For years now, journalists, analysts, consultants, manufacturers and many others in the auto industry have considered plug-in hybrids a “transition technology” that will stick around for a few years until we see a mass adoption of fully electric vehicles. Because of this widely-held sentiment, a number of big players in the car world, including General Motors, have reduced plug-in hybrid development and focused heavily on fully electric cars.
“The quicker you get to our goal of zero emissions, the better, and EVs get you there faster,” GM’s CEO Mary Barra told Motor Trend back in 2019. “So why dedicate a lot of capital and engineering into a segment that doesn’t get you to the end game when we know how to do the end game?” Well, in this week’s David’s Takes (our weekly op-ed) I assert that this thinking was deeply, deeply flawed and that PHEVs should be considered not just a “transition technology,” but rather a long-term solution. And I’ll take it a step further: I think America ignoring them was a humongous mistake.
The internal combustion engine shouldn’t be considered the enemy, but rather an ally in the world’s efforts to clean up vehicle emissions. To many, this notion may sound absurd; how can a car that burns fossil fuels possibly be advantageous over one that doesn’t? Is this some kind of anti-EV screed written by a gas-loving nutjob?
No. I like electric cars and own two of them. And as an engineer, I find them to be vastly superior to ICEs in most ways; the mechanical simplicity, the efficiency, the ability to regenerate energy while braking, the power delivery — an electric car is an objectively better way to get around than a gas car, and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves. Still, though I like EVs, it’s clear to me that America focusing on them instead of PHEVs has severely set the country back.
PHEVs Have Been An Afterthought In The U.S.
I’m going to start by establishing the premise that everyone’s goal is to make cars cleaner for the environment. I realize that there are folks out there who don’t care about climate change, and there are those who don’t think driving electric is better for the environment than driving a gas car. And while the latter assertion can be true in some cases, in the overwhelming majority of instances where you’re comparing two cars in the same class — one gas and one electric — the electric one will have been better for the environment by the time it ends up in the junkyard. That’s really not up for debate anymore.
With that out of the way, we can jump to our next premise, which is that we can improve the environmental impact of cars by — as quickly as possible — maximizing the number of people we can get to stop burning fossil fuels by replacing internal combustion cars with electric cars.
With these premises established, I’m going to spend this article arguing that, today, plug-in hybrids are the best vehicles to accomplish these goals — even better than EVs — and that America’s focus on the latter has actually hurt us.
But first, let’s talk about what I mean when I say America has ignored PHEVs and focused on EVs. Doesn’t the U.S. have plug-in hybrids for sale?
Yes, there are some plug-in hybrids available today, but there are more fully electric cars for sale than there are PHEVs (40 versus 33, per EVadoption.com), and there are key segments that offer no plug-ins at all (there are zero plug-in hybrid pickup trucks – an inefficient segment that stands to gain the most from electrification — and five fully electric pickups); that’s just absurd. Perhaps just as important as the quantity of offerings is the quality of those offerings; fully-electric models currently for sale are much more compelling than the PHEVs on the marketplace.
One cannot possibly compare a Ford Escape PHEV to a Mustang Mach-E. One is sleek, was named “Mustang” specifically to amplify its coolness in order to compete with Tesla, and stands out. The other is just the top-of-the-range version of an economy-crossover, it’s actually more expensive than the Mach-E, and its all-electric range is a meager 37 miles. This is pretty standard across PHEVs; they’re the most expensive version of another already-existing car, and while that price can be cut by certain government incentives, the range of most PHEVs is between 25 and 40 miles; that’s just sad. What’s more, it’s not just that there are only a few good PHEVs currently on the market; the other issue is marketing. Namely, there hasn’t been enough of it.
For one, PHEVs usually don’t get their own nameplates — they’re just trim levels since most are built on platforms shared with gas cars. They also rarely get their own media drives, so reviews you read about them are mixed in with the gas variants. And most importantly, they just don’t get the same spotlight as EVs; when was the last time you saw a Ford Escape PHEV commercial? Compare that to the number of times you saw a Mustang Mach-E commercial, or even a Ford F-150 Lightning (which is basically just an electric version of an F-150) commercial.
(Note: Some of PHEVs’ marketing problems are just the nature of the beast; fully electric cars seem advanced to the layperson, while hybrids just don’t, since we’ve all been hearing about hybrids for the past 25 years. A “plug-in hybrid” just doesn’t excite people in the same way as “EV” does, even if a plug-in hybrid is often more technically advanced than an EV (for better or for worse)).
There’s a reason I wrote a few weeks ago that “America’s Plug-In Hybrids Aren’t Good Enough.” The vehicles are an afterthought. I mean, look at America’s coolest PHEVs:
- Jeep Wrangler 4xe: 22 miles
- Ford Escape plug-in: 37 miles
- Chrysler Pacifica PHEV: 32 miles
- Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe: 26 miles
- Hyundai Tucson PHEV: 33 miles
- Mazda CX-90 PHEV: 26 miles
- BMW X5 xDrive50e: 38 miles
- BMW 330e: 23 miles
- Toyota Prius Prime: 44 miles
- Toyota RAV4 Prime: 42 miles
- Lexus RX450h+: 37 miles
And compare that to these EVs:
- Tesla Cybertruck: up to ~340 miles
- Rivian R1S: up to ~350 miles
- Rivian R1T: up to ~350 miles
- Ford Mustang Mach-E: up to ~310 miles
- Tesla Model 3: up to ~360 miles
- Tesla Model Y: up to ~330 miles
- Tesla Model X: up to ~350 miles
- Hyundai Ioniq 5: up to ~300 miles
- Kia EV6: up to ~310 miles
- Lucid Air: up to ~420 miles
One list is a snoozefest filled with cars that will barely get you to work and back (Prius Prime notwithstanding; Rav4 is also decent) [Editor’s note: Don’t sleep on the spacious Mazda CX-90 PHEV, the opulent X5 50e, or the excellent 330e either -TH], the other is dynamic and exciting and forward-thinking. No wonder EV sales are absolutely crushing PHEV sales by a factor of almost four to one.
Of course, things are changing, and automakers are realizing that ignoring PHEVs was a massive mistake. That’s why you’re seeing headlines like “GM Does A U-Turn: Plug-In Hybrids Are Coming Back” and “GM Hustling To Get PHEV Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra To Market” as well as “Carmakers pumped the brakes on hybrid cars too soon” and so on.
I hope these automakers build some proper PHEVs, though, and I hope they market them properly without actually calling them PHEVs. Ideally, they’ll call them what people used to call the BMW i3 — a range-extended EV (which is a much sexier term) — and I hope they build them on electric platforms so that they’re actually solidly compelling vehicles. I’ll repeat what I wrote in my op-ed “America’s Plug-In Hybrids Aren’t Good Enough”:
…precisely my problem with the current crop of plug-in hybrids [is that] they’re clearly gasoline cars first, electric cars second. The 30 miles or so of EV range is considered a nifty feature of someone’s otherwise gasoline vehicle. The issue, in my eyes, is that in America there are no plug-in hybrids that are electric cars first, gasoline cars second, and that needs to change. And I think … that transition point from gas car first to EV first starts to happen at about 50-100 miles of range.
The state of California is incentivizing automakers to crank up PHEV range, with the California Air Resources Board writing:
Plug-in hybrid, full battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles count toward an automaker’s requirement. PHEVs must have an all-electric range of at least 50 miles under real-world driving conditions.
That’s awesome, though the state loses me at “In addition, automakers will be allowed to meet no more than 20% of their overall ZEV requirement with PHEVs.” This is silly.
