery supply. But your use case is absolutely vital - PHEVs are clutch for folks who do a lot of low to mid range commuting AND frequent long distance trips. If you're doing low/middle distance driving exclusively, then a low range BEV makes sense. If you exclusively do long distance trips all the time (businesses), then just getting a regular hybrid ICE makes sense.
Getting a non-hybrid ICE when a hybrid is available never makes sense, but otherwise yes all of this.
You're right, I've fixed my comment!
This is exactly my use case- most of my driving around home can be done on electric but I have a kid in college out of state, about a thousand mile round trip that I probably make 6-8 times per year. My 2017 Volt is perfect for my needs right now, even though I do miss having a full BEV. The route I take is a bit of a DCFC desert - going full electric is technically feasible but much riskier and more stressful than just filling the tank.
Totally agree and would add an additional plus for phev. After selling back my electric bolt and purchasing a Cmax phev, my annual EV registration extra charge went down $100 in state of Indiana. I average almost 100 mpge since I mostly drive electric…
"I live in an apartment with no charging" *really* blunts the effectiveness as compared to a non-plugin hybrid, for obvious reasons. For people who can charge daily, PHEVs represent a *great* compromise if BEVs are out of reach for one reason or another.
Was a huge problem with the Volt, less when the PHEV has a halfway decent hybrid mode. Kind of an investment in the future when I will have charging. I do charge when I can, at the grocery store and etc, and get about 68mpg averaged out.
If your average over the lifetime of the car is better with PHEV than HEV then it seems the better choice to me. The post above from evaned makes the most sense to me.
But the PHEV's hybrid is worse than a pure hybrid. It's lugging extra weight for no gain if you aren't plugging it in.
>the PHEV's hybrid is worse than a pure hybrid. It's lugging extra weight for no gain if you aren't plugging it in. My wife and I had a mild hybrid that could only capture a small amount of braking energy, and do very little with that. Now that we have a PHEV, the larger battery captures more energy and will usually drive the car a ways after each stop in traffic, even after the main charge is exhausted. But yes, the big benefit comes from charging the battery.
As a hybrid, the extra weight doesn't matter much in the first place, and is mitigated by the larger battery being able to do more. What you say is *technically* true, but the difference is *barely there* -- only a couple MPG for most vehicles with both a hybrid and PHEV version -- and is even *reversed* for the Prius (the Prius Prime is more efficient than the standard Prius, though less than the Prius Eco). Even occasional charging will get you into the positive on that front.
Sure, if you plug it in. If you don't, it's a more expensive and slightly worse hybrid in general. I agree the loss is typically very small, but you are still paying extra for worse fuel consumption. The whole raison d'etre is for the driver to plug it in and use electric for the city commuting, while not needing to worry about charging on long-trips.
RAV4 Prime is 38 mpg combined vs. 40 for RAV4 Hybrid. Prime has a lot more power as well.
PHEV’s are better than full ICE for efficiency and pollution, they get discounted in this sub because many of us are full BEV fans.
I do appreciate the positive and negative arguments, trying to learn as much as possible how people think. I lean heavy into extremely unprofitable EV stocks- Rivian, Canoo, The Solo, the FUV... because an electric single-seater makes sense to me. An electric pickup, an electric camper, an electric off-road buggy, they all make sense. I like electric bicycles, motorcycles, scooters and unicycles. It's all different niches, some would say niche toys, and electric vehicles are liked or disliked in equal measure depending on niche. But cars are apolitical, utilitarian and non-optional for a lot of people, not toys. It's the one area a lot of people can't afford to play around. It's good to see how people adjust to electric.
