America’s automakers have staked their futures on the notion that electric vehicles will dominate sales in the coming years, spurred by buyers determined to reduce carbon emissions and save on fuel.
But so far, while EV sales are growing, their pace is falling well short of the industry’s ambitious timetable for transitioning away from combustion engines. Instead, buyers are increasingly embracing a quarter-century-old technology whose popularity has been surging: The gas-electric hybrid, which alternates from gas to battery power to maximize efficiency.
So far in 2023, Americans have bought a record 1 million-plus hybrids — up 76% from the same period last year, according to Edmunds.com. As recently as last year, purchases had fallen below 2021’s total. This year’s figures don’t even include sales of 148,000 plug-in hybrids, which drive a short distance on battery power before a gas-electric system kicks in.
Well yeah, hybrid technology works well on most models. Better mileage and sometimes better power with few downsides.
Do you mean better range? You cant get better mileage than 0 gallons to the mile.
The downside is complexity. EV’s are simple with a lot less parts. Hybrids have the parts of a gas car plus the parts of an EV.
Charge time, charging infrastructure, and price are the things keeping me from getting an EV.
Regarding the first two, I find charging my EV at home means I rarely have to consider public charging. I’ve started to find stopping at the gas station way more inconvenient.
When I lived in the city, I maintained charge with a standard 120v outlet. In a rural area, I am doing well with a 240v (15a).
12 hour+ road trips are the only thing I hesitate on much anymore — sometimes I love the EV road trip, and other times I’m just looking to make good time.
It’s a problem for those that cannot charge at home. My apartment complex will not install chargers and I have no easy way to run a charger myself.
That’s not to say your point does not stand, but it’s still not a reality for folks like me quite yet. After my last car was totaled (RIP), I went with a hybrid. Pretty good fuel economy (35-45mpg in the city, 50-60 on the highway) and it hasn’t given me any issues so far.
If I still need a car by the time this one bites the dust, then I would definitely consider if an EV would fit my needs.
There will be laws if there aren’t already where you are that will require apartment buildings to install chargers if a tenant wants one, at the tenants cost.
There will then also be incentives for that, making it easier.
Its too obvious a problem to do nothing about with the transition goals in place.
Edit: also if they’re such dicks about an install you might even be able to install a portable charger that you can remove when you leave, or have it just be a plug. You don’t necessarily need to pay for a permemant fixture level 2 smart charger.
We leased a PHEV, in part, because of this. The other half was finding an EV that comfortably fit 5 people for road trips (live in the western US).
Which one did you get? I would love a plug in hybrid, but I need the third row for the dog, and all of them get middling reviews.
Not the guy you were talking to but a family member recently got the Kia Sportage PHEV, they are very happy with it.
No third row, but it’s a very roomy SUV
Mazda CX-90. Very comfortable 3rd row. Ours is the 7-seater with captains chairs in the middle row. It’s also a blast to drive.
Those and battery range as well for me are still issues. I’m sure in 5 years at least some of these problems will be solved. Though I doubt the price of EVs would come down to a reasonable point any time soon.
A lot of manufacturers are working towards a cheaper EV, they just don’t know how to make a good profitable cheap EV yet. That’s why they’re doing the bigger more expensive ones first, so they can figure out how to do it cheaply, and also gives themselves time for all the infrastructure they’re building like battery factories to come online which will also reduce cost.
There’s a few cheaper ones out there like the Bolt, but GM lost money on that. It was just to get the brand out there and learn how to make EVs and get some ZEV credits. It’s why they never went large scale with it.
But it’s coming. In 5 years there will be plenty of cheaper EVs, and more of the consumer infrastructure will be improved too.
I don’t like the idea of the battery going out and now you’ve basically got the choice of nearly the cost of another car or getting another car.
Same thing happens when the power train of an ice goes out, ins about the same time as the expected battery death as well. The greater majority of ice vehicles don’t last decades either
The problem is a drive train failure is a total failure. It either works at a 100% or not at all. A battery deteriorates non-linearly over time. So while you might have to replace both at the same time, the battery has had less effective use.
What drive train costs $18k before labor?
Also I can rebuild an engine or transmission to save even more money.