Until the Ramcharger launches, America offers no such EV-first range-extended EVs — just those relatively boring, low-range PHEVs in the list above. But even if we do start cranking out great, forward-thinking range-extended EV offerings, the damage from ignoring this segment and instead focusing on EVs is already done.
The Environmental Effects Of Neglecting PHEVs
It may seem counterintuitive, but a plug-in hybrid can actually be better for the environment than a fully electric car. To best understand this, we have to consider how most Americans drive. A typical American will commute about 15 miles a day, one way. Some days they might have to buy groceries, some days they might have to take their kid to a swim meet, but for the most part, weekday commutes are reasonably regular/predictable, and not particularly long.
The very cleanest car, we can probably all agree, is a small electric one with a battery sized exactly for that commute. I myself drive 17 miles a day to work (one way), and I might drive an extra 10 miles to get groceries or do another errand). That’s 44 miles; add a few for safety, and really, all I need is a car with a 50-mile range. A car with a 50-mile range is the very cleanest car I could possibly drive, because it features the smallest battery needed to allow me to live my normal lifestyle.
If I were to drive a car with similar dimensions to, and with a similar powertrain as, a Tesla Model Y (which according to the EPA has a range of 3.57 miles per kWh of juice, though I realize this changes based on mass, but for simplicity let’s just roll with it), I would need a 14 kWh battery to live my lifestyle (50 mi/3.57 mi/kwh = 14 kWh). That’s a TINY battery, and as such, the resources needed to make it would be pretty minimal; that matters because manufacturing lithium-ion batteries is currently a dirty process.
Is anyone going to actually buy a 14kWh battery-having EV offering only 50 miles of range (Note: you would likely need a larger battery to get 50 miles in a cold climate)? Absolutely not (unless it’s hilariously cheap). Just look at the Mazda MX-30; that was an electric car with 100 miles of range, and it got laughed out of the marketplace. It was a total failure. People may only need 50 miles most days, but nobody wants to feel limited, and there will surely be instances where one has to drive 200 miles for vacation or to visit the grandparents or whatever, and charging a million times to drive what should take only a few hours is something most folks would consider absurd.
So what’s the solution? There are two. If you look at the electrified vehicles available in the American market, it’s clear most automakers have decided that the answer is to shove another 60+ kWh of batteries into that car.
Take the Tesla Model Y Long Range that I used as an example earlier. It’s got a 75 kWh battery (that’s usable capacity; full capacity is 82 kWh) in order to give it 330 miles of range — enough to ease up most owners’ range anxiety. Again, many folks are going to drive that vehicle under 50 miles a day, carrying around 280 miles worth of battery — 60 kWh, which is 80 percent of the total capacity — every day for no reason other than peace of mind. That’s probably 700 pounds of expensive, dirty-to-produce lithium ion batteries being hauled around daily as the car drives around going to work and doing errands.
Now let’s look at the second solution. Imagine that 14 kWh Model Y, but instead of adding a 60 kWh battery to ease people’s range anxiety, you add a small gasoline engine hooked up to a generator. The vast majority of the time, that car will be driven on battery power alone, and the gasoline engine, along with its ancillary components like the fuel tank and cooling system, will sit dormant, just as the 60 kWh worth of battery would on a Model Y Long Range.
The car that best lines up with this analogy is the BMW i3 range-extended EV, which features a 19 kWh battery and a small gasoline engine. This is what I daily drive (yes, I practice what I’m preaching):
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Of the two options, it’s clear that the hybrid (or range-extended EV) makes more sense. It’s lighter (which matters not just to reduce Vehicle Demand Energy (i.e. the energy needed to propel the car forward) but also because tire dust is a nasty type of pollution, and weight doesn’t help on that front), it’s cheaper (I’ll get to that in a bit), and though there are emissions associated with producing a small gasoline engine and its ancillary components, it’s clear that manufacturing a 60kWh battery is significantly dirtier. This becomes obvious when you consider that a fully electric car takes 15,000 miles (ish — this depends on a number of factors) to become cleaner than a fully-gasoline car. If the emissions associated with producing and running an EV are so high that a gasoline car has to shoot 15,000 miles worth of combustion products into the sky before the EV is cleaner, it goes without saying that a PHEV with a battery 20 percent of the size and a gas engine that rarely turns on is the cleaner solution.
There are lots of caveats to all of this, of course. If you live in an apartment, charging a PHEV every day is a huge pain in the ass, so you’ll likely run on the gas motor a lot, and this could be less efficient than just a gas car, per Consumer Reports; so really, this assessment applies mostly to folks who can easily charge their car every day. That’s not an insignificant number of people, as many have garages/driveways near their houses, and others can charge at work. It’s also worth noting that this all assumes that the small 14kWh battery can handle all the charge/discharge cycles. Many modern battery packs can, but in an instance where you have to replace the small battery because it can’t handle all the charging sessions (as was the case with my i3), the calculus will then start to favor BEVs. Another thing worth noting: If you’re running on the gasoline engine a lot, then BEVs (even with huge batteries) will of course end up winning out over a PHEV when it comes to pollution. There are a number of studies showing BEVs beating out the current crop of PHEVs when it comes to emissions reduction over gas cars, and I assume these are based on significant gas engine usage.
14 kWh may not be enough for some folks. Ideally, you’d analyze a sweep of battery sizes, assess how each of them affects the duty cycle of the gasoline engine, and weigh that against the environmental effects of producing that battery size. The ideal PHEV would be one that allowed the most people to use the gasoline engine the least, while keeping the battery size as small as possible. It’s a complicated analysis that requires an understanding of human behavior; maybe 14 kWh is enough for someone, but because it only offers 50 miles of range, they’re less incentivized to charge it when they’re on their rare road trip. If they go on that road trip enough times, perhaps a slightly larger battery could be worthwhile, since it’d lead them to stop and charge it instead of just running along on the gas engine. If someone doesn’t have a garage to charge the car in, how big does a battery need to be to where it makes sense for them to charge at a public charger instead of just driving on the gas engine?
Regardless of all the caveats, my point is that, in plenty of scenarios, a PHEV is cleaner for the environment than an EV. If you don’t trust me, the PHEV Toyota Prius Prime was just determined to be the cleanest car in America, ahead of BEVs, due to its relatively low energy usage and smaller battery.
I live in Santa Monica and commute to Van Nuys daily. I have a garage at home in which I can charge my vehicle, and I can charge at work. It’s obvious to me that a Tesla Model Y Long Range would be a complete waste of resources, and significantly dirtier for the environment than my BMW i3, which has a battery with 19kWh of usable capacity — just over 1/4 the size of the Model Y Long Range’s. I daily drive that vehicle, and maybe use the gas motor for 1 percent of the miles I drive. The emissions that my little 647 cc gasoline engine produces, along with those associated with the production of my gas engine+ancillary parts, will likely never outweigh the emissions needed to manufacture over 50 kWh of added battery. Unfortunately, my early i3’s battery ended up kicking the bucket after 135,000 miles, thereby requiring another 19kWh battery, but a later model i3 likely wouldn’t suffer from this charge/discharge longevity issue, and would almost certainly be the best environmental choice for my lifestyle, which is not a particularly uncommon one among Americans.
Supply Constraints Make Ignoring PHEVs Even Worse Of A Decision
The calculus behind the BEV vs PHEV debate is complex, and beyond requiring a thorough understanding of well-to-wheel analyses and human behavioral patterns regarding charging, it requires an understanding of supply chain constraints. And right now, we’re seeing such constraints holding back EV manufacturing. And in a world where battery resources are causing slowdowns, a PHEV (or a range-extended EV) becomes an even more obvious first-choice for reducing climate implications of automobiles.