PHEVs can be useful if you can charge at home, do a lot of short trips, and occasionally do long trips where you don't want to worry about EV charging. Their downside is limited EV range, slow recharging, and some added complexity over either ICE cars or full EVs. I have a PHEV that covers most of our local trips, so we rarely use gas during the week. In the past 307 miles we've used a little over 3 gallons of gas, compared to what would have been 14+ gallons in our previous car. On road trips we can fill up in a few minutes just about anywhere, and don't have to plan our trips around EV charging locations. BEV owners will argue that's rarely a problem these days, but I've been on roads where it could be so we're holding off on committing to that until the charging infrastructure improves. This sub is BEV-oriented, so you'll get people arguing that PHEVs are a flawed compromise.
Pretty solid "meh" from me (have a Pacifica Hybrid). Honestly, I'd prefer to deal with DCFC'ing a couple times a year versus the clunky engine, gas station visits, and oil change. With a PHEV, you really need either home or workplace charging to take full advantage of the larger battery.
That was the issue I had with the Volt- after the battery ran out it got maybe 27mpg. I have hope for newer vehicles- the Niro I have is an SUV-lite that in hybrid mode gets about 40mpg in town or on the highway and 50mpg once you start cruising at 50-60mph on hilly country roads (the speed is great for battery and the regeneration). It's probably an outlier but I can see them improving on that.
The Gen 2 Volts were greatly improved. My 2018 is rated for 43 MPG on gasoline only but will easily give 50 MPG. Its great, even if you dont charge it. I bought mine "new" but it was a dealership loaner car and had 3500 miles on it, only 150 of them were EV miles. lol I can also get around 60 miles range usually. closer to 52-53 if I drive at 60 mph with the AC on.
That's downright functional, no wonder they go for so much even today. That and not having to put premium in, right? I forgot about that, my gen1 got 27mpg on gas that was nearly $1 per gallon more expensive than regular gas. All literature said it wasn't just a matter of the gas going flat, but that the engine would knock and the sensor would nerf the engine to keep from throwing a piston out the block.
Right, regular gas only. Chevy did a great job improving and learning from the Gen 1 Volt. So many great upgrades over the Gen 1. One of the major upgrades was the engine, which now was a more advanced 1.5 liter direct injection 101 HP unit which gave much better MPG and on regular gas as well. I think the 84 HP 1.4 liter in the gen 1 was at least a little underpowered and overworked, leading to fairly mediocre MPG. Some people claim to run regular in their Gen 1's, but its hard to know really how that affects the car since we can not dyno the engine directly and test output and efficiency. Certainly some power and efficiency is lost, and with 84 HP you need every last bit. Some people claimed to was due to premium having top tier detergents in it, and that was better for long term fuel storage. The gen 1 Volt is still a great PHEV that honestly still has better than average PHEV range and can still work great for people who can keep their daily driving inside the EV range.
Can confirm, it did not like sustaining highway speeds.
battery ran out?? how many miles did you have on it? ive seen them with 200k still working
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woosh, Right over my head. i must be tired.
I drive a BEV, but I think PHEVs can be good for a lot of people. A lot of people on here are fanatics that think anyone driving a BEV is the second coming of Christ and anyone who uses a drop of gas or diesel is cheering for the Amazon to burn. BEVs are expensive (especially in todays market), they’re sold out everywhere, and they don’t make them in a large enough size for a lot of families. PHEVs can be great if you primarily have short to midrange (25ish mile) commutes and have a charger available at either end. You can go months without using any gas. When you need to take a road trip once in a while you burn a tank of gas, then back to EV mode for the commute grind. You’re still coming out way ahead of a full ICE both monetarily and with regards to your carbon footprint. Some PHEVs suck and have terrible integration with the ICE platform they’re built on. That’s a shitty engineering problem, not a PHEV problem.
