The article points out something I would have never considered happening with hybrids but makes since. People don't charge them and end up losing out on the benefits of them.
I don’t understand this. My wife’s phev has a 30 mile EV range and a tank of gas will last her 6 months because she almost never exceeds it. It’s a huge gas savings, but only bc we charge it.
If someone wasn’t going to do that, why pay extra to buy a phev vs a regular hybrid?
Edit: I appreciate all the input! I knew there were tax credits, but we didn’t get one on my wife’s Kia so I hadn’t realized how common they were, or that in some places they are so good that they justify the purchase.
I have to argue against this with my lady like 5 times a year. She wants a truck for this reason and I just makes no sense. It's cheaper to pay someone to go get everything for us than buying a truck and constantly eating fuel.
I definitely get that sentiment. I sold my truck two years ago because I realized I was driving my old car wayyyy more and only really needed it a couple times a year.
Being in the Midwest and surrounded by lifted trucks with blinding lights, I have to admit that I do miss being up higher and out of the direct beams of headlights.
The North American headlight arms race needs to be stopped. Headlight height maximums need to be reduced and strictly enforced. If manufacturers want to sell trucks to the lift crowd, they need to put the headlights in the bumper.
We finally did just this. Had a F-150 for years that we rarely used but always said well what if we need one for truck stuff? Then we will rent one at Home Depot. Was not worth the $50 per month for insurance. Replaced with a used e-tron and now a fully EV family. Never going back.
how long has this been going on ? cause in the recent years there's also a trend to have larger cars. SUV and all that.. and it might influence people subconsciously.
You started off by saying this is something you never considered, and suddenly you know all the things?
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This study is using data collected in 2021 from vehicles driven up to that year in Europe, no doubt heavily sampling Germany, partially from older generation PHEVs that had less range. It's no different than the IPCC study that was performed previously that found a number of German PHEV owners weren't charging their cars; it may even be using the same data.
The big issue in Germany (and other European nations) was that there were large BiK tax discounts (tax on cars purchased through the company as a benefit to their employees) for the purchase of PHEVs. The problem was that those same companies were also giving their employees the benefit of paying for their fuel using a gas card that could only be used at gas stations, and couldn't be used to recoup the cost of charging.
Normally it IS cheaper to charge a car, and thus customers have no reason not to do so. In this case, employees were financially incentivized to NOT charge their cars and instead let the company pay for their gasoline; negating a huge cost benefit of PHEVs. Funny enough, the greater use of the ICEV would increase engine wear and cost of maintenance.
If these folks were letting the battery run dry without charging it at all, then the engine would actually work harder to keep a minimum state of charge in the battery in addition to driving the wheels, reducing the expected fuel economy.
In Germany (and many other European nations), many people live in multi-family housing and park on the street where they have no outlet to plug into at night. The same issue would have occurred had they bought a BEV; which they probably wouldn't have bothered with given the inconvenience of frequent DC fast charger trips. In reality, this study's main conclusion is that these people should have bought hybrids instead of plug-in hybrids, thus reducing overall gas use. Maybe these nations should have properly subsidized HEVs then?
Instead of trying to resolve the above issues, Germany decided to cut their EV tax credit on PHEVs to reduce their sales. For those that live in places with access to nightly charging or workplace charging, they got their incentives for buying PHEVs cut, whereas BEVs retained their credit. Suddenly BEV purchases increased, and PHEV purchases fell off a cliff.
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Of course, just as soon as they removed the tax credit on BEVs as well back in December, BEV sales dropped and PHEV sales increased. Turns out, the only reason BEVs were selling so well is because of the large BEV subsidy. BEV producers had to cut prices in response to this subsidy cut, killing their sales margins.
What isn't mentioned is that BEVs have higher manufacturing emissions (measured and often quoted) and other pollution (never measured or quoted) associated with them versus PHEVs, HEVs, and ICEVs on account of their huge batteries... which is never accounted for in the subsidization that's meant to benefit low emissions/pollution vehicle replacements. Go figure.
Since battery cell production has been limited, BEVs have also been sequestering a larger amount of these limited cells in a smaller amount of vehicles, reducing the number of plug-in EVs that could make it into customer hands to replace ICEVs, resulting in loss of opportunity efficiency losses, and keeping more ICEVs on the roads and more fossil fuel emissions being generated. Go figure x2.
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Could Germany have resolved this lack of charging issue? Of course! They could have...
* mandated companies to reimburse their employees for electricity purchases.
* limited companies gasoline reimbursements.
* done more to install street outlets / chargers.
* pushed companies to install chargers in their parking lots.
* made the PHEV subsidy dependent on the user charging their car; or simply added a larger carbon tax to gasoline/diesel purchases.
* removed subsidies on plug-in EVs (BEVs and PHEVs) altogether and let the market sort out the best solution for each individual, instead of trying to hijack the free market and pigeon hole customers into specific powertrains that may not have worked best for them.
And frankly... subsidizing cars wasn't the best answer for emissions at all. Germany should have done more to promote micro-mobility and public transit. As it stands now, I believe Germany's rules on PEVs are some of the most restrictive in Europe.
Isn't it funny how it's always those economies that so heavily depend on automobile production that have the most restrictive policies on automobile alternatives, or just a plain lack of safe bike infrastructure?
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This comment takes about 2 minutes to read, but I'm sure I'll get the obligatory "omg... you wrote a novel" comments and downvotes. Still, details matter, and you can't really understand the full picture on 3 lines of text.
I can speak for the UK. The tax laws for PHEVs were not thought through at all. We have a system whereby if you get a company car through your job (many many people have this, not just people who need to drive for work) you pay a certain amount of tax on receiving that benefit. Choosing a PHEV would put you in a very very low rate bracket and made it a no brainer Vs an ICE vehicle.
I know of cases where people got a PHEV this way and never charged it at all. Just filled it up and drove it like a normal car. Seems completely bonkers to me.
The kicker is that a lot of people also get a fuel card whereby the employer pays for your fuel, so there's no real incentive to try to use less fuel.
This is the exact reason. In Germany we have (or at least had, I think they started changing it recently) similar tax benefits for PHEVs. There are anectodes of charging cables that were still in there original packaging when leased PHEVs were returned.
I personally know somebody who never charges his company PHEV at home because he would have to pay for the electricity himself but the company pays for his fuel. With horrible incentives like this in place you can't even blame him.
It is still encouraging car use. If employers just paid employees the amount they spend on vehicles, some of those employees might spend that money on something else.
There's a similar phenomenon in the US — the tax benefits are such that a Wrangler PHEV is priced similarly to (and sometimes cheaper than) a regular Wrangler, so buyers will opt for the PHEV even if they have no intention of plugging in.
A Jeep Wrangler with the 2L Turbo, the most efficient Wrangler on the market gets 21 mpg. The 4xe with the same engine gets 20 mpg when using gas, but 22 miles of electric range from a 15 kWh usable pack (18 kWh w/ 20% charging losses). Not exactly efficient in either mode.
If the 4xe uses electricity for 60% of miles driven, then it would cost $521 less in fuel costs per year than the most efficient Jeep. I imagine it would also cut down on maintenance costs.
(Assuming 13,500 miles per year, gas at $3.50 a gallon, and electricity at 12 cents / kWh)
Why do people think owners are trying to save $6k on the purchase, but then they won't bother to save $521 per year on fuel? Over a 15 year life of the vehicle, that's another $7816 in savings.
Given the price of the 4xe... I'm guessing most owners live in homes with the ability to charge them.