I can’t rebuild a battery in my garage.
I’m not opposed to EVs, but no one seems to be concerned about the maintenance once these things get old.
If you own a single family home with off street parking …… adding a circuit for a charger cost slightly less than adding a circuit for an electric range, and the charger itself was only a few hundred.
I’m still too new to EVs so really haven’t had to charge much yet but 48a level 2 charger goes pretty fast.
Most of the time, treat it like charging your phone. Plug it in at night or when you get home and it will always be fully charged in the morning (or I have mine set to 80% to help the battery last longer). You could make this happen with a much slower charger and some people even get away with standard outlet
Road trips are a different story but I haven’t taken one yet. However I keep reading Tesla’s can charge a battery from 5% to 80% in half an hour and Hyundais are faster. That doesn’t seem bad at all
Too bad most of them aren’t plug-in hybrids. Including mine. If I could have plugged in my Prius every morning, I would have used almost no gas, because my former job’s commute was 10 minutes.
PHEVs are really what manufacturers need to build until the charging infrastructure is there. We went from filling gas 2x/month to 1/quarter. We’re in EV mode 90% of the time.
Also, with EVs they really need to throw in level 2 charger installation in (yeah, I know not everyone owns their housing situation). That would help A LOT.
I’ve been saying this for 25 years. PHEV is the bridge that carries the infrastructure forward.
I remember when we all ignored you 25 years ago. What a travesty, how right you were. We should have listened to you back then, when you were telling us that PHEVs were the bridge. You didn’t sound crazy at all on those AOL chat rooms.
The gas-electric hybrid, which alternates from gas to battery power to maximize efficiency.
Misnomer.
Hybrids are way worse for efficiency because you are going to end up running either on gas or electricity while having to carry the weight of the other. But fun to see that Americans are hopping on falling EU trends for once after those shit stains had been criticized rightfully so for a long time now.
Edit: American exceptionalism downvotes. 🤡
Gas electric hybrids come in two variations, standard and plugin.
The plugin is far more efficient, because the electricity at your outlet is produced with far fewer emissions on average than at your alternator. Your first 20-50 or so miles are costing the equivalent of like 12 cents a gallon, and that accounts for like 90% of all personal driving. Even with the added weight of both systems, it’s more efficient and less expensive to drive for almost everyone. The only people who would not benefit are daily commuters driving significantly farther than the battery will take you.
The non-plugin hybrid will charge the batteries with excess (normally wasted) energy from the engine and the brakes. That energy can be used for short distances, and whether it is more or less efficient overall depends on where you live and how you drive. Stop and go city traffic is better in the hybrid than open road highway driving.
No. Because the reality is that no one is going to charge their hybrid electrically and just uses the combustion engine instead. And as I said already, the EV parts have to carry the combustion engine parts of the car and the combustion engine parts have to carry the EV engine parts of the car, making both variants less efficient than their pure counterparts. Like I said, we’ve been through this exact scenario already for many years over here. If you have the choice between a hybrid and a pure EV, go for the pure EV. Or better, see if you can drop your cage entirely if possible.
While I don’t doubt there are people too lazy to plug in, especially when they only have a level 1 chargwr at home, just having the option will encourage more charging infrastructure. New homes are being built with a 240v circuit to the garage “just in case” the buyer gets an electric car. Corporations are installing chargers in oreferred parking spaces and calling it an employee benefit.
You’re saying people are wasteful. That’s true. People could drive slower on the highway and save money because they use less gas.
Going pure EV is better, but people still want to be able to fuel up in 5 minutes. Giving them both in one car will support the transition as adoption expands.
I’ve had a hybrid, 2013 Fusion, which would get ~40MPG. Now I have a PHEV 2015 Fusion, and with our driving habits, it does ~53MPG overall.
However.
We bought the 2015 with about 36K miles on it, and at that time, the plug-in battery range was about 20 miles. Today, at almost 90K miles, that range is down to 10 or 11. Replacing the battery module (which includes both the PHEV and hybrid batteries, they’re separate components in the electrical system, but come together in one module) is about $10K just for the part. The car is worth less than that today.