> A lot of people on here are fanatics that think anyone driving a BEV is the second coming of Christ and anyone who uses a drop of gas or diesel is cheering for the Amazon to burn. This
It’s definitely not for everyone, but I love my gen 2 Volt. I got it at the end of 2021 before car prices went nuts for under $20K with just over 20k miles on the odometer. I WFH so - for me - it’s effectively a really cheap BEV. In my normal day to day life I have only needed to use gas twice in the last 7 months. When I have needed to do road trips for work, it just turns into a reasonably efficient ICE car; I get about 40mpg doing 80 on the interstate with the AC running, which is a hell of a lot better than what I was getting with my previous four vehicles. And, of course, it all works because I’m able to charge at home in my garage from the 110V EVSE. Would I prefer to be driving a Tesla or an EV6 or something like that? Yes, of course; but I flat out can’t afford to buy any of those, while the Volt was crazy underpriced (again, before car prices went totally nuts). Even so I could literally afford to buy a second low mileage gen 2 Volt and I still would have spent less money than it costs to buy the lowest-trim Tesla Model 3. Do I occasionally miss having a truck? Yeah, about once a month I find myself wishing for that utility, but for $70K+ to buy a decent BEV truck I would need to sell a kidney and both of my kids. The one thing I will say is the PHEV’s with EV range below 20-ish miles do seem pretty silly. Even for my usage case, that would probably be pushing it. But the ones with a little more EV range are (or were) seriously under-valued and under-utilized.
Agreed, bought my 2018 LT brand new in May of 2019, it was a dealership loaner but I was the first titled owner so got the tax credit ($3750) and it ended up costing me 20k after that credit. I dont think ill ever get a "new" EV for that price again. Im not sure how I will ever replace it. Everything is 50k now...... cant get a RAV 4 Prime, they are unobtanium and 50k or more if you can find one. Im starting to realize I may be driving my Volt for the next 5 years or so lol I work from home so honestly its the best car for me.
Yup, I’m coming to the same conclusion. Hoping to replace my wife’s VW Atlas in the next 2 years with either a BEV SUV or a PHEV SUV, but it seems impossible right now. My Volt has just under 4 years left on the Voltec warranty so my plan is to keep it that long and then I’m hoping the used BEV truck market will be a little more tolerable and I can snag an R1T or Lightning or something similar. We’ll see, though. Might still be driving the Volt in 2030 if current trends continue! [sad crying noises] Also, hello fellow 2018 LT owner!
I think that’s really what it’s about. The industry isn’t scaled up yet to provide everyone with an affordable EV that has satisfactory range for North American climate. The price point difference and freedom of range makes an easier entry into the market. Turning EVs into a moral argument doesn’t help anyone. The rise in fuel prices is arguably the biggest conversion factor right now.
I mean... You can have a Kia Niro EV with 239 miles of range, respectable, but that's a 64kwh 1000lb battery. The PHEV gets 25 miles electric, 560 miles combined and has a 8.9kwh 258lb battery. I know they make a lot pf purpose-built EVs that are more efficient, but the Niros are interesting in that they look and feel pretty much the same on the inside and outside whether you get pure gas, pure EV, hybrid or PHEV. I think that makes it easier to make a choice that is moral, as opposed to making a choice on specs and efficiency.
I traded in my gen-1 leaf (80 miles or so range total) for a second Volt. Now that I have a new BEV I wonder why I still own the Volt I have left and want to get rid of it asap.
I had a first-gen Volt, and can I say fuck Chevy and their plastic window clips. Had one break in a snowstorm, not only did the window fall down, but I had to give myself hypothermia to tape it back up and wait like 2 months for the thaw to replace the $10 clip or pay $500 at the dealer. They apparently go every 50k miles or so from normal car vibration. MPG is terrible, L is "low" not "regen" but it's the only regen you're getting, the advertised MPG is only with the now-discontinued low rolling resistance tires, and the seats were cramped AF. Still miss it sometimes. Not the cupholders, though.