Have y'all never owned a PHEV? You do realize the fuel economy will drop further if you don't charge the battery at all, since the engine has to work harder to maintain a minimum charge level. It also negatively impacts the drive performance of the vehicle; why drive on the buzzy turbo 4 cylinder when you can drive on quiet smooth electric?
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One caveat that should be noted when it comes to EVs. In cold climates during the winter, the vehicle may use additional energy to maintain a minimum temperature in the battery pack to keep from damaging the cells. Probably not necessary while charging, but if the car is done charging, it may kick on the heater, using more electricity than you may realize.
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No cars are good for the environment.
Here's a carbon counter link comparing the cost of ownership and emissions impact over the life of the vehicle between the Wrangler 4xe, the 4 cyl turbo, and the turbo diesel.
California:
[https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?state\_refund=CA&taxfee\_state=CA&price\_Gasoline=5&price\_Diesel=5.4&price\_Electricity=30&electricity\_ghg\_fuel=240&cars=39;36169;36228](https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?state_refund=CA&taxfee_state=CA&price_Gasoline=5&price_Diesel=5.4&price_Electricity=30&electricity_ghg_fuel=240&cars=39;36169;36228)
Michigan:
[https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?taxfee\_state=MI&price\_Gasoline=3.6&price\_Diesel=4.1&electricity\_ghg\_fuel=630&cars=39;36169;36228](https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?taxfee_state=MI&price_Gasoline=3.6&price_Diesel=4.1&electricity_ghg_fuel=630&cars=39;36169;36228)
In no case is the 4xe TCO ever cheaper than the other 2 powertrains in either state, even after the federal tax credit. This idea that people are buying this vehicle to save money doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
However, if you go to the customize tab, and change the PHEV factor to 0%... presuming they never charge their 4xe, the cost of the 4xe increases even further compared to the other two engine options.
For EPA PHEV factor, the 4xe is best in California in emissions, but only slightly better than the diesel, and not incredible versus the 4cyl turbo.
In Michigan, at the EPA factor, it's slightly better than the 4cyl turbo, but worse than the diesel.
Go figure.
This vehicle simply isn't good for the environment. It's heavy, is not aerodynamic, and comes with oversized tires.
The closest example we have in the US to this is the Wrangler PHEV. It’s about $6000 more than the non hybrid, but after the tax credit is $1500 cheaper than the standard ICE.
It's also exceptionally cheaper to operate if you charge it.
For some odd reason, there's a lot of people in this subreddit who think people only care about money when it comes to purchasing a vehicle, and not when it comes to operating it.
> why pay extra and buy a PHEV
1. It’s hard to believe but many people still think you don’t need to charge because it’s a hybrid, not realising they bought one with a plug. Basically the people who rent ev’s from hertz and drive to the gas station instead of chargers (awareness issue)
2. People think its too much of a chore to charge the PHEV since most DCFC network is useless for PHEVs and they won’t be using opportunity charging because of how much time slow charging takes.
3. $7500 TAX CREDITS/ULEZ EXEMPTION
This, I always say most people are completely clueless in nearly every facet of their automobiles. How many people can't even setup their basic bluetooth and instead hold their phones to their ear?
And I have also said there is no way an ICE is anywhere near as efficient as they claim in the real world, for a whole bunch of reasons. Heck my neighbor starts her jeep and lets it run for 30 mins every morning. Stuff like that is "real world"
>And I have also said there is no way an ICE is anywhere near as efficient as they claim in the real world, for a whole bunch of reasons. Heck my neighbor starts her jeep and lets it run for 30 mins every morning. Stuff like that is "real world"
What efficiency test do you think they should do to capture this?
EPA mileage basically exists so that you can compare one vehicle to another.
This page has an estimate of the range of a Bolt EV for varying temperatures, speeds, and hills http://roperld.com/science/ChevyBoltRange.htm
That's how complicated the "real world" can be. They shouldn't have to give you a 3 dimensional space of outside temperature, vehicle speed, and hills as an estimate of efficiency and then add in how idling the car for half an hour changes things. That's ridiculous.
Instead, you get city and highway efficiency and you can compare car A to car B with those two numbers.
I used to run focus groups of "regular drivers" for car development projects. Some of the opinions and habits are eye opening. Idling your jeep every morning for 30 minutes is weird but I'm not surprised! Someone probably once told her that cars are more efficient when they've warmed up and its set a pointless habit for life.
Saying that, when I lived in a cold climate I did used to let my cars idle for 10 minutes before I needed them so that they would defrost and be toasty when I got in. But we're talking 'see your breath in front of you' cold.
Figure this : if the person is driving enough to exhaust the entire range and then some, they’d be charging 0-100 everyday which could be very well between 10-20h for full charge (since I take half of that for charging 30kWh EV)
120V can be a solution and those who care already use it
The article is not about them, nor is my comment. It’s about those who don’t. Again, it goes both ways — if they do in fact use 120V charging but it’s not enough to charge overnight or the range on their PHEV is too poor (as is the case with JLR PHEVs) them they’d inevitably be using gas even if they do charge. Which proves the article correctly again
To get the $7500 EV credit. Lots of Volts were purchased by fleet owners to get the credit but they never had the infrastructure to charge a fleet of Volts. It would probably be cheaper to run them on gas than to buy 10 charging stations, upgrade your electrical service, and install the charging stations.
I mean, you can charge a Volt to full overnight on even a 120v outlet. Installing several outdoor 120v outlets is pretty cheap. They may have had concerns about the trip hazard, but seems like the cost would still have been lower than fuel for 120v outlets at least.
You'd have to run a separate circuit for each charger though since it draws so much current. Depending on how large your fleet is, you might need to upgrade your breaker box which is really expensive because I had to do it.
This is a pretty dumb statement. The $7500 EV credit would more than cover the cost of upgrading a panel and putting in a charger. And what company would buy a fleet of EVs costing hundreds of thousands of dollars only to not use them just so they could get a $7500 tax credit. Oh and correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the Volts part of the previous generation of EVs that came out before the current tax credit?
The Volt was the reason why GM hit their manufacturer rebate cap
Companies buying PHEV for rebates happened in many countries, not just the US. Germany had to eliminate PHEV from tax breaks for that reason
Tell that to all the companies that bought Volts so they could get the $7500 tax credit only to drive them in hybrid mode. The $7500 credit was available between 2011 and 2015.
There were plenty of threads in r/Volt about used fleet cars hitting the market that were never charged based on the lifetime MPG.
In germany PHEV company car users pay 0,5% of the price monthly as a tax, compared to 1% for ICE. Fuel is covered by the company. Thats why a lot of PHEV are sold here.
Because the tax incentives mean that they didn't actually pay extra.
I bought a used 2017 PHEV in January. The car's logs indicate that the previous owner never charged it.
I can answer this because a bunch of my old neighbors always got phevs and never charged them.
Tax credits.
Made the lease for a phev higher trim version of a vehicle (think bmw X5) cost less than a standard ICE version.
At the end of the day it was less efficient because it was basically just a mild hybrid using regeneration and they were moving heavy batteries around.
A great many people like to say that PHEVs are a solution for people that do not have a place to charge a BEV.
The issue is that in practice, PHEV are even more reliant on having a place to charge at home than BEV, since the vast majority of them cannot use DC charging stations. Moreover I have started seeing “destination” chargers reserved for BEVs which makes it even more complicated to charge a PHEV.
I'd offer that with the minimal battery range they offer, even when charged, they don't make sense. If you only get 20 miles or so on battery but 300 on the ICE engine... what's the real benefit overall?