Why use a 75 kWh battery on a single Tesla Model Y when you could instead use those same battery resources to get four families into a cheaper plug-in hybrid, which they could potentially use in electric mode 99 percent of the time? It’s a concept I’ve been talking about for years, but I’m thrilled to now hear that Toyota — a brand that damn near every automotive publication was critical of, as it was slow to build EVs — is championing it. Recently, our friend Tom McParland from Jalopnik wrote about Toyota’s 1:6:90 rule; here’s a look at it via a dealer document sent to Tom:
I’m not going to get into standard hybrids in this story, but six plug-in hybrids that could potentially very rarely use their gas engines versus one pricier EV? Especially in light of supply constraints, it’s obvious which makes the most sense from an environmental standpoint.
PHEV Palatability Made Ignoring Them Even Worse Of A Decision
Right now, there’s a humongous rift in the U.S. between folks who love EVs and hate gas cars and those who prefer gas cars and hate EVs. It’s an absurdly polarizing issue; my conservative friends say they wouldn’t be caught dead in an electric car, while some of my more liberal friends think gas cars are irresponsible and inefficient and frankly just dumb.
I don’t think this rift would exist to the degree that it does today if we’d had more compelling PHEVs on the market. The fact is that, if you look at a typical parking lot full of cars, these days you’re going to see EVs and gas cars, and not a whole lot in between. Seriously, check out this plot showing BEV sales and plug-in hybrid sales:
And it’s no surprise. Like I wrote before, not only are there more fully electric cars on the market than there are PHEVs, but the BEVs are much, much more compelling than the PHEVs. America hasn’t put enough effort into PHEVs.
And that’s a problem because many Americans aren’t ready to commit to fully-electric cars; it’s a scary, big step, especially in light of infrastructural/power grid concerns and cost. For these people, a PHEV would be the ultimate gateway towards reducing fossil fuel usage.
Today consumers get to choose between cool but too-expensive electric vehicles (especially pickups, though to be sure prices are dropping quickly); gasoline vehicles; and boring, derivative, low-range, also-expensive, simply-not-good-enough PHEVs. The result is that, while more and more people are driving fully electric cars than ever (it’s the fastest growing segment in the U.S. — S&P Global says that “Despite slowing consumer demand for electric vehicles, reports of the demise of EVs have been greatly exaggerated. S&P Global Mobility’s 2024 global sales forecast projects battery electric passenger vehicles to be on track to post 13.3 million units worldwide for 2024 – accounting for an estimated 16.2% of global passenger vehicle sales. For reference, 2023 posted an estimated 9.6 million BEVs, for 12% market share.”), I believe far more people would be driving electric every day if there were more compelling PHEVs on the market.
And far more would then feel comfortable transitioning to fully electric cars once they’d driven a plug-in hybrid. They’d tell their friends, and their friends would tell their friends, and we’d have a lot less polarizing a world when it comes to electric cars vs gas cars than we do today. But that’s just not where we are. Today, if you want a pickup truck, you get to choose between gas and electric, with a few regular hybrids sprinkled in. And because there’s not a plug-in hybrid pickup truck on the lot to win over an anti-EV pickup truck driver and get them to think “You know what? This has a gas motor in it, so it’s not an electric truck. I think I’ll buy this,” only for them to drive around in electric mode the vast majority of the time and gradually change their mind on electric vehicles, the rift continues and skeptics remain skeptics.
The truth is, plug-in hybrids are just more palatable for more people (and because of their small batteries, they don’t require a special Level 2 charger; a regular 110 outlet will general do just fine in my experience), and the importance of that should be extremely obvious to anyone who watches today’s political commercials, which often use EVs to divide a nation that should collectively realize just how great electrification is.
Cost
Let’s talk about cost, because I mentioned it a few times above; we’re seeing PHEVs that cost more than EVs, and yet I claimed before that PHEVs have the potential to be cheaper than EVs, adding to their mass-market palatability.
I haven’t been able to get an exact cost delta between that 75 kWh Model Y and a theoretical 14 kWh one, though I’ve put in a request to my friends at Munro & Associates, the premier EV benchmarking company in the world. Still, I was on Munro’s podcast recently and spoke with Sr. Design Consultant Kevin Harty, who told me that PHEVs are indeed cheaper. And if you look at current lithium-ion battery pricing, it’s easy to understand why.
Batteries currently cost about $120 to $140 per kWh, and though they’re expected to drop below $100 by 2025, an extra 65 kWh worth of battery would still cost $6,500 — that’s probably at least double what a small gasoline engine, generator, and auxiliary components (like the fuel tank, cooling system, and accessories) would cost in a PHEV.
Obviously, the cost equation is complicated by government rebates; when huge numbers like $7500 are being thrown around, that cost delta between a big-battery EV and a small-battery PHEV can shrink. Today, though, PHEVs are eligible for that full $7500 figure, but local rebates (like those offered by power companies) can vary.
Still, if we’re talking just resource-wise, PHEVs have the potential to cost less, and actually still do; from Consumer Reports:
Concern about charging logistics, such as where and when to charge, is a primary reason people are reluctant to purchase an electric vehicle. For many car buyers, a PHEV provides most of the benefits of driving an EV without worries about how and where to charge, Fisher says.
In general, a PHEV costs less to purchase than an EV and is less pricey to fuel than gas or hybrid vehicles.
PHEVs Were The Right Answer, And Still Are
Let me begin by saying that fully-electric cars are ultimately a better answer than plug-in hybrids, and I’m thrilled to see that EV sales are still strong and growing. The truth is that, if we can get our electricity grid cleaned up to where we’re using only renewables, and especially if we can figure out fast-charging battery tech that’s cleaner and cheaper to manufacture, then gasoline engines and the infrastructure that supports them will have no place outside of perhaps commercial applications. But that’s not happening anytime soon, and we need to focus on — as quickly as possible — getting as many butts driving electric as possible. And to do that, range-extended PHEVs (which, yes, add additional complexity/failure modes to EVs, and are packaging compromises) are the answer, at least for the next decade or two.
I’ll repeat a quote from GM president Mark Reuss — one quite similar to the one from Mary Barra in my lede paragraph. This one’s from The Wall Street Journal:
If I had a dollar more to invest, would I spend it on a hybrid?…Or would I spend it on the answer that we all know is going to happen, and get there faster and better than anybody else?”
Let’s put this quote into different terms. Reuss is implying that it makes more sense to spend limited battery resources to get one V8 Chevy Silverado driver to trade in for a ridiculous 200 kWh (!) Silverado EV than it does to take that hideously large battery, split it into four, and get four Silverado V8 drivers to stop cruising around getting 13 MPG and spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. It’s nonsense, but this is exactly what GM chose: fewer, pricier EVs instead of more, cheaper, more palatable (especially to EV skeptics not ready to go full-BEV), lighter PHEVs that could potentially each be better for the environment than their EV counterpart (and certainly, when you factor in the number of people now able to drive around predominantly electricity instead of gas, overall it’s much, much better for the environment, as Toyota concludes with its 1:6:90 rule).
How’s that working out for GM? Let’s check out S&P global’s 2024 EV forecast to get a general idea of the state of the industry:
Despite the slowdown in consumer sentiment toward EVs, there is nonetheless an ongoing necessity for emissions reductions – with EV regulations and milestones largely intact and looming a year closer. However, slowing consumer desire for existing EVs could boost profitable internal combustion engine (ICE) markets and legacy automaker portfolios, driving consolidation and attracting private equity interest.