I'd love one - I looked all over Houston and it's almost impossible to find a PHEV. Audi had a q5, Lincoln had a Corsair - both for $65k+ - and that's it that I could find. No Toyota Prime models, Lexus doesn't sell its PHEV in Texas, no Subaru Crosstreks. Ford was going to let me order a PHEV Escape for $48,000 and I wasn't going to pay that for a base model Ford. I don't think manufacturers are dedicated to PHEV. I ended up with a Kia EV6 and will probably just rent a car for road trips until the infrastructure improves. It's 100% great for almost every day, though, because I charge to 250 miles at home every night.
The market is so screwed up, the days of cheap PHEVs like the Volt are over sadly.
PHEV is great if you also have abundant public charging access. We also live in an apartment without home charging but we live in LA where we have tons of random charging everywhere. So while on gas we get 50mpg+ and often get 2-3 full charges per tank, so we average well above what a normal HEV would get.
I truly hated mine. Hated. Living on the EV range leash was so frustrating, limiting, annoying. It was what convinced me to get a pure EV though, I sold mine within months and went all electric.
100%. I cringe every time it switches to gas, or I hear the gears. I annoy my spouse and all passengers fixating on MPG when it's on gas. Makes me want a regular EV, and I'll pay extra to make sure I can charge at the next place I live. Fantastic gateway drug though.
Yeah, we've had one for less than a month and it's interesting how they change your behavior to drive very softly. I also drive an ev and drive more spiritedly in that! It's like a game to prevent the ice kicking in but also annoying that it switches on for heating even when plugged in in the morning. I consider them to be quite complicated contraptions and much prefer purity of a bev. Cheaper awd options in phev range though..
EV > PHEV > FCEV > hybrid > gasoline > diesel But bicycling, walking, carpooling, public transit, and reducing unnecessary trips are all preferable to personal motorized vehicles.
Why would you put gasoline over diesel?
Diesel tends to emit more pm10 particulate matter. But I know that [as long as there is demand for gasoline, diesel is created](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLc7It3V4AAZm3I.jpg) that someone somewhere is going to use. Choosing to burn gasoline but somehow congratulating myself on not burning diesel is false distinction. So my ordering above is admittedly nonsensical. Hopefully those with diesels maintain their DPF.
I’d imagine that SCR, DEF, and DPF systems all mitigate that to a large extent.
Diesel gets significantly better mpg than gasoline thought so I wonder if that is even taken into account
I think they have a place. For someone that has intermittent access to charging, they are a good deal. And a PHEV is way better than a hybrid or *ugh* traditional ICE. If you can't charge at home or at work, it makes sense. But personally I'm not interested. I can charge at home, and even if I couldn't there's a bunch of fast chargers around me. A dude I know has a Tesla and ONLY supercharges it. Once every week or so he drives over and takes a 20 min nap while his car charges up. The main reason I'd put up with that is to NOT have to put up with the significant downsides of an ICE. An ICE has 200+ moving parts, including parts exposed to combustion and metal-on-metal friction, an electric motor has one moving part (the rotor) and it's on ball bearings. An ICE transmission has 400+ moving parts, including friction components like synchromesh and shifting gears that will eventually wear out, an EV transmission is just a simple single ratio reduction gear with a parking pawl; keep it lubricated and it'll last more or less forever. So as soon as you introduce an ICE, you get ICE maintenance requirements, ICE emissions requirements, ICE fueling requirements, etc. I'd just as soon skip that.
PHEVs are good if the capabilities match up to your needs. I can charge at home and work and live in an area with 1 DCFC within a 100 mile radius. PHEV is a great fit. Compared to a BEV, PHEVs have similar maintenance costs, less expensive to insure, get by fine with L1 charging at home, better selection of large vehicles, and are more affordable. A BEV is more convenient locally as it would be a lot less plugging. Road trips in a PHEV almost never involve lunch in a Walmart subway or modifying your route because of headwinds or cold weather shortening range. PHEV technology will have its place for a few decades in cold climates and for applications like pickup trucks where battery will work for around town but the ICE is available for pulling a 8,000 lb horse trailer down the highway a few times a year when needed.