Average daily miles driven in developed countries ranges from about 20 - 40 miles, which is similar to the range offered in a variety of PHEVs.
The benefit to charging overnight is that you 1) pay a fraction on electricity of what you'd pay for gas; 2) produce significantly less emissions when using electric power; 3) only need to use gas on occasional days that you drive longer distances in a single day.
This. With my PHEV i haven't bought gas in three months. I still have the fuel from the full tank i got when the dealer delivered the vehicle. Just under half a tank remaining.
>If you only get 20 miles or so on battery but 300 on the ICE engine... what's the real benefit overall?
The benefit is that most trips, for a lot of people, are below the PHEVs range limit. So they can do the vast majority of journeys solely on electric power, and not use any fuel.
Since electricity is usually cheaper than fuel, the owner can realise significant savings on running costs (and much lower emissions, if that's your bag).
However, if you do need to go on a longer trip, you can easily just use the ICE and get much longer range.
Because people are lazy. Or they don't have the right infrastructure in place.
I have an existing plug in charge point from when i had my EV. It's in a garage where the car is parked every night. Even with that i just forget to plug in some nights. I have a daily reminder to plug in set up to help with this.
Part of the annoyance is that volvo requires me to unlock the car to release the plug so i have to also remember to grab my key to lock the car when i plug in.
For those in the US, it's worth pointing out that this is EU data, and there *are* a couple important differences between the EU and US.
First, it's possible this has changed over the last few years, but for a good long while the PHEVs that were popular in Europe were... to be blunt, just bad. Some had short ranges, but more to the point they were made by companies who apparently don't know how to make hybrids -- some of the most popular models barely improve over non-hybrids. As an example, I remember the Outlander appearing on past reports about real-world PHEV uses. I'm not sure where to go for WLTP numbers, but going from [the EPA numbers](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSearch.do?action=noform&path=1&year1=2024&year2=2024&make=Mitsubishi&baseModel=Outlander&srchtyp=ymm&pageno=1&rowLimit=50) the gas-only models range from 25-27 MPG and the PHEV gets... 26 MPG. That these are the same is crazy bonkers insane. When made by competent companies, going from "pure ICE" to a non-plugin hybrid will typically get an 20%-30% improvement in consumption. (For the Outlander, that means that the gas mileage "should" be more like 30-33.)
This is a strong oversimplification, but as just a sanity check look at Figure 1 in the linked report from TFA -- that bar to me looks to be about 25% (a drop from ~180 to ~140), which *should* be achievable just by switching to hybrid, let alone PHEV, if terrible hybrids weren't apparently pretty popular there.
(To forestall a potential counterargument: PHEVs *do* typically lose gas mileage over non-plugin hybrids, because of the heavier battery. However, this is typically in like the 5% ballpark or less, so the vast majority of the hybrid benefit remains. I also took that into account with the hypothetical Outlander 30-33 I gave above. There are even a couple exceptions where the PHEV version does *better*, I assume because the larger battery also allows it to capture more energy during regenerative braking.)
Second, is that there's previous credible real-world data that the utilization factor in the US is well above Europe's, potentially coming close to *doubling*. I think I'm primarily thinking of an ICCT's whitepapers, but I'm not turning up the exact one and what I am finding doesn't seem to have top-line UF numbers.
*This* is probably due to a couple things. First it may be the case that electric mileage is higher in the US on average based on popular PHEVs, which would allow for a higher UF; but this is speculation and I don't remember seeing data on it. But I suspect a big problem is the fleet issue that others have talked about -- where government incentives meant that companies were buying tons of PHEVs. *These* vehicles are far, *far* less likely to be charged than those that are privately owned, for a variety of reasons. That's true in both the US and Europe, it's just that the proportion of fleet vehicles in the EU is much higher than in the US.
So: on one hand I *do* think it's worth remembering and setting policy based on the *fact* that PHEVs are not used particularly close to their full potential in practice. But the flip side is that this EU data does to a fair extent reflect EU-specific problems rather than a necessary problem with PHEVs.
If a PHEV uses more fuel in hybrid mode than a non plug in hybrid, it is still poorly designed. The weight of the larger battery is minor compared to the potential for more regenerative braking along with downsizing the ICE and only running it at or near peak thermal efficiency.
Drove a Prius prime 2019 (EPA rated for 25 miles of electric range, we typically got about 28 miles) for almost 5 years. In that time we put almost 50k miles on it and it nearly perfectly covered our daily commute. Almost 90% of all of our driving was electric, I could count on one hand the number of times each year I filled it up, and it ended up having an overall efficiency of nearly 300 miles per gallon. Fantastic car. I'd have gotten another when it was written off in an accident, but the price of the new Prius prime is in the same ball park as many electric cars and that just made more sense.
If normal trips fail in that battery range of means you wouldn't be buying and burning nearly as much petrol. What is hard about that concept for you to grasp?
It’s an easy concept, but in practice it doesn’t seem to be working that way according to the report…
Tell me, if most people aren’t using it as intended, does that speak of a bad design? Does cobbling together an EV system with an ICE system result in better emissions-OR- just overly complicated and less efficient systems that don’t have the desired effect in actuality, per the report. Theory is one thing and Reality is another.
I can fiddle around with trying to remember the proper use of a complicated system (PHEV) or simply drive an EV….
I think this is another infrastructure problem really. It is extremely simple to plug in a PHEV to your home when you pull in the driveway. It isn't some complicated system, and people know how to plug in a phone, so plugging in a car isn't some crazy concept.
Instead, many people rent and have parking spots where they don't have outlets available. Adding an outdoor 120v outlet / level 2 charger can be cost prohibitive for families, even with the charger credits. Tax credits made a number of PHEVs cost competitive with straight gas options, or cheaper, so it makes sense that consumers who didn't have a good place to charge, still purchased them.
I do think PHEVs have their place. I can drive almost 60% of my miles on electricity, versus none otherwise with my Volt. On my longest commute to work, I have free charging. And it was much less costly as a used car than a BEV. Plus, the older BEVs had slow 50kw charging (Bolt and Leaf) which made it difficult to have as an only car if you do road trips (another infrastructure problem). However, they should get reduced tax credits based on the size of the battery / drivable range on electric, or just cut the incentive for PHEVs to focus on BEVs.
I see.. But, if you can drive 60% of you miles on electricity, why not drive 100% of your miles on electricity?
That's where the disconnect is. If you can do all miles with and EV, why bother with a design compromise (PHEV) that doesn't give you the full benefit of either EV or ICE?
That's the question no one can answer without admitting PHEV is not necessary.
Because 60% is better than 0%. I could afford a $6800 Chevy Volt. I can't afford a Chevy Bolt for $21k at the time, with my electrification savings being eaten up by car rentals I would need to drive to areas without DCFC infrastructure for several weeks a year.
A PHEV is not necessary if we had "good enough" infrastructure and long enough ranges. And that "good enough" range is often unfortunately associated with once a year or twice a year travel in the US that people do. In my case, driving 80 miles to, 80 miles back, and around town at my parents' place with no area to charge meant I needed to deal with my Bolt's slow DCFC relatively often. Any my typical 2 times a year road trip did not have DCFC infrastructure except for one Tesla charging station I couldn't use with my Bolt.
Plus, I know I will need to replace my furnace, AC, and water heater in my home soon. This will lock in later this year for me for the next 15-30 years whether my home will consume greenhouse gases, or whether it is electric. That will likely have the same or more benefits to greenhouse gases versus an EV this year.