Crucial strategic decisions regarding capital expenditures in the electrification space need to be made in the near term. Several OEMs are beyond the point of no return in their shift to EVs, while some suppliers might be questioning the wisdom of going “all in” on EVs quite so soon.
Now let’s peek at GM specifically — from Reuters:
General Motors Co said on Tuesday it will delay production of electric pickup trucks at its plant in Michigan’s Orion Township by a year as the No. 1 U.S. automaker grapples with flattening demand for electric vehicle.
The move is the latest sign that electric vehicle production and demand may not be as strong as forecast. GM had been set to begin production of the electric Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra in late 2024 at the suburban Detroit plant. The company said the plan now is to start it in late 2025.
During its earnings call on January 30, GM announced that the pace of electric vehicle (EV) sales had slowed—a serious concern for a company that doubled down on a pure-EV future just three years ago. As a result, the company has reversed direction and will alter its future product strategy to include plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) in its vehicle lineup.
“Our forward plans include bringing our plug-in hybrid technology to select vehicles in North America,” said CEO Mary Barra. “Let me be clear: GM remains committed to eliminating tailpipe emissions from our light-duty vehicles by 2035. But in the interim, deploying plug-in technology in strategic segments will deliver some of the environmental benefits of EVs as the nation continues to build its charging infrastructure. We are timing the launches to help us comply with the more stringent fuel economy and tailpipe emission standards that are being proposed.”
It’s quite clear: Neglecting PHEVs was an industry-wide flub of epic proportions.
Addendum: I’d like to add a bit more about pickup trucks, because they, specifically, drive home my point. Currently, you essentially have two options if you want decent range: Buy a 200kWh electric pickup or buy a gas-guzzling pickup. There’s not much in between. The problem is that that gigantic 200kWh battery is needed to give the vehicle any reasonable towing range. The result is that the truck is huge, expensive, and dirty to manufacture. A plug-in pickup requires a battery less than half the size to handle most people’s around-town commuting, and allows for good towing range. “But when they’re towing, they’ll spew CO2 into the atmosphere!” you might argue. Not if they don’t tow. And most Americans don’t tow. They just want to be ABLE to tow. What’s more, the presence of that gas engine could be enough to win over EV skeptics, and even if not all of them plug in daily, if half of them do — that could still be lots of folks driving electric every day instead of riding around in their guzzler. So yes, folks may not ever tow, and folks may just want a gas engine to bring them comfort to cross that great gas-electric divide, but again, human psychology is key to all of this.
I also want to make it clear that I’m not implying that the U.S. should have focused on PHEVs over EVs. No, focusing on EVs is a smart call for a number of reasons, including cultural ones and practical ones (for example: infrastructure buildout requires pain points, and PHEVs are there to minimize those by providing a convenient backup. Having plenty of EVs on the market definitely expedites solutions to our infrastructure issues more than PHEVs would). I just think PHEVs shouldn’t have been neglected like they were.
I am on my second PHEV. The first was a Honda Clarity. The local power company gave us an L2 charging station for free and wiring was simple. It wasn’t much of a car but, especially in the summer, we could go months without buying gas. It was a lease because I figured the segment was evolving rapidly and didn’t want to end up with a fossil. We wanted to get a RAV4 Prime but the dealer wanted $1k just to get on the list with at least a 6-month wait. We bought a used M-B GLC 350e. It was a dealer loaner with 14k miles and was cheaper than a CRV. The electric range is minuscule but it gets to the grocery store and back. For road trips we don’t bother to charge it. No worries about finding a charging station. It’s not worth the bother. So far it seems to be good compromise.
It’s electric
PHEV should be flex fuel. Even 40 miles of range would be enough if emissions were reduced when the engine was running by using a lower carbon fuel.
One step further, CNG or Propane powered ICE for the Generator. Home Gensets can be multifuel.
This is amazing idea, a PHEV that I could fill up entirely at home. I already have natural gas hookup in the garage. Just need a compressor (used ~$1k, ouch).
Energy wise you are looking at less than $1 per gallon gasoline equivalent. You need a storage tank and range would suffer but it should be fine for around town.
So much easier than Hydrogen, 3000psi tanks in place of 10,000, and no trouble fueling in could weather
I would love this. Fill it up with electrons and CNG in the garage. And if the power goes out, use it to power the house.
I like it, but think that it probably costs too much for the tank for the range it would provide. The CNG Civic only has a range of 200 miles. The hybrid system would push this up to around 280 miles. Is that worth the extra cost? To run on alcohol fuels would only require a software change, plus a cheap fuel line sensor in case the O2 sensor fails and the computer needs to know which default fuel map to use. This would provide a 400 mile range with a 10 gallon tank that does not need to be pressurized.
It is dependent on how much you drive and initial cost. Round here ethanol is running ~$3.7 $/gal that makes natural gas about 9x cheaper to run on, let’s drop that to 8x to account for pumping losses (even if there are losses by going to a station.)
That’s significant savings.
but as you point out there is the limitation of range. I wouldn’t want to road trip in a CNG car without planning ahead, stations exist but usually hidden.
I don’t know which emits less CO2.
I saw $2.69 E85 today ($3.69 regular), so the added hassle seems less worth it to me. Quick google search and I found the EPA says around 20% reduction for CNG and 48% for corn ethanol compared to gasoline.
Now what would be interesting is if a bio-methane was used instead of pipeline gas. It would be more expensive but qualify for advanced biofuel subsidies still on the books. The city buses around here are hybrid CNG and they pay extra for upgraded landfill gas.
per the Energy.gov website on the gasoline Civic vs the CNG, CNG had 30% of the NOx and 75% of CO2 emissions, while having combined 31.1MPG on combined City/Highway vs 28.5MPG for the Gasoline version
CNG had 8/10ths slower quarter mile time for acceleration the tank size took up more trunk space, while providing the equivelent of 8 gallons of gasoline.
The CNG Civic weighed 143 pounds more.
Overall emissions on the CNG version were 10% of the allowed emissions to be rated as an ultra low emission vehicle
The CNG Civic only has a range of 200 miles
How efficient was that ICE though? ICE efficiency has gotten better since that car was developed. The CNG Civic was also not a hybrid which will also boost efficiency.
I think you can get an idea of the potential gains by looking at the gains going from the regular Civic to the hybrid. For 2006 the regular Civic got 30 MPG, the CNG got 28 MPG and the hybrid got 42 MPG. If the gains are similar you should get 39MPGe on a CNG hybrid Civic for a range of 279 miles on the same tank. If one uses the 48 MPG Accord hybrid as a proxy for a modern Civic (Accord is a heavier car) the new CNG hybrid Civid might get 44.3 MPGe and a guesstimated range of 320 miles on the same tank.
I think the 2015 might be the most recent CNG Civic, and it gets 38 MPGe on the highway. EPA only rates it at 193 miles total range, but this is probably using combined fuel economy, while Honda rates it at 220 mile range. Supposedly the fuel tank can hold 8 gasoline gallon equivalent. My question is all of the fuel in the tank usable or is there still quite a bit left when the pressure drops below the required amount to run the engine? Having 6.2 GGE be usable in the tank would make these numbers make sense.
Also I discovered that the fuel tank takes up half of the trunk space, which in my opinion is a pretty big downside for a road trip car.