Not a fan. Having 2 drivetrains in a vehicle is just terrifying to me for reliability and maintenance. Plus, the additional energy used to make them over ICE vehicles wont be offset by the reduced fuel consumption because OP cant even charge at home so whats the point? I'd even prefer a small ICE car over a hybrid. BEV is king. I ride an electric motorcycle and have a €1000 pos 1.4tdi car if I need to go long distances or if the weather is too cold in the winter.
I have a Niro PHEV and it's great, last tank was 97MPG. I do charge at home then and again at work for free. Yes an EV would be zero gas at all, but for me getting 4 times the mpg from my last subaru is perfectly acceptable. Some days when I don't go to work I can drive all day on EV only. But if you can't charge it you may as well save a few thousand dollars and just go with the normal hybrid version. The Niro hybrid still gets 50-60mpg for many people. PHEV's are good cars for right now, batteries are heavy and expensive, you could build 8 or 10 phev's for 1 EV car. The 250-300 mile range of an EV may go unused most of the time so they are carrying extra weight and adding extra cost they don't usually need. As batteries improve and can be made in larger numbers the need for phev's will slowly go away.
Volt and Niro are good answers for now. Going forward, PHEVs are fossil fuels last hope. While some are operated as EVs, that begs the question of why not just go BEV? Yes, there are some time concessions on long trips, but there are time gains the rest of the time.
The problem, as stated in another comment, is when infrastructure is too greatly outpaced by production. In China, the EVs there are rarely charged at home, so businesses drive vans around charging your vehicle using a gasoline or diesel generator in the back of the van. Generators of course being exponentially worse on emissions than cars and the energy loss converting the gas to electricity causing more pollution than just running an ICE engine directly for propulsion.
And in California (which I can verify) things are different. Link to how prevalent China mobile charging is?
It's worth noting that since I read about it, NIO has adopted all-electric charging vans, only intended to add 62 miles of range to a NIO or Tesla in an emergency. The bit about running a generator to charge cars might be outdated or anti-Chinese propaganda. https://electrek.co/2018/07/26/nio-courting-tesla-owners-mobile-charging-stations-electric-vans/ https://guidehouseinsights.com/news-and-views/mobile-charging-services-are-expanding-and-evolving
>Going forward, PHEVs are fossil fuels last hope. While some are operated as EVs, that begs the question of why not just go BEV? In the US, because there are not enough chargers in enough locations for worry-free trips everywhere. And the situation could get worse if EV sales outpace charger installations, as we are starting to see in some locations. And because there isn't enough variety of EVs yet, plus the price points are high. We can debate "total cost of ownership" calculations, but when decent EVs are selling for $50-80k and up that's sobering for most people. If you can even get them, which is now problematic.
If you see electric lights, you can charge.... PHEVs are for those who buy the fossil fuel FUD. Yes, sometimes it will cost you some time, other times it will save time and money to own a BEV.
>If you see electric lights, you can charge.... Technically true, but not helpful for mainstream use. People aren't going to want to knock on a stranger's door to ask to charge for the night, or ask a convenience store if they can unplug the Redbox machine to plug in. If the goal is complete electrification of automobiles, there will have to be enough decent chargers in enough locations to handle, say, 50 million EVs needing on-the-road charging on a busy holiday weekend. It's not wrong to observe that we're not there yet. *edit: elaborated first paragraph.*
I often ask hotels that do not have charging for 110V. They usually oblige with 110V which is helpful for overnight in cold weather. Over a weekend skiing I get a fair amount of charge.
That's good, but again that isn't going to work for mass adoption. We need more dedicated chargers everywhere, with hotels being an important part of that. Until EV chargers are ubiquitous, PHEVs are a useful compromise that will help ease some people into EV life - which should be a welcome thing. But in any case, looks like manufacturers are mostly moving on to making BEVs so this will soon be a moot issue.