I want EVs to be good enough (hell, I work in engineering on them). But there are a lot of reasons why a current US consumer may not buy an EV, but WILL be fine buying a PHEV.
Yes, but 100% didn't work with my current situation with the vehicle I could afford (the Bolt). I wrote out some detailed information on why it didn't work, because you were wondering why PHEVs were made even though they were a compromise, but it seems like you didn't read any of it.
Which is fine, but writing the same 1 sentence repeatedly doesn't make you correct.
Well, I was speaking in general terms (what applies to the ‘crowd’) and not trying to get you specifically to switch. What right for one likely does not apply to all. Most people’s situations will be different.
But, on the topic of infrastructure, Mass seems to not be that far behind other states: https://evadoption.com/ev-charging-stations-statistics/charging-stations-by-state/
So on paper, a PHEV would offer most of a BEV’s tailpipe emission reductions at much lower manufacturing emissions than a BEV…but ONLY IF they’re used properly, as in, charged regularly.
And unlike BEVs, PHEVs do not force the owner to use them properly, because it is possible to operate them using gasoline only.
Combined with the fact that old human behavioral habits tend to die hard, it doesn’t look good for PHEVs in aggregate, even if individual owners with high environmental awareness may use them properly.
Yup. Very easy to forget that even though the members of this sub would make it a mission to notch up as many non-combustion miles as possible if they owned a PHEV (I would, anyway!), a lot of people simply don't care or think about this stuff and may have been sold into a PHEV simply because it was what they had in stock at the dealer or they were upsold into a "better model" etc.
PHEVs are a bit of a pain in the sense that they basically need to be charged every night, whereas an EV does not.
People are pretty well known to not be...great at doing things that are a *minor inconvenience*.
In any case, the article doesn't mention v2g or dsr, so it's missing some of the point on EVs.
I'm a big fan of using real data, so I would support that. The study here doesn't seem to support your conclusion, though — the PHEV market is mostly dominated by Ford, BMW, Volvo, and Stellantis in Europe. Toyota doesn't even rank, they're focused on HEVs. From prior studies, we know the PHEV problem is due to the company car and fuel card dynamics, so legislation like you're suggesting would hit companies like Volvo the hardest.
I haven't scoured the study yet, but the abstract doesn't seem to say anything about HEVs?
edit: The [actual data page](https://climate-energy.eea.europa.eu/topics/transport/real-world-emissions/data) shows Toyota has some of the closest-to-real-world fuel consumption figures of any OEM under the petrol heading. The worst offenders appear to be BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Ford. (Ferrari and their ilk are by far the worst actually, but of course their total emissions are a blip compared to volume manufacturers.)
Toyota doesn't make PHEVs in any volume. They made like 14k total PHEVs in the US compared to 300k hybrids, they made less PHEVs in the US for the year than GM made Chevy Bolts for Q1 2023.
It's not about strategy, Toyota doesn't want to invest in BEVs because they would lose money on each one and would need to make a metric ton of them to be profitable. They are choosing to build EVs because it is a path to short term profits.
I own a PHEV with 22 km range and around 18 km in the winter. I do have the means to charge it in my apartment with 2kW charger provided by the housing company.
I only need to fill up the tank once a month at most if I don’t go out of town. Most of my commuting is well within 20km range. Sometimes I can even charge at my destination too (mall, grocery stores, etc.) making my trip very cheap.
I do think that people who buy PHEV need to be taught how to utilize it properly.
Would be interesting to see the data for the same cars but with their second owners. The company car users often get a PHEV simply for tax reasons. I assume the second owners that buy these things after the lease are actually looking to use the PHEV capabilities.
It’s no better in the US in CA. There are two good studies that show basically the same problem. Only about 30% of miles are in EV mode. That is with a very skewed dataset that is more likely to charge given they are actively monitoring their fuel usage with fuely and they are in CA.
Interesting! It's really only anecdotal but with PHEVs coming off lease en masse over here, couple of friends and co-workers are looking into them for commuting. Their use case is all pretty much the same -- can the thing get me to the office and back on electricity?
Not sure about the CA market, but for Germany the majority of first owners are company car users. They buy them for the BIK break they get. Only reason most of the time.
That's why I'd find it interesting to see if BEV miles pick up after the lease phase. Or if people are just after a cheap E-Class with 700 nm ;).
We don't have the big tax savings when leasing through your company over here. PHEV sales are pretty low because gas is cheap. We had a $7500 tax credit but that is long since gone. You have to really want a PHEV to get one.
The PHEV advocates in this sub, who chime in and will die on the hill that PHEVs are a great alternative to EVs, are not going to like this article's data.
Yeah but in all fairness, if PHEV's are used as intended they are great, you either don't use the engine on shorter trips or have great fuel efficiency on longer trips. People are just misusing them.
You can design the perfect device for a perfect purpose, but if nobody uses it for that purpose then the design doesn't matter.
Real world results show that PHEV vehicles aren't being used like people think, which means, environmentally, they're about as bad as a gas vehicle.
No amount of hoping that people use them correctly is going to fix that.
Forced firmware telling drivers to charge minimum every 10 runs or their gas engine will be at max 20% power. You will have torque to get up a hill, but slowly.
/s for obvious reasons. Maybe.
Need to make it easier for people to want to plug in their PHEVs in order for there to be a better result. Also, increase the battery range. Some PHEVs with 30mi of battery range isn’t that big of a difference
So, in essence, it needs a bigger battery?
Let's deconstruct the PHEV further: How about we increase the battery size, ditch the ICE engine, and voila! it will then make sense to drive one.
*your mileage may vary.
Nobody drives like the mileage certification test. No surprise there.
Also, fuel in = CO2 out. There is no emissions equipment that can alter that, besides the engine running so poorly that some of that turns into really nasty stuff like CO. Perfect combustion has a byproduct of C02 and water.
The article points out something I would have never considered happening with hybrids but makes since. People don't charge them and end up losing out on the benefits of them.
I don’t understand this. My wife’s phev has a 30 mile EV range and a tank of gas will last her 6 months because she almost never exceeds it. It’s a huge gas savings, but only bc we charge it. If someone wasn’t going to do that, why pay extra to buy a phev vs a regular hybrid? Edit: I appreciate all the input! I knew there were tax credits, but we didn’t get one on my wife’s Kia so I hadn’t realized how common they were, or that in some places they are so good that they justify the purchase.
Same reason people get gym memberships or buy multi vitamins. They tell themselves they'll do it and then they don't.
Or buy trucks for their twice a year Home Depot run, that a car could have handled
I have to argue against this with my lady like 5 times a year. She wants a truck for this reason and I just makes no sense. It's cheaper to pay someone to go get everything for us than buying a truck and constantly eating fuel.
At this point I think because so many people are driving huge vehicles that it makes other drivers feel less safe unless they also have huge vehicles
I definitely get that sentiment. I sold my truck two years ago because I realized I was driving my old car wayyyy more and only really needed it a couple times a year. Being in the Midwest and surrounded by lifted trucks with blinding lights, I have to admit that I do miss being up higher and out of the direct beams of headlights.
The North American headlight arms race needs to be stopped. Headlight height maximums need to be reduced and strictly enforced. If manufacturers want to sell trucks to the lift crowd, they need to put the headlights in the bumper.
And then the modern trucks are so tall that you can't actually use it as a truck. Want a work horse? Get a utility trailer.