The reason for that is the Civic GX is still a Civic. It was designed as a gasoline car with CNG as an after thought. The cylindrical pressure tank wasn’t going to fit in the space of the gasoline tank so Honda just shoved it where it would fit easiest, in the trunk.
My numbers were the combined numbers. The 2006 GX Civic was rated as 36 MPGe highway so not much different, basically everything gained a couple of MPG in 9 years so I think the maths still hold more or less, as a rough guesstimate anyway.
Ethanol flex fuels in the US are not as simple as in other countries. Corn-based fuels have lower energy than sugar-based ones. Additionally, US E-85 is usually subsidized.
More info – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible-fuel_vehicle#Barriers_to_widespread_adoption
E85 has not been subsidized in over 10 years, and yet it is $1 per gallon cheaper than gasoline at the station by my house. The price difference is greater than the reduction in energy content.
Ethanol is chemically identical no matter what it is made from. Brazil’s corn ethanol production is in fact growing rapidly the last few years. The difference between ethanol fuels sold in the US and Brazil is that in Brazil it still contains water. In the US it is mixed with hydrocarbons for better cold weather starting, which increases the energy content compared to water.
Simply not true. There are still plenty of active grants, tax credits, subsidies, and federal loans on the books for ethanol fuel. Even when direct subsidies have run out, there’s various options on the books like “ethanol as carbon capture”.
You are mostly wrong. The most recent corn ethanol plant was built with no subsidies because corn no longer qualifies. Advanced biofuels that do not use corn as a feedstock would qualify but there is not enough of that being made to change the price at the pump.
But there are other portions of the manufacture and distribution process that qualify for rebates, subsidies, tax breaks, and loans. Corn-starch-based ethanol gasoline blends are still eligible for Renewable Fuel Standards credits – albeit at a reduced rate compared to other biofuels. E85 prices also fluctuates at differing rates than regular gas because it’s more beholden to the ag market and not oil. Declining demand for ethanol has also driven the price down in some areas.
Blending credits are given to the blender (gasoline wholesaler) not the producer, and they are also not cash. Then they have to be sold on the market to to be monetized. The market for these is very limited because the only companies that have to buy them are small oil refineries in places like Montana. Pretty insignificant amounts and the money is not actually coming from the government.
Corn based fuels have lower density than sugar based ones? The fuel isn’t corn or sugar, it’s ethanol. Which has exactly the same properties no matter what you fed to some yeast.
The resulting ethanol itself is no different. But the corn takes more energy input to yeild the same amount of fuel.
This is only because the sugar cane leftovers are burned to fuel the process. The leftovers from corn fermentation are dried using natural gas so they can be shipped long distances to be used as animal feed.
This biomass fuel does help sugarcane ethanol lifecycle energy density. However, sugarcane is a more sugar (re: ethanol) dense crop. It yields 2-3x more ethanol per cultivated acre than corn and is more efficiently converted into ethanol.
New corn ethanol plants have a biodigester to turn corn stalks into methane to run the process, so the energy required for conversion is now much more comparable. The commercial enzymes purchased to break down starch into sugars is also much more effective and cheaper then in the past, so more energy to convert is not really true any more.
In Brazil, new corn ethanol plants have recently opened and more are under construction or planned. They have also started making corn ethanol at sugar cane ethanol plants during the dry season when sugar cane feedstock is limited. Corn ethanol now has a 20% market share of the Brazilian ethanol market and is increasing, while there are no new planned sugar cane ethanol plants. This would not be happening if sugar cane ethanol still held a significant advantage.
There are new GMO corn seeds available for the Brazilian market that allow for two corn harvests per year, so more ethanol per acre of corn has been achieved through biotechnology increasing corn yields.
Thank you both for replying to my comment. I did a little more searching and see my memory is outdated. While sugarcane does contain more sugars for ethanol production the unused portion of corn does go to good use. I found this entry on Wiki talking about how to describe energy in vs. energy out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance
I do not currently know as fact whether Brazil or US subsidizes production more but have me opinions.
Posting to both of your comments so you both see this.
Currently Brazillian ethanol can come into the US tariff free, while US ethanol is taxed at 15% going into Brazil. This I believe is the reverse of the situation when George W was president. Definitely used to be the other way around.
The only financial subsidies in either country are carbon credit schemes, and Brazilian ethanol qualifies in the US. More with state credits if it gets delivered to California. US ethanol does not generate carbon credits in Brazil, so sugar cane is getting more overall market support.
Thank you both for replying to my comment. I did a little more searching and see my memory is outdated. While sugarcane does contain more sugars for ethanol production the unused portion of corn does go to good use. I found this entry on Wiki talking about how to describe energy in vs. energy out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance
I do not currently know as fact whether Brazil or US subsidizes production more but have me opinions.
Posting to both of your comments so you both see this.
There are no regulations pushing PHEVs over EVs and manufacturers interpreted initial low interest as the general public finding the concept too complex. It’s unfortunate. TBF, the general public take is somewhat real. My father is 68 and can’t wrap his head around what the ownership experience would be like for a PHEV
My dad is close to the same age. He and my mom can’t wrap their heads around hybrids of any sort. I tried to explain that they would be great candidates for a hybrid (they could use a PHEV, but their drives are almost all longer than the EV range in a PHEV and they are wary of them, despite seeing that mine gets me over to them just fine).
Making PHEVs (or EVs or hybrids) work will take significant education and marketing.
“Two things, Dad: plug it in at home, and don’t run out of gas.”
He thinks that the battery won’t allow him to store the vehicle for long periods of time and that it somehow compromises the logistics of driving. He’s at that point where he almost literally won’t hear the words coming out of someone’s mouth
I agree with the arguments, plus REX is a way cooler acronym/abbreviation than PHEV or BEV. Wrangler REX? So cool.
But I drunk myself blind to the sound of old T-Rex
Mmm
To the sound of old T-Rex
You better you bet.
Agree. My, so far limited, experience with a PHEV makes me a fan. About 9 months ago I bought a 2017 Fusion Energi with 54k miles as a secondary runabout car. Admittedly it’s not a great PHEV; 15 miles or so of battery-only range, and a laughably small trunk. Others, like the Volt, are much better. But it’s a thoroughly comfortable midsize sedan with enough room to tote the kids around. And over the 5,200 miles we’ve put on it, have averaged 72 MPG. Yes, most of the driving is around town, the most advantageous setting for a PHEV, but it’s convinced me if some actual investment was put industry-wide into the technology, you could not only better achieve the goal of reduced oil consumption and emissions, you could also convince a lot of electrified-vehicle skeptics.
Agreed. I used to have a Fusion Energi and loved it. The EV range was down to about 12 miles after six years, but that matched my one way commute and I could charge at work so it was great. Now I drive a V8 Lexus sedan (which I love) but I do miss the Fusion
This take is simply correct. Btw I’m curious about your thoughts on the Outlander PHEV. Range is lower than you want but its setup is essentially a range extended EV (engine drives the wheels only at highway speeds and there’s a single speed “transmission”).
Unfortunately Mitsubishi doesn’t care enough in the US to get the word out it seems.
As a very satisfied owner of a prior-generation ICE Outlander, I am very interested in the latest Outlander PHEV. But I’m also an apartment dweller with no direct access to charging, so I’m not quite the target audience. Even so, I find the tech very appealing — with the car using the gas engine > generator > electric motor > drive wheels configuration when in “hybrid mode”.
Environmental considerations aside, I’ve wondered whether driving an Outlander PHEV in hybrid mode long-term is in any way detrimental to the powertrain or battery. The thing is, it makes more power than the ICE Outlander, so it would be a better replacement for my V6 Outlander, which is no longer made.