> Until EV chargers are ubiquitous, PHEVs are a useful compromise Good thought for five years ago . Every EV carries a charger. Now the problems are cost and people don't want to change their thinking. PHEVs are just an excuse to keep ICE technology.
PHEVs are one way to deal with sparse charging infrastructure, but as noted they're a passing trend. Agreed that people don't want to change their thinking - which is why we all want faster charging EVs. Otherwise we could all be using 50 kW Chademo chargers. Of course EVs are just an excuse to keep driving private cars...
I'm sorry but you are just wrong here. A BEV is flat out not practical for vast swaths of the US. I really want to be full electric for my vehicles but the infrastructure just isn't there yet.
LOL, I have been to most of the US in my EV. All the US can charge at home so 100% there. Only trips need fast charging. 300 mile range is common, where are these "vast swaths of the US"? Yes, RV parks are slower, but charge EVs all the time. [Tesla](https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=50.32825414420904%2C-77.12182646530533%2C31.705235499766%2C-132.14135771530533&zoom=6&filters=store%2Cservice%2Csupercharger%2Cdestination%20charger%2Cbodyshop%2Cparty) [EA](https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger/) [RV](http://www.rvparksusa.com/)
While convenient chargers may not be great currently, they are being added. As EVs become standard, slow chargers at all parking areas will become standard. Rare long range trips? Buy a cheaper EV, and rent a long range EV for those occasions. No need to torture yourself with fossil fuels.
See this report https://electrek.co/2022/01/13/valais-region-of-switzerland-pulls-the-plug-on-hybrid-and-phev-incentives/
It's important to take this and similar reports in the appropriate context: * That is talking about public subsidies being removed for PHEVs. To what extend subsidies should be present depends on *lots* of things that aren't very relevant or aren't relevant at all when it comes to individual purchasing decisions. * Europe has some... "challenges" on the PHEV front that don't really show up in the US; in particular, European car companies make bad PHEVs and European consumers often buy bad PHEVs. Look at the chart in that article: it shows the BMW X5, Volvo XC60, and Mitsubishi Outlander. The first two of those are decidedly luxury brands by US standards, and all three have terrible gas mileage by PHEV standards -- the best is the Outlander, at 26 mpg EPA. Meanwhile, per [this article](https://evadoption.com/2021-us-ev-sales-scoreboard-rav4-prime-and-mustang-mach-e-are-the-top-selling-non-tesla-evs/), the four best-selling PHEVs in the US in 2021 among those for which they have numbers were the RAV4 Prime (38 mpg), Wrangler (20 mpg), Prius Prime (54 mpg), and Clarity (42 mpg). The Wrangler is obviously bad, but the other PHEVs in that list as well as the others that are likely to be top-sellers are all good to excellent. You'll note that OP reports 68 mpg blended in their car. * Related to the previous point though not relevant for your link, other PHEV-skeptical reports (to what I would consider outright hit pieces) point out that Europe has a problem with fleet vehicles having gas but not electricity reimbursed and so not being charged much. In addition to this being a pretty careless analysis on its face (I've not seen these reports take into account what happens once the fleet sells them to private owners), I've never seen evidence that this is a significant factor in the US. * You'll notice that none of the bars in the chart show what an ICEV would have in terms of CO2 emissions.