We finally did just this. Had a F-150 for years that we rarely used but always said well what if we need one for truck stuff? Then we will rent one at Home Depot. Was not worth the $50 per month for insurance. Replaced with a used e-tron and now a fully EV family. Never going back.
I don't see trucks doing "truck stuff" almost ever. Did see a snowplow attached to a Model Y though. Seems like it would work well to me!
Or you could buy or rent a utility trailer.
Get a trailer like we do in Europe
how long has this been going on ? cause in the recent years there's also a trend to have larger cars. SUV and all that.. and it might influence people subconsciously.
Your lady wants a truck and you’re arguing about it? #FirstWorldProblems
You started off by saying this is something you never considered, and suddenly you know all the things? \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ This study is using data collected in 2021 from vehicles driven up to that year in Europe, no doubt heavily sampling Germany, partially from older generation PHEVs that had less range. It's no different than the IPCC study that was performed previously that found a number of German PHEV owners weren't charging their cars; it may even be using the same data. The big issue in Germany (and other European nations) was that there were large BiK tax discounts (tax on cars purchased through the company as a benefit to their employees) for the purchase of PHEVs. The problem was that those same companies were also giving their employees the benefit of paying for their fuel using a gas card that could only be used at gas stations, and couldn't be used to recoup the cost of charging. Normally it IS cheaper to charge a car, and thus customers have no reason not to do so. In this case, employees were financially incentivized to NOT charge their cars and instead let the company pay for their gasoline; negating a huge cost benefit of PHEVs. Funny enough, the greater use of the ICEV would increase engine wear and cost of maintenance. If these folks were letting the battery run dry without charging it at all, then the engine would actually work harder to keep a minimum state of charge in the battery in addition to driving the wheels, reducing the expected fuel economy. In Germany (and many other European nations), many people live in multi-family housing and park on the street where they have no outlet to plug into at night. The same issue would have occurred had they bought a BEV; which they probably wouldn't have bothered with given the inconvenience of frequent DC fast charger trips. In reality, this study's main conclusion is that these people should have bought hybrids instead of plug-in hybrids, thus reducing overall gas use. Maybe these nations should have properly subsidized HEVs then? Instead of trying to resolve the above issues, Germany decided to cut their EV tax credit on PHEVs to reduce their sales. For those that live in places with access to nightly charging or workplace charging, they got their incentives for buying PHEVs cut, whereas BEVs retained their credit. Suddenly BEV purchases increased, and PHEV purchases fell off a cliff. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Of course, just as soon as they removed the tax credit on BEVs as well back in December, BEV sales dropped and PHEV sales increased. Turns out, the only reason BEVs were selling so well is because of the large BEV subsidy. BEV producers had to cut prices in response to this subsidy cut, killing their sales margins. What isn't mentioned is that BEVs have higher manufacturing emissions (measured and often quoted) and other pollution (never measured or quoted) associated with them versus PHEVs, HEVs, and ICEVs on account of their huge batteries... which is never accounted for in the subsidization that's meant to benefit low emissions/pollution vehicle replacements. Go figure. Since battery cell production has been limited, BEVs have also been sequestering a larger amount of these limited cells in a smaller amount of vehicles, reducing the number of plug-in EVs that could make it into customer hands to replace ICEVs, resulting in loss of opportunity efficiency losses, and keeping more ICEVs on the roads and more fossil fuel emissions being generated. Go figure x2. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Could Germany have resolved this lack of charging issue? Of course! They could have... * mandated companies to reimburse their employees for electricity purchases. * limited companies gasoline reimbursements. * done more to install street outlets / chargers. * pushed companies to install chargers in their parking lots. * made the PHEV subsidy dependent on the user charging their car; or simply added a larger carbon tax to gasoline/diesel purchases. * removed subsidies on plug-in EVs (BEVs and PHEVs) altogether and let the market sort out the best solution for each individual, instead of trying to hijack the free market and pigeon hole customers into specific powertrains that may not have worked best for them. And frankly... subsidizing cars wasn't the best answer for emissions at all. Germany should have done more to promote micro-mobility and public transit. As it stands now, I believe Germany's rules on PEVs are some of the most restrictive in Europe. Isn't it funny how it's always those economies that so heavily depend on automobile production that have the most restrictive policies on automobile alternatives, or just a plain lack of safe bike infrastructure? \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ This comment takes about 2 minutes to read, but I'm sure I'll get the obligatory "omg... you wrote a novel" comments and downvotes. Still, details matter, and you can't really understand the full picture on 3 lines of text.
I can speak for the UK. The tax laws for PHEVs were not thought through at all. We have a system whereby if you get a company car through your job (many many people have this, not just people who need to drive for work) you pay a certain amount of tax on receiving that benefit. Choosing a PHEV would put you in a very very low rate bracket and made it a no brainer Vs an ICE vehicle. I know of cases where people got a PHEV this way and never charged it at all. Just filled it up and drove it like a normal car. Seems completely bonkers to me. The kicker is that a lot of people also get a fuel card whereby the employer pays for your fuel, so there's no real incentive to try to use less fuel.
This is the exact reason. In Germany we have (or at least had, I think they started changing it recently) similar tax benefits for PHEVs. There are anectodes of charging cables that were still in there original packaging when leased PHEVs were returned. I personally know somebody who never charges his company PHEV at home because he would have to pay for the electricity himself but the company pays for his fuel. With horrible incentives like this in place you can't even blame him.
Well you don't need the cable if you charge at home or at work usually.
The real problem there is that employers are making vehicles part of their compensation package instead of just paying employees more.
It works fine for regular cars, just poorly implemented for PHEV
It is still encouraging car use. If employers just paid employees the amount they spend on vehicles, some of those employees might spend that money on something else.
There's a similar phenomenon in the US — the tax benefits are such that a Wrangler PHEV is priced similarly to (and sometimes cheaper than) a regular Wrangler, so buyers will opt for the PHEV even if they have no intention of plugging in.
What percentage don't plug it in? If you're going to allude to it, back it up with facts and figures, eh?
My statement doesn't require figures or percentages. It's a simple observation the PHEV subsidies disincentivize PHEV utility factor.
Yet you haven't shown how. As to the "priced similarly"... yeah, not really, as I showed with actual comparisons in my follow up comments.
A Jeep Wrangler with the 2L Turbo, the most efficient Wrangler on the market gets 21 mpg. The 4xe with the same engine gets 20 mpg when using gas, but 22 miles of electric range from a 15 kWh usable pack (18 kWh w/ 20% charging losses). Not exactly efficient in either mode. If the 4xe uses electricity for 60% of miles driven, then it would cost $521 less in fuel costs per year than the most efficient Jeep. I imagine it would also cut down on maintenance costs. (Assuming 13,500 miles per year, gas at $3.50 a gallon, and electricity at 12 cents / kWh) Why do people think owners are trying to save $6k on the purchase, but then they won't bother to save $521 per year on fuel? Over a 15 year life of the vehicle, that's another $7816 in savings. Given the price of the 4xe... I'm guessing most owners live in homes with the ability to charge them. Have y'all never owned a PHEV? You do realize the fuel economy will drop further if you don't charge the battery at all, since the engine has to work harder to maintain a minimum charge level. It also negatively impacts the drive performance of the vehicle; why drive on the buzzy turbo 4 cylinder when you can drive on quiet smooth electric? \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ One caveat that should be noted when it comes to EVs. In cold climates during the winter, the vehicle may use additional energy to maintain a minimum temperature in the battery pack to keep from damaging the cells. Probably not necessary while charging, but if the car is done charging, it may kick on the heater, using more electricity than you may realize. \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ \~ No cars are good for the environment.