Interesting piece-the Volt and i3 have always made a lot of sense to me. One interesting problem I do see is that there is some evidence a lot of folks don’t actually take advantage of PHEVs, see this piece: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/phev-owners-not-plugging-in at which point they’re just hybrids. Unfortunately I can’t help but wonder if the “fussy” nature of them is too much-easy to forget as car enthusiasts in this community but I think we’ve all ridden with people who could barely be bothered to figure out how to operate their HVAC fully let alone a duel fuel (so to speak) vehicle.
I know personally me and the wife have been car shopping and would love to get a PHEV since we don’t have a place to charge at home or the budget for an EV-but there’s only one plug-in that fits our use case (AFAIK)-the RAV4 Prime. Which is absurdly overpriced (who is buying these??) for what you’re getting and real world is probably pushing 10-15 years or more of driving to pay for itself over the regular gas version and might never pay for itself vs the already efficient non-plugin hybrid version. And even the Hybrid version is pushing 10 years of use to pay for itself at the miles we drive vs the gas engined version.
Would love to see this tech get developed more-I think the point about gas as range extender is a good one as it addresses my main concern with buying an EV-weekend road trips.
The Prime is pretty competitive when you factor in the tax credit (which you should, since it can be applied if leasing – and you can always buy it out immediately if you want to buy).
I think this is the biggest problem. Far too many people would just use their PHEV as a gas car, at which point they become a heavier ICE vehicle.
Well at least it would still operate as a hybrid, regenerative braking would likely net a few bonus MPG’s around town.
Not necessarily, depends on how the system is set up. A lot of current PHEVs on the market just use a pancake motor in the bellhousing and transmit the power through the transmission (and it will even shift through the gears)…. When the battery is dead, you’re usually getting worse mpg than the non-hybrid/PHEV equivalent model. Like the Wrangler 4XE gets ~1mpg worse than the non-PHEV 2.0 equivalent thanks to a combination of that design and hauling around a heavy batteyr.
Iiiinteresting…I hadn’t realized that actually. I thought you basically getting a “normal” hybrid with more battery only capacity that could be charged from an external source. But agreed if that’s how most of these are setup that’s kind of a crappy tradeoff vs a regular hybrid unless as David points out they can get range up to be more like 50-80 miles.
Yeah it really just depends on how the system is set up. Toyota’s system will operate just like their normal hybrids (parallel and serial) whenever the battery is depleted, maybe a hair more inefficient due to the weight. The Wrangler 4XE (and a lot of PHEVs) just act like a mild-hybrid system when you’re not fully relying on electric propulsion, essentially a helper motor to get you moving and add power (think old Honda IMA system, or Parallel hybrid operation only): Normally this would increase efficiency, but you throw in the ~800lbs iirc for the rest of the hybrid system including the large battery needed to move an inefficient brick 20+ miles down the road, and you’re worse off than just foregoing everything.
The real problem is making sure people plug in. Germany was/is having a bit of an epidemic of people and companies buying up PHEVs for incentives, then never plugging them in. Personally, every Wrangler 4XE owner I know either bought it and didn’t know you could plug it in (they just bought it because it was on the lot or was cheaper after incentives) or know you can plug it in and willingly choose not to because “it only goes like 20 miles anyway” (direct quote from a coworker). In a lot of cases, if they’re not being plugged in, you’re not saving any fuel even compared to a non-hybrid variant. Like David says in the article, most PHEVs are designed gas-first, so there’s no penalty or downside to running the engine… whereas in something like the i3, there’s a noticeable difference in power, smoothness, etc… so you’d be noticeably worsening your experience by not plugging it in.
You write as if PHEVs aren’t hybrids.
As a hybrid, it has all the benefits of a hybrid. Just having regenerative braking and electric assist from a dead stop are absolutely great features that definitely do help the fuel economy and reliability of the otherwise horribly inefficient and relatively unreliable Wrangler.
Again, depends on the system. Some don’t. Fuel economy of a Wrangler 4XE in normal driving without a charge in the battery is ~1MPG worse than the regular 2.0 equivalent. Reliability isn’t any better either since it’s the same engine, same transmission (technically different PN# due to the electric motor in the bellhousing), but with the addition of a large battery in the rear… Stellantis also just issued a recall for 2021-2024 Wrangler 4XE models for battery fire risk so… not sure it helped reliability at all
Rated fuel economy by EPA methods in a PHEV is sort of a joke. A PHEV never has a fully dead battery, yet they are rated fully separately, electric only and gas only use. Real life is a lot different, and the 4xe gets about 20% better than the normal Wrangler. Hybrids work better in hybrid mode. Who knew?
I’m not going to agree with you about reliability either, because with an electric motor taking the worst of the load during initial acceleration, a hybrid is clearly the better system both in the short term and long term.
Sounds like Stellantis cutting corners and typical Stellantis reliability.
Thanks for the info about PHEV operating as hybrids I only knew about the Toyota system. I wonder which system is more common among all the other brands.
Yeah-I could also a lot of Jeep dealers pushing the 4xe becuase it sounds good on paper to the typical low info car buyer and then similar to your coworker once it actually comes time to utilize it “meh don’t think I’ll bother.” Which was sort of point, maybe it was poorly made-I can’t help but a thing a problem that PHEVs have is that they may be a tad too geeky for the average car owner-and the environmental die hards are gonna go full EV anyways.
In my opinion based on your description frankly the Jeep system is a joke (maybe it was only intended to be a compliance car) whereas the Toyota system is legit in that if you’re serious about being green you can run EV for almost all your commuting but still have the gas motor for road trips. But as I’m thinking this through I’ll admit if plugging in wasn’t really easy to do every day I can see how it would be tempting to just ignore that function-but even then I’d still be getting a stupendous for an SUV 40mpg.
I’m all for the i3 style cars-I’ve even shopped used ones a little as a possible commuter. My memory which someone else brought up on here, is that unfortunately the way EPA rules are structured they couldn’t offer a bigger gas tank that was offered in europe giving it a an extended ICE augmented range of like 130 miles instead of the 80 it had here. Would love to see this rule changed and OEs experiment more with this idea.
Thankfully on the i3, you can recode the ECU to essentially Euro firmware to allow you to use the full gas tank capacity, and to manually enable the range extender whenever you choose. I believe the i3 was set up like that to comply with CARB to be classified as an EREV instead of a PHEV where: Your gas-only range cannot meet or exceed your EV range, and the end-user cannot have control as to when that range extender is being used (by default in the i3 it automatically kicks on ~4%, which doesn’t leave you enough of a buffer to maintain 70+mph or go up long steep grades)
Very interesting! If I move somewhere I can charge one that makes me even more tempted to find a late model used.
I know when they came out eco-conspicuous consumption seemed to be the only way to sell green cars but it really feels sort sad to me that BMW didnt’ figure out a way to more success with their PHEV stuff from the early twenty teens. Hard not to wonder if they’d gone more sleek, cool, modern without trying quite so hard to be “futuristic” they could’ve pretty easily pre-empted Tesla. The i3 is a great little car to drive with one of the more thoughtfully “how can we throw out the playbook and rethink this” interiors I’ve seen. In many ways I’d argue it’s the closest thing they’ve made to a modern 2002-a small but practical car that’s also fun to drive-imagine if they’d put all that in a sexier body.