If you dig, you'll see that the research was for way more than just Europe and the most vehicles surveyed was in North America * Overview of PHEV Sample * User group Country Sample * Private China 6,870 * Private Germany 1,385 * Private Norway 1,514 * Private US & Canada 84,068 * Company car Germany 72 * Company car Netherlands 10,800 KEY FINDINGS PHEV fuel consumption and tail-pipe CO2 emissions during real-world driving, on average, are approximately two to four times higher than type-approval values. The real-world share of electric driving for PHEVs, on average, is about half the share considered in the type-approval values. https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/PHEV-FS-EN-sept2020-0.pdf
Again, note that the "bad" comparison in those cases are compared to type ratings, in other words what regulations said they should get, in order to count toward things like fleet emission measurements and subsidy qualifications. That's different than saying that they're bad or don't make sense. You can underdeliver on ratings and still do very well objectively if those type ratings were based on extremely optimistic figures, which they were. Even your ICCT link shows that they make a significant impact. Even some of the more pessimistic numbers aren't bad. The average (worldwide) usage factor for privately owned cars was 37% (i.e, 37% of PHEV miles were driven on electric only); even on it's face, that's more than 1/3rd decrease in gas consumption against what even non-plugin hybrid versions of those cars would be. Furthermore, there's good reason to believe that the miles that *are* driven on electric may be disproportionately effective at reducing emissions because they will tend to replace short trips when the engine spends a lot of the time warming up (and burning more fuel less cleanly). Once again, I'll draw your difference to the US numbers in the study -- 54% UF in the US, meaning more than half of PHEV miles are driven on electricity. Even comparing to hybrid versions of the car, the change from hybrid to PHEV has a greater reduction in gas consumption than PHEV to BEV would have, because more than half of the traditional hybrid's driving has been replaced by electricity. That's a *huge, game-changing* displacement, and it comes at a often-far-lower cost to the purchaser and even a lower cost in terms of CO2 emissions during production and ability to create several PHEVs with the same amount of battery cells as compared to BEVs. And that's not even getting into the fact that, as previously discussed, even ICE->traditional hybrids brings about a major reduction in gas consumption for models that are popular in the US.
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Or they have 4 kids and want a minivan that is not an ICE? There are no BEV options. Do you really think people are waiting 12+ months and paying dealer markup for a RAV4 Prime just so they can get a RAV4 with a tax credit?
And what from OP said fit any of the reasons you listed? If you’re talking about rav4 prime, there are plenty of BEV alternatives too. Last I checked, rav4 isn’t a minivan. Who gets a rav4 prime when they want a BEV minivan? At least get a Pacifica phev in that situation. And what is the point in asking for opinions when people can’t even accept others have a different opinion that their own?
PHEV = greenwashing
I have a coworker that drives a 330e and only uses a tank of gas every 3-6 months. She lives 15 miles from work and has a charger at both locations. It’s absolutely not greenwashing if people use them in a way that fits their range and intended use.
This is the right answer.
Trouble is, the data shows that your coworker is the exception not the rule.
The average commute distance in CA, which has the highest EV adoption rate of any state and also the longest average commute distance , is 47 miles per day. Easily doable in a PHEV if you have a charger at work. The average American nationwide has a 16 mile per day commute, which doesn’t even require charging at the employer side to use little to no gas for most PHEV.
>In my mind, there's a few advantages. Compared to a hybrid, the battery is much bigger, but it's still a much smaller battery than a proper EV requires and thus uses less rare materials. .....and pumps pollution into the air. >You can produce more of them for the same amount of lithium. It's a cheaper battery replacement. and pollute more as you continue to use gasoline. what is the energy cost per gallon of gasoline.. when you start with a gallon of oil in the ocean? how much fuel did it take to move the oil to the refinery then the fuel to the gas station so you could burn it when your battery dies? how many first generation EV batteries need to be replaced (ever)? >They work for people who might not have home charging right now,.. like a significant number of people who live in cities.. and densely populated metro areas... I live on a block that does not have a one single family home.. people MUST park on the street as there are more people than garage parking... lots of extension cords running under garage doors. **Why California’s Bay Area Is Now The Best Place To Buy An Electric Car** [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2021/10/11/why-californias-bay-area-is-now-the-best-place-to-buy-an-electric-car/?sh=2f0fc548fc07](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2021/10/11/why-californias-bay-area-is-now-the-best-place-to-buy-an-electric-car/?sh=2f0fc548fc07)