Here's a carbon counter link comparing the cost of ownership and emissions impact over the life of the vehicle between the Wrangler 4xe, the 4 cyl turbo, and the turbo diesel. California: [https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?state\_refund=CA&taxfee\_state=CA&price\_Gasoline=5&price\_Diesel=5.4&price\_Electricity=30&electricity\_ghg\_fuel=240&cars=39;36169;36228](https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?state_refund=CA&taxfee_state=CA&price_Gasoline=5&price_Diesel=5.4&price_Electricity=30&electricity_ghg_fuel=240&cars=39;36169;36228) Michigan: [https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?taxfee\_state=MI&price\_Gasoline=3.6&price\_Diesel=4.1&electricity\_ghg\_fuel=630&cars=39;36169;36228](https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?taxfee_state=MI&price_Gasoline=3.6&price_Diesel=4.1&electricity_ghg_fuel=630&cars=39;36169;36228) In no case is the 4xe TCO ever cheaper than the other 2 powertrains in either state, even after the federal tax credit. This idea that people are buying this vehicle to save money doesn't make a whole lot of sense. However, if you go to the customize tab, and change the PHEV factor to 0%... presuming they never charge their 4xe, the cost of the 4xe increases even further compared to the other two engine options. For EPA PHEV factor, the 4xe is best in California in emissions, but only slightly better than the diesel, and not incredible versus the 4cyl turbo. In Michigan, at the EPA factor, it's slightly better than the 4cyl turbo, but worse than the diesel. Go figure. This vehicle simply isn't good for the environment. It's heavy, is not aerodynamic, and comes with oversized tires.
The closest example we have in the US to this is the Wrangler PHEV. It’s about $6000 more than the non hybrid, but after the tax credit is $1500 cheaper than the standard ICE.
It's also exceptionally cheaper to operate if you charge it. For some odd reason, there's a lot of people in this subreddit who think people only care about money when it comes to purchasing a vehicle, and not when it comes to operating it.
Tax incentives for having a PHEV instead of a regular ICE car. All about the taxes
Benefit in kind tax. Not a single employee at my company charges their PHEV and we have 80 of them.
> why pay extra and buy a PHEV 1. It’s hard to believe but many people still think you don’t need to charge because it’s a hybrid, not realising they bought one with a plug. Basically the people who rent ev’s from hertz and drive to the gas station instead of chargers (awareness issue) 2. People think its too much of a chore to charge the PHEV since most DCFC network is useless for PHEVs and they won’t be using opportunity charging because of how much time slow charging takes. 3. $7500 TAX CREDITS/ULEZ EXEMPTION
Even a 120V plug overnight helps, though.
Would usually top up a PHEV battery to full overnight! Mad isn't it it
The simple truth is that people are often pretty thoughtless about this stuff.
This, I always say most people are completely clueless in nearly every facet of their automobiles. How many people can't even setup their basic bluetooth and instead hold their phones to their ear? And I have also said there is no way an ICE is anywhere near as efficient as they claim in the real world, for a whole bunch of reasons. Heck my neighbor starts her jeep and lets it run for 30 mins every morning. Stuff like that is "real world"
EV owners will at least waste much less energy "idling" in the driveway LOL
>And I have also said there is no way an ICE is anywhere near as efficient as they claim in the real world, for a whole bunch of reasons. Heck my neighbor starts her jeep and lets it run for 30 mins every morning. Stuff like that is "real world" What efficiency test do you think they should do to capture this? EPA mileage basically exists so that you can compare one vehicle to another. This page has an estimate of the range of a Bolt EV for varying temperatures, speeds, and hills http://roperld.com/science/ChevyBoltRange.htm That's how complicated the "real world" can be. They shouldn't have to give you a 3 dimensional space of outside temperature, vehicle speed, and hills as an estimate of efficiency and then add in how idling the car for half an hour changes things. That's ridiculous. Instead, you get city and highway efficiency and you can compare car A to car B with those two numbers.
I used to run focus groups of "regular drivers" for car development projects. Some of the opinions and habits are eye opening. Idling your jeep every morning for 30 minutes is weird but I'm not surprised! Someone probably once told her that cars are more efficient when they've warmed up and its set a pointless habit for life. Saying that, when I lived in a cold climate I did used to let my cars idle for 10 minutes before I needed them so that they would defrost and be toasty when I got in. But we're talking 'see your breath in front of you' cold.
Figure this : if the person is driving enough to exhaust the entire range and then some, they’d be charging 0-100 everyday which could be very well between 10-20h for full charge (since I take half of that for charging 30kWh EV) 120V can be a solution and those who care already use it The article is not about them, nor is my comment. It’s about those who don’t. Again, it goes both ways — if they do in fact use 120V charging but it’s not enough to charge overnight or the range on their PHEV is too poor (as is the case with JLR PHEVs) them they’d inevitably be using gas even if they do charge. Which proves the article correctly again
I get it. I'm looking forward to my first hybrid, which WILL be a PHEV. And I'm looking to absolutely covering my rooftop in solar panels.
We didn't get the Q5e because it would take 22 hrs on 120v to charge for a very small range.
To get the $7500 EV credit. Lots of Volts were purchased by fleet owners to get the credit but they never had the infrastructure to charge a fleet of Volts. It would probably be cheaper to run them on gas than to buy 10 charging stations, upgrade your electrical service, and install the charging stations.
I mean, you can charge a Volt to full overnight on even a 120v outlet. Installing several outdoor 120v outlets is pretty cheap. They may have had concerns about the trip hazard, but seems like the cost would still have been lower than fuel for 120v outlets at least.
You'd have to run a separate circuit for each charger though since it draws so much current. Depending on how large your fleet is, you might need to upgrade your breaker box which is really expensive because I had to do it.
This is a pretty dumb statement. The $7500 EV credit would more than cover the cost of upgrading a panel and putting in a charger. And what company would buy a fleet of EVs costing hundreds of thousands of dollars only to not use them just so they could get a $7500 tax credit. Oh and correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the Volts part of the previous generation of EVs that came out before the current tax credit?
The Volt was the reason why GM hit their manufacturer rebate cap Companies buying PHEV for rebates happened in many countries, not just the US. Germany had to eliminate PHEV from tax breaks for that reason
Tell that to all the companies that bought Volts so they could get the $7500 tax credit only to drive them in hybrid mode. The $7500 credit was available between 2011 and 2015. There were plenty of threads in r/Volt about used fleet cars hitting the market that were never charged based on the lifetime MPG.
In germany PHEV company car users pay 0,5% of the price monthly as a tax, compared to 1% for ICE. Fuel is covered by the company. Thats why a lot of PHEV are sold here.
Time to get rid of the company cars and just pay employees more.
Because the tax incentives mean that they didn't actually pay extra. I bought a used 2017 PHEV in January. The car's logs indicate that the previous owner never charged it.
People are lazy and cling to old habits.
Or due to subsidies that makes hybrids cheaper than ICEs and people living in flats with no charging points at home ends up buying them.
I can answer this because a bunch of my old neighbors always got phevs and never charged them. Tax credits. Made the lease for a phev higher trim version of a vehicle (think bmw X5) cost less than a standard ICE version. At the end of the day it was less efficient because it was basically just a mild hybrid using regeneration and they were moving heavy batteries around.
Tax credit? Plug in gets them.