My hesitation to buy a fully electric vehicle is because I don’t want to find myself with a car that has half its original range at only 100K miles (say, six or seven years), and would cost more than a used car to repair, or have little resale value. A decent and reasonably maintained ICE car should easily go 160K miles (perhaps a lot more) without having to have a repair on that scale done.
That car is nearly ten years old though, that’s the maximum expected lifespan of most vehicles before too many parts are failing to make it worth it. That’s no different for ice compared to EV, 10 years/200k miles is about the end of the road for almost all vehicles, the ones that live past that are rare and normally do it due to disuse but plenty of care
New EVs have a buffer built into the battery so that as it degrades, the extra capacity unlocks and range will stay the same for the length of the warranty period (5-8 years or so). 50% observed capacity loss wouldn’t happen until north of 300k miles I think
I’m hesitant for winter use… If it’s parked outside for several days in the cold without plugging it in, will I be stranded when I return to the vehicle? My understanding is that they often have a heater to keep the batteries warm, but that eats up your range over time. I feel like the technology right now is great for cities and milder climates (which is most people, let’s be fair).
Can I drive 100-200kms, park it, and then leave it for 3-4 days and then still have that 100kms range when I return, even in the winter (-5°C to -15°C being an average day)? I understand my usage is not typical and most of the time an EV would do the trick just fine, I just can’t afford two vehicles…
You’d need an EV with a pretty large battery to drive a total of 200-300kms without charging over a few days in that cold. It would be an expensive model to achieve that.
If that was truly your driving situation, as an avid EV proponent, I’d suggest you not get one. At best, you’d barely manage it. At worst it would end up costing a fortune for tows, additional electric set up (adding a plug at your destination), or tons of hours waiting to charge. It would be an overall shitty experience.
Yeah, I’m really hoping the technology improves in the next decade to the point where EVs are viable for that sort of thing.
I’m in Canada and we’re looking to have all new vehicles sold be zero emission by 2035. Plug-in hybrids with at least an 80km range will count as zero emission though, and that does seem like a perfectly fair compromise that would work for me.
You’d need an EV with a pretty large battery to drive a total of 200-300kms without charging over a few days in that cold. It would be an expensive model to achieve that.
What makes you say that? What is an EV doing while parked in the cold for a few days that’s any different than when it’s parked in warm weather for a few days? Range is definitely impacted by cold weather, but that’s mostly from heating the battery pack up to an optimal temperature for efficiency and durability, which it wouldn’t need to do if it’s parked with the battery pack contactors open.
Though I agree with your broader point. If you don’t have charging at home (even if it’s a standard household plug, honestly that’s good enough if it’s sitting for a few days) , it really can be more hassle than anything else.
As someone who had a BMW i3 across four homes - a townhome with our own garage, an apartment with four charging spots for a hundred-ish residents, a 200+ unit condo with ZERO charging, and a nightmarish situation to ever have any added, and now a house with a garage… yeah don’t bother if you don’t have L1 or L2 charging at home or work.
I’m hesitant for winter use… If it’s parked outside for several days in the cold without plugging it in, will I be stranded when I return to the vehicle? My understanding is that they often have a heater to keep the batteries warm, but that eats up your range over time. I feel like the technology right now is great for cities and milder climates (which is most people, let’s be fair).
The battery heating isn’t gonna be on when the car is parked and sitting there for a few days. Only when the car is on, unless you decide to configure it to pre-heat everything for you (and even then, that’ll just be the cabin, not the whole battery system). If it’s sitting there,
Can I drive 100-200kms, park it, and then leave it for 3-4 days and then still have that 100kms range when I return, even in the winter (-5°C to -15°C being an average day)? I understand my usage is not typical and most of the time an EV would do the trick just fine, I just can’t afford two vehicles…
I’d guess about a 20-25% range reduction in -15 C weather, depending a lot on what specific EV. So if you need to be able to drive 200km in the winter, park it for a few days, then drive another 100km before you can plug it in anywhere, look at EVs with 400km range, which I feel like most new EVs on the market already have.
This article seems to lay out some really good testing on this exact topic: https://www.whatcar.com/news/electric-car-best-winter-range/n24274