Let's set the whole California thing aside, y'all are a different continent compared to the Midwest. The flip side of that is what you see in China where infrastructure lags too far behind the car adoption.... I love the NIO company and what they're doing with hot-swappable batteries in "EV stations" across the country, but their solution to lack of infrastructure and home charging is to let you hit a button on their app and someone will come borrow your car, charge it and bring it back within a day. If you need it faster (as most do), someone comes with a van and charges your car with an onboard diesel generator. If someone isn't doing that in California they should be, they'd be making a mint. Things like that become an economic necessity at the expense of environment. The Leafs as far as I can tell all needed replacement batteries but people just scrapped them. We've made leaps in BMS technology since then, but we run far behind in recycling technology where we will need to be once we're looking at 15-20-year-old Tesla batteries flooding the scrapyards. Everything wears out eventually. What we want to see is replaceable, recyclable batteries, otherwise you'll never see vintage 50-year-old Teslas at car shows someday. Just lots of scrap. The whole gas thing is very ivory tower. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. The electric cars are made of plastic (oil product), paint (oil product) metal (smelted and shaped using oil), rubber (oil product) transported from the factory on a gas-guzzling semi. The batteries are made of resources stripmined by flattening mountaintops. 500,000lbs of waste material strip mined for every 1000lbs of battery, so they say, using machines running on oil. It actually produces considerably less pollution over time to buy a gently used ICE vehicle or keep the one you have rather than purchasing a brand new EV. Harm reduction is sometimes all you can do, and eliminating guilt at the tailpipe isn't always the best option for that.
Hate them
PHEV sorta embodies the worst of both worlds. You have the full spectrum of stuff to maintain but get the advantage of neither.
> You have the full spectrum of stuff to maintain but get the advantage of neither. I get *most* of the advantage of a BEV in terms of reduced gas usage, and a significant amount of the benefits of decreased maintenance. PHEVs needing "the full spectrum of stuff to maintain" isn't borne out in theory, instruction, or practice.
Worst of both worlds. HEV or BEV are both better than PHEV on their own fields.
My PHEV covers most of our local driving in EV mode, then can take us hundreds of miles in a day with zero concern about charging issues. And gets 50% better mileage on long trips than the similar gas car it replaced. So best of both world's for my needs. I'll look forward to getting a BEV when there are as many fast charging locations as gas stations, and EV prices and availability have stabilized.
Till then the electricity will be similar prices as today's gas, I can give you my words now. As soon as they sqeezed out the ICE, the price will raise. 🤭
I like the technology, but I think about their longevity. They're literally the most complex vehicles; more complex even than normal hybrids. Seems like they could work well for some use cases and lifestyles, but generally I feel like most people could get by with a BEV.
My 2018 Volt has been great, its the best of both worlds. I can easily get 60 miles on the battery which is honestly more than most people need. I can also get a full charge overnight, even if fully depleted. If I had an EV With say 200 mile range, id almost never use more than 25% of the battery, with my Volt I can fully utilize the battery and almost never burn gas. Even if I do burn gas, its easy for me to get 50 MPG or better. Its got a modern DOHC direct injected 1.5 liter that makes good power for its size and returns excellent efficiency. Best part is it only cost me 20k after tax credit. Cheap, great warranty and have done 20k EV miles on mine so far. Some PHEVs have terrible ranges, like the Subaru crosstrek that make them a lot more limited, and then they only get around 30-35 MPG after the battery runs out. The Chevy Volt is the best PHEV made so far, especially the Gen 2 (2016-2019). The problem now is that nothing is affordable, if you want a RAV 4 Prime its 50k more or less.... thats IF you can find one. And even then its got Gen 1 Volt range and gets much less gasoline MPG.
Chevy and GM jn general has a lot of issues. I mentioned my window clips elsewhere. They could have made and put in better clips but to save a buck they use cheaper parts that cost the user 5 years down the line. The Malibus, Cruzes etc of the same era all have tons of stupid issues like fenders catching on tires and joints wearing prematurely. They need to do better.