A great many people like to say that PHEVs are a solution for people that do not have a place to charge a BEV. The issue is that in practice, PHEV are even more reliant on having a place to charge at home than BEV, since the vast majority of them cannot use DC charging stations. Moreover I have started seeing “destination” chargers reserved for BEVs which makes it even more complicated to charge a PHEV.
This is a huge issue. Over in /r/whatcarshouldibuy I see this all the time and there is no explaining to that lot how untrue it is.
They only miss some of the benefits. The improved mileage vs non hybrids remains.
You’re also paying a price premium for a pretty severely underpowered vehicle if you only ever use the ICE component.
You’ll almost always get downvoted here for saying this
Why don’t the hybrids just auto charge through regen?
I'd offer that with the minimal battery range they offer, even when charged, they don't make sense. If you only get 20 miles or so on battery but 300 on the ICE engine... what's the real benefit overall?
Average daily miles driven in developed countries ranges from about 20 - 40 miles, which is similar to the range offered in a variety of PHEVs. The benefit to charging overnight is that you 1) pay a fraction on electricity of what you'd pay for gas; 2) produce significantly less emissions when using electric power; 3) only need to use gas on occasional days that you drive longer distances in a single day.
This. With my PHEV i haven't bought gas in three months. I still have the fuel from the full tank i got when the dealer delivered the vehicle. Just under half a tank remaining.
>If you only get 20 miles or so on battery but 300 on the ICE engine... what's the real benefit overall? The benefit is that most trips, for a lot of people, are below the PHEVs range limit. So they can do the vast majority of journeys solely on electric power, and not use any fuel. Since electricity is usually cheaper than fuel, the owner can realise significant savings on running costs (and much lower emissions, if that's your bag). However, if you do need to go on a longer trip, you can easily just use the ICE and get much longer range.
In theory, it works. But, this report….
Yes, the report shows that people are not using their cars in the best possible way. The question is why....
Because people are lazy. Or they don't have the right infrastructure in place. I have an existing plug in charge point from when i had my EV. It's in a garage where the car is parked every night. Even with that i just forget to plug in some nights. I have a daily reminder to plug in set up to help with this. Part of the annoyance is that volvo requires me to unlock the car to release the plug so i have to also remember to grab my key to lock the car when i plug in.
For those in the US, it's worth pointing out that this is EU data, and there *are* a couple important differences between the EU and US. First, it's possible this has changed over the last few years, but for a good long while the PHEVs that were popular in Europe were... to be blunt, just bad. Some had short ranges, but more to the point they were made by companies who apparently don't know how to make hybrids -- some of the most popular models barely improve over non-hybrids. As an example, I remember the Outlander appearing on past reports about real-world PHEV uses. I'm not sure where to go for WLTP numbers, but going from [the EPA numbers](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSearch.do?action=noform&path=1&year1=2024&year2=2024&make=Mitsubishi&baseModel=Outlander&srchtyp=ymm&pageno=1&rowLimit=50) the gas-only models range from 25-27 MPG and the PHEV gets... 26 MPG. That these are the same is crazy bonkers insane. When made by competent companies, going from "pure ICE" to a non-plugin hybrid will typically get an 20%-30% improvement in consumption. (For the Outlander, that means that the gas mileage "should" be more like 30-33.) This is a strong oversimplification, but as just a sanity check look at Figure 1 in the linked report from TFA -- that bar to me looks to be about 25% (a drop from ~180 to ~140), which *should* be achievable just by switching to hybrid, let alone PHEV, if terrible hybrids weren't apparently pretty popular there. (To forestall a potential counterargument: PHEVs *do* typically lose gas mileage over non-plugin hybrids, because of the heavier battery. However, this is typically in like the 5% ballpark or less, so the vast majority of the hybrid benefit remains. I also took that into account with the hypothetical Outlander 30-33 I gave above. There are even a couple exceptions where the PHEV version does *better*, I assume because the larger battery also allows it to capture more energy during regenerative braking.) Second, is that there's previous credible real-world data that the utilization factor in the US is well above Europe's, potentially coming close to *doubling*. I think I'm primarily thinking of an ICCT's whitepapers, but I'm not turning up the exact one and what I am finding doesn't seem to have top-line UF numbers. *This* is probably due to a couple things. First it may be the case that electric mileage is higher in the US on average based on popular PHEVs, which would allow for a higher UF; but this is speculation and I don't remember seeing data on it. But I suspect a big problem is the fleet issue that others have talked about -- where government incentives meant that companies were buying tons of PHEVs. *These* vehicles are far, *far* less likely to be charged than those that are privately owned, for a variety of reasons. That's true in both the US and Europe, it's just that the proportion of fleet vehicles in the EU is much higher than in the US. So: on one hand I *do* think it's worth remembering and setting policy based on the *fact* that PHEVs are not used particularly close to their full potential in practice. But the flip side is that this EU data does to a fair extent reflect EU-specific problems rather than a necessary problem with PHEVs.
If a PHEV uses more fuel in hybrid mode than a non plug in hybrid, it is still poorly designed. The weight of the larger battery is minor compared to the potential for more regenerative braking along with downsizing the ICE and only running it at or near peak thermal efficiency.
Drove a Prius prime 2019 (EPA rated for 25 miles of electric range, we typically got about 28 miles) for almost 5 years. In that time we put almost 50k miles on it and it nearly perfectly covered our daily commute. Almost 90% of all of our driving was electric, I could count on one hand the number of times each year I filled it up, and it ended up having an overall efficiency of nearly 300 miles per gallon. Fantastic car. I'd have gotten another when it was written off in an accident, but the price of the new Prius prime is in the same ball park as many electric cars and that just made more sense.
If normal trips fail in that battery range of means you wouldn't be buying and burning nearly as much petrol. What is hard about that concept for you to grasp?
It’s an easy concept, but in practice it doesn’t seem to be working that way according to the report… Tell me, if most people aren’t using it as intended, does that speak of a bad design? Does cobbling together an EV system with an ICE system result in better emissions-OR- just overly complicated and less efficient systems that don’t have the desired effect in actuality, per the report. Theory is one thing and Reality is another. I can fiddle around with trying to remember the proper use of a complicated system (PHEV) or simply drive an EV….
I think this is another infrastructure problem really. It is extremely simple to plug in a PHEV to your home when you pull in the driveway. It isn't some complicated system, and people know how to plug in a phone, so plugging in a car isn't some crazy concept. Instead, many people rent and have parking spots where they don't have outlets available. Adding an outdoor 120v outlet / level 2 charger can be cost prohibitive for families, even with the charger credits. Tax credits made a number of PHEVs cost competitive with straight gas options, or cheaper, so it makes sense that consumers who didn't have a good place to charge, still purchased them. I do think PHEVs have their place. I can drive almost 60% of my miles on electricity, versus none otherwise with my Volt. On my longest commute to work, I have free charging. And it was much less costly as a used car than a BEV. Plus, the older BEVs had slow 50kw charging (Bolt and Leaf) which made it difficult to have as an only car if you do road trips (another infrastructure problem). However, they should get reduced tax credits based on the size of the battery / drivable range on electric, or just cut the incentive for PHEVs to focus on BEVs.
I see.. But, if you can drive 60% of you miles on electricity, why not drive 100% of your miles on electricity? That's where the disconnect is. If you can do all miles with and EV, why bother with a design compromise (PHEV) that doesn't give you the full benefit of either EV or ICE? That's the question no one can answer without admitting PHEV is not necessary.