Yep. Got my first PHEV in 2017 (2014 Volt). Currently have a BMW 330e with a tiny 20 mile battery. I use about 8 gallons every 5 weeks on average. I drove it about 450 miles this weekend to/from the other side of Michigan and stayed at a hotel with no chargers. I got 38 mpg, didn’t have to worry about charging, and only stopped at the gas station one time, even with just a 10 gallon tank. Now the remaining half a tank of gas will probably only last me about 2-3 weeks.
Bring on the PHEV Truck for towing my camper.
I’m sure GM’s engineering dept has a lot of paper EREV drivetrains designed using the Voltec philosophy. I have a feeling they can pivot quickly and still get the BEV’s moving.
As you’ve mentioned, it’s hard to out engineer the general.
It’s borderline impossible.
100% agree, David. Any other answer is based upon emotion instead of logic.
Oh, and I’ll take my PHEV ICE with a timing chain, thank you. 😉
The only true mistake was when we decided to takeout a perfectly functional system of glorious street cars and trains.
The investment in EVs wasn’t a mistake, unless you’re a shareholder. One day, oil will become to rare to pump into a Camry. Whoever is going to fair better in this rapidly approaching future will be whoever has the infrastructure to support a society sans oil. Even though energy production may not be clean, there’s significant benefit to having multiple sources. PHEVs are overall fine, but still leaves you in a similar predicament as good olde ICE. They’re great currently, and thus palatable. However, it seems like times change fast now a days. Getting a functional system of sans oil transport, while we don’t have to, would be beneficial long term.
We will see where battery technology goes. It may never be possible to beat the impressive energy density of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. It may be practical to pump alcohol and biodiesel into Camrys long after oil is gone(which is an event much too distant for shortsighted CEOs to even consider).
I still want to smack Toyota’s decision makers around for not adding an optional plug to their hybrids. They don’t even have to make their batteries much larger. It could have been a high-cost option between their regular hybrids and their Prime line (whose battery was probably carefully sized to meet California incentives), and they would’ve made a fortune.
Electric driving is so much better than gas or hybrid driving that I would be more than happy to plug in for only 5 miles of range daily. That’s enough range to get to the grocery store and back. Occasional short trips are the worst way to use gas engines anyway.
That said, I’m also sort of glad they didn’t, because my Honda Clarity PHEV is almost exactly what I had in mind when I decided I wanted a PHEV. It’s not quite Avalon sized, but close enough. It isn’t as smooth on long drives as an Avalon, but plenty smooth enough, and it handles so much better than the Avalon.
Running a simple ICE that’s optimized for a single RPM for maximum efficiency to generate electricity for a purely electrified drivetrain eliminates many of the downsides of pretty much all other electrification approaches today – namely, weight (pure EV), and complexity (parallel PHEV). And I say this as a die-hard EV fan (we own 3 – one of which is an i3 REx, too).
I applaud Stellantis for going this route on the upcoming electrified Ram, despite the inevitable teething issues it will have.
This is also the idea behind Mazda bringing back the Dorito (rotary) engines. They’re compact and run best at stable RPMs. If they’ve fixed the oil consumption and gasket issues it could be quite appealing.
I just want to bridgeport my range extender
There’s no “fixing the oil consumption issues” on a rotary, and that’s a very common myth.
Rotaries are designed to burn oil, and they could not function if they didn’t burn oil. They are exactly like two strokes in this regard.
I saw a patent diagram from I think Toyota that was a piston where the skirt was an electric coil. There was no crank or connecting rod. Just a piston+coil assembly reciprocating in a cylinder with a combustion chamber, and presumably another coil in the cylinder wall.
There’s your optimized ICE for single RPM power generation! Shame I’ve never heard more about it.
A free piston combustion engine is a very old idea, it has been tried many times but never caught on. Not entirely sure why.
Except for how the Ram Ramcharger is totally awful, because it’s NOT a simple ICE that’s optimized for a single RPM for maximum efficiency. It’s a high revving quad cam VVT minivan engine designed from the ground up to have a wide powerband, and it has a not so great history of reliability and durability. It’s also GROSSLY oversized for the application, further hurting efficiency.
You mean the Ramcharger could have been good if it didn’t have the worst possible engine for a range extended electric vehicle. Actually anything would have been better.
EVs do one thing well. They help people start thinking about efficiency. If we are going to truly cut global carbon emissions, everyone at all levels of society needs to evaluate their choices and select the one that maximizes the joy, while minimizing the cost. Bigger is not always better.
I wish that were true, but evaluating your personal choices just won’t do that much to change your personal carbon footprint. People aren’t willing to give up the most polluting parts of their lives, and they aren’t even aware that they should.
I totally agree with this take. We recently bought a new Seat Leon and had the option of getting the PHEV version with a 13 kWh battery and 44 miles of range (city). That range would suit 95% of our journeys throughout the year. However, we don’t have a place to plug it in, so we opted not to spend the extra £5k ($6.3k) and instead went for the mild hybrid version. Still, I’m lucky to live in a place with so many PHEV options available.
I wish Seat was available in America. I’d love a Leon or a Leon Sportstourer. I’d prefer the Cupra version but I wouldn’t mind the Seat. Just wish it was available here.
The market already spoke about this: PHEVs are the worst of both worlds for user experience. You have to plug them in, refuel them, and pay for/maintain two powertrains. PHEVs are cheaper, but you either spend the difference in gasoline or in more frequent recharging. Plus again, two systems to maintain.
EV demand dropped when gas got cheaper and financing got expensive. I wouldn’t bet on those trends continuing long term.
Modern PHEVs aren’t the PHEVs I’m advocating for. It’s range-extended EVs that I want (ones that lead owners to very rarely use their gas engines), and those absolutely rule.
I’m with you on the whole concept, but wouldn’t a range extended EV still have the markedly added complexity of needing to have two separate powetrains? The maintenance might not be so bad as the gas engine sin’t the tractive powetrain, but the engineering and manufacturing concerns would still be there.
Aaron, you’re right. I just think the added complexity is worth it, especially for those who don’t use the gas generator often.
It’s either carry around 60kWh of battery or a cheaper, lighter, smaller gas generator, and in my mind, the latter is more appealing. (That doesn’t mean I’m right!).
Cool! I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I do wish there was an option for an ICE engine designed from the ground up as a generator or APU. That would certainly have to increase the efficiency and improve packaging/manufacturing.
Current American legislation really heavily discourages this type of arrangement even though it is from and engineering and application perspective clearly the best ‘compromised’ system (compromised in this case of course meaning much easier to make work in more situations in the current state of infrastructure)
I’ve heard this argument before, but it always anecdotal. Is there any data to support the idea that the electric components in PHEVs are requiring repairs? Do they truly cost more to maintain? Or is this just an assumption that one day in the far future the parts might, maybe, need attention?
They’ll require more maintenance, sure, but trust me: If you’re just using your gas engine as a steady-RPM generator once every three months, maintenance won’t be a huge worry.
Again, it totally depends on how you drive your machine. For plenty of people, a Range Extended-EV is the Golden Ticket.
Is sensor technology good enough to tell you when your gas is punked from not being used (e.g. you’re only ever using the battery charged off the wall power and never the Rex)?
And how easy is it to dump out said gas responsibly, if necessary?
That’s not something most people would think about, or even know it’s a thing.
My Volt and BMW both have pressurized fuel systems to keep the water out. The Volt keeps track of the average fuel age and forces you to use it before it goes bad. It also runs the engine up to temp if you haven’t run it in a few week.
Nice!
I’ve owned a Volt & a RAV4 Prime, both have been among the most reliable & inexpensive vehicles to maintain that I’ve owned.