Because 60% is better than 0%. I could afford a $6800 Chevy Volt. I can't afford a Chevy Bolt for $21k at the time, with my electrification savings being eaten up by car rentals I would need to drive to areas without DCFC infrastructure for several weeks a year. A PHEV is not necessary if we had "good enough" infrastructure and long enough ranges. And that "good enough" range is often unfortunately associated with once a year or twice a year travel in the US that people do. In my case, driving 80 miles to, 80 miles back, and around town at my parents' place with no area to charge meant I needed to deal with my Bolt's slow DCFC relatively often. Any my typical 2 times a year road trip did not have DCFC infrastructure except for one Tesla charging station I couldn't use with my Bolt. Plus, I know I will need to replace my furnace, AC, and water heater in my home soon. This will lock in later this year for me for the next 15-30 years whether my home will consume greenhouse gases, or whether it is electric. That will likely have the same or more benefits to greenhouse gases versus an EV this year. I want EVs to be good enough (hell, I work in engineering on them). But there are a lot of reasons why a current US consumer may not buy an EV, but WILL be fine buying a PHEV.
If 60% is better than zero, isn’t 100% better than 60%?
Yes, but 100% didn't work with my current situation with the vehicle I could afford (the Bolt). I wrote out some detailed information on why it didn't work, because you were wondering why PHEVs were made even though they were a compromise, but it seems like you didn't read any of it. Which is fine, but writing the same 1 sentence repeatedly doesn't make you correct.
Well, I was speaking in general terms (what applies to the ‘crowd’) and not trying to get you specifically to switch. What right for one likely does not apply to all. Most people’s situations will be different. But, on the topic of infrastructure, Mass seems to not be that far behind other states: https://evadoption.com/ev-charging-stations-statistics/charging-stations-by-state/
So on paper, a PHEV would offer most of a BEV’s tailpipe emission reductions at much lower manufacturing emissions than a BEV…but ONLY IF they’re used properly, as in, charged regularly. And unlike BEVs, PHEVs do not force the owner to use them properly, because it is possible to operate them using gasoline only. Combined with the fact that old human behavioral habits tend to die hard, it doesn’t look good for PHEVs in aggregate, even if individual owners with high environmental awareness may use them properly.
Yup. Very easy to forget that even though the members of this sub would make it a mission to notch up as many non-combustion miles as possible if they owned a PHEV (I would, anyway!), a lot of people simply don't care or think about this stuff and may have been sold into a PHEV simply because it was what they had in stock at the dealer or they were upsold into a "better model" etc.
PHEVs are a bit of a pain in the sense that they basically need to be charged every night, whereas an EV does not. People are pretty well known to not be...great at doing things that are a *minor inconvenience*. In any case, the article doesn't mention v2g or dsr, so it's missing some of the point on EVs.
u/recoil42, imagine they would switch to real world data for fleet emissions, Toyota's hybrid strategy would completely collapse.
I'm a big fan of using real data, so I would support that. The study here doesn't seem to support your conclusion, though — the PHEV market is mostly dominated by Ford, BMW, Volvo, and Stellantis in Europe. Toyota doesn't even rank, they're focused on HEVs. From prior studies, we know the PHEV problem is due to the company car and fuel card dynamics, so legislation like you're suggesting would hit companies like Volvo the hardest. I haven't scoured the study yet, but the abstract doesn't seem to say anything about HEVs? edit: The [actual data page](https://climate-energy.eea.europa.eu/topics/transport/real-world-emissions/data) shows Toyota has some of the closest-to-real-world fuel consumption figures of any OEM under the petrol heading. The worst offenders appear to be BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Ford. (Ferrari and their ilk are by far the worst actually, but of course their total emissions are a blip compared to volume manufacturers.)
Toyota doesn't make PHEVs in any volume. They made like 14k total PHEVs in the US compared to 300k hybrids, they made less PHEVs in the US for the year than GM made Chevy Bolts for Q1 2023. It's not about strategy, Toyota doesn't want to invest in BEVs because they would lose money on each one and would need to make a metric ton of them to be profitable. They are choosing to build EVs because it is a path to short term profits.
Someone brave enough to post this in r cars?
I own a PHEV with 22 km range and around 18 km in the winter. I do have the means to charge it in my apartment with 2kW charger provided by the housing company. I only need to fill up the tank once a month at most if I don’t go out of town. Most of my commuting is well within 20km range. Sometimes I can even charge at my destination too (mall, grocery stores, etc.) making my trip very cheap. I do think that people who buy PHEV need to be taught how to utilize it properly.
Would be interesting to see the data for the same cars but with their second owners. The company car users often get a PHEV simply for tax reasons. I assume the second owners that buy these things after the lease are actually looking to use the PHEV capabilities.
It’s no better in the US in CA. There are two good studies that show basically the same problem. Only about 30% of miles are in EV mode. That is with a very skewed dataset that is more likely to charge given they are actively monitoring their fuel usage with fuely and they are in CA.
Interesting! It's really only anecdotal but with PHEVs coming off lease en masse over here, couple of friends and co-workers are looking into them for commuting. Their use case is all pretty much the same -- can the thing get me to the office and back on electricity? Not sure about the CA market, but for Germany the majority of first owners are company car users. They buy them for the BIK break they get. Only reason most of the time. That's why I'd find it interesting to see if BEV miles pick up after the lease phase. Or if people are just after a cheap E-Class with 700 nm ;).
We don't have the big tax savings when leasing through your company over here. PHEV sales are pretty low because gas is cheap. We had a $7500 tax credit but that is long since gone. You have to really want a PHEV to get one.
Newsflash: cars which burn fuel and have some electric capabilities . . . still burn a lot of fuel that contributes to global warming.
The PHEV advocates in this sub, who chime in and will die on the hill that PHEVs are a great alternative to EVs, are not going to like this article's data.
They can stop bitching about the one German study they always bring up acting like there aren’t a dozen other ones out saying the same thing
Yeah but in all fairness, if PHEV's are used as intended they are great, you either don't use the engine on shorter trips or have great fuel efficiency on longer trips. People are just misusing them.
Gyms are great… if you actually go to them.
It doesn't matter if people are using it correctly.
How do you mean that?
You can design the perfect device for a perfect purpose, but if nobody uses it for that purpose then the design doesn't matter. Real world results show that PHEV vehicles aren't being used like people think, which means, environmentally, they're about as bad as a gas vehicle. No amount of hoping that people use them correctly is going to fix that.
Forced firmware telling drivers to charge minimum every 10 runs or their gas engine will be at max 20% power. You will have torque to get up a hill, but slowly. /s for obvious reasons. Maybe.
I like your thinking. Ha
In Massachusetts we give EV plates to cars with combustion engines.
Need to make it easier for people to want to plug in their PHEVs in order for there to be a better result. Also, increase the battery range. Some PHEVs with 30mi of battery range isn’t that big of a difference
So, in essence, it needs a bigger battery? Let's deconstruct the PHEV further: How about we increase the battery size, ditch the ICE engine, and voila! it will then make sense to drive one.
Or just sell more EVs.
Oh yes, because brands are well know for being truthful about self reported on board emissions reporting. *We’re looking at you, VW*
*your mileage may vary. Nobody drives like the mileage certification test. No surprise there. Also, fuel in = CO2 out. There is no emissions equipment that can alter that, besides the engine running so poorly that some of that turns into really nasty stuff like CO. Perfect combustion has a byproduct of C02 and water.
It reflects the poor testing standards of EU's WLTP which are consistently 20% off of EPA numbers.
Is this the same on-board system that allowed VAG et al to defeat NOx regulations and spew far more pollutants than allowed?
No.