The market never spoke on this subject because every PHEV ever made, excluding the Cadillac ELR and perhaps the Chevy Volt, has been severely supply limited, or supply limited and priced well beyond the average consumer. And none of them were advertised in any significant way, so most people don’t even know they were available.
We all know why the ELR failed, and the Volt is a tiny sedan introduced at a time when almost all sedans were both growing much larger, and being forced out of the market.
I tried for years to get a RAV4 Prime. They were barely available outside CARB states, if at all, and even then, extremely difficult to find one to see in person before committing to purchase. Test drive? Ha! Absurd dealer markups? Absolutely! The same situation existed for the Prius Prime.
The PHEVs already on the market are still rare to find and go quickly.
THIS!!!! The number of people (none of whom will ever read a car enthusiast site) who have no idea whatsoever about the existence of PHEV’s is kind of amazing. If you don’t believe me as a random coworker about the difference between a hybrid and a PHEV, I’m guaranteeing the majority won’t have a clue.
So it’s some conspiracy to deprive shareholders of profits from higher sales?
Toyota hybrid nonsense aside, this only makes sense to me if other PHEVs can’t actually be sold for a profit. Maybe people don’t want to pay the upfront costs for nearly 2 drivetrains?
Auto makers never made enough PHEVs because batteries were expensive and not very available for many years. Even so, almost every model offered sold out faster than they could be replenished. Demand was there, even at inflated prices.
The market has not “spoken” on PHEVs because they’ve never come anywhere close to meeting demand.
Ford originally planned to offer a PHEV Maverick for the second year of production, but that’s been put on hold indefinitely. They still haven’t met the unexpected demand for the regular hybrid Maverick. I guess they didn’t expect their customers to realize how much better it is for the money than the gas only version.
PHEV are the mid-term future. They’ll be the long term future, too, if synthetic fuels grow faster than battery technology.
This was part of the reason I did get rid of my Volt, 1 was it was Covid and I was mostly wfh so why have the 2nd car payment, but the other part was I replaced the 12v battery on my Volt over a month before my registration needed to be renewed and that was a whole thing.
To renew registration in NC you need an inspection, to pass inspection they plug into the OBDII port, since I rarely ran my engine all the emissions sensors hadn’t been triggered since replacing the battery, inspection didn’t pass, and as this was Covid everything was running late, I had literally a week before my tags expired.
So I did what any sane person would do, went out on the highway that loops around Charlotte and did a lap on pure gas mode, drove right back into the same shop and passed because all the sensors had triggered from that.
So that was rattling around in my head and I vowed my next car would be pure EV just to not have to even care about any emissions sensors any more, and that’s just what I did, got a Bolt EV. Yes it has a bigger battery but it’s one of the most efficient EVs out there, and weight isn’t terrible so the whole tire pollution stuff isn’t as bad.
I do agree with the premise of the article, for nearly all the reasons laid out, and the Volt was a great design, nearly series hybrid like the i3, decent power, great mpg when you ran out of battery, fairly ok styling, GM was way ahead of the game and once again just dropped the ball. But also as a previous article on the ELR showed, they didn’t expand the tech as they should have, and also other makes muddied the waters with their parallel plug-ins that have underpowered electric motors and kick on the gas when you floor it with enough lag to make BMW 2002 drivers chuckle.
I do think it’s time for a lot of states to take a look at their emissions testing laws. Here in Washington we recently got rid of annual emissions testing, and we’re obviously a pretty enviro friendly state. I’m not anti emissions controls but the logic was so few old cars actually have badly failing emissions systems why are we burdening people with this for a relatively small handful of crap old cars that are out of spec, and a handful of enthusiasts dodging emissions is probably not a significant contributor. And certainly in the case of cars like your Volt that clearly should have gotten an exception.
Yeah emissions laws definitely need to be reviewed, in NC if a car is over 20 years old(or not in one of the 19 counties tested), it doesn’t even get emissions checked(obd II port plug in), just safety inspection. So if you are driving an old gasser with no cat, whatever man, it’s all good. So how many cars in the last 20 years(2003+) would really have bad emissions? If a car is over 30 years old in NC, doesn’t even need a safety inspection. And this is NC, no salt on the roads, cars last forever here.
Having owned two, I don’t really agree.
Is it more complex? yes.
Is it more to maintain? Not really. There’s no really maintenance on a battery and electric drivetrain, except maybe a coolant change for the battery loop. On my Volt, I often went 2 years between oil changes. The brakes last forever because of regen. The spark plugs last longer. You aren’t really running the engine much, so the service intervals are much, much longer on everything.
Plugging in is so easy. I just plug it in when I get home, and unplug when I leave. It’s so much more convenient than going to the gas station. If you can’t charge at home, I agree, a PHEV probably isn’t for you.
I pay about $1.35 on off-peak rates to go the distance that a gallon of gas will get me.
I agree, if you treat REX BEVs as separate from PHEVS.
David, I need you to take this thesis to its inevitable and totally reasonable conclusion…PHEV hydrogen cars are the perfect balance of conserving rare earth metals, range on demand, and clean emissions (theoretically). Ipso facto the real solution is that we all drive the N Vision 74 and Hyundai makes it reasonably priced, with it qualifying for the federal tax credit to boot.
Where do you get the hydrogen?
That’s why I had “theoretically” in parentheses. It supplies quick refueling on demand while giving an alternative to ICE engines as range extenders. However, a majority of the current hydrogen production in the U.S. is made from petroleum. In this idealized scenario, the federal plan for nationwide hydrogen hubs actually comes to fruition and it’s generated via wind, solar, or nuclear energy.
Yeah, except for how hydrogen powered anything is a super dumb idea for like 32 different reasons.
Why do people still think otherwise?
Hey, no need to call fellow Autopians’ hopes/ideas dumb. You can go about doing a polite rebuttal by expressing your own misgivings. I laid out my idealized version of the tech above and you are more than welcome to respond to that as well.
I completely dismiss anything hydrogen powered because 30 years of development in, nobody has come even close to figuring out how to put it in a gas tank, and nobody has come particularly close to figuring out how to make it in a way that isn’t grossly inefficient.
If what you’re after is a zero emissions or net zero emissions fuel, there are several existing technologies that have already solved these problems and work very well.
I’m curious, for further reading, what would those technologies be? I know lots of bus systems run off natural gas and years ago, India tried to make a car that would run off compressed air.
Not many zero tailpipe emissions fuels, but there are plenty of net zero fuels. Ethanol, other alcohol fuels, and biodiesels being the main ones. But there are lots of net zero renewable fuels like woodgas.
And of course the synthetic gasoline that Porsche and others have been making headlines with, that is very unlikely to ever become economical to use for customary transport.
I think another option would be PHEV Ethanol fuel cell cars. Nissan tested an Ethanol fueled FCV in Brazil with a reformer that turns the ethanol into hydrogen to go into the fuel cell. Easy refueling, fairly efficient fuel cell operation, and if it’s PHEV the Ethanol isn’t needed as often so the higher pricing/cost of creation shouldn’t be as big a concern.
David’s correct. Until infrastructure changes significantly, plug-in hybrids are the reasonable move.
We had a first-gen Volt and currently have a Prius Prime and a Ford Escape Plug in. We charged/charge all of them at home and most of our mileage is as EVs. Rivians and other EVs certainly look cooler but these make a lot more sense to us.
I generally agree with this – and targeting ~40-50miles for most PHEV’s is probably right. I still think there’s room for something as low as 5kwh that gets at least 10-15miles and is somewhat easily swappable makes a lot of sense.
Like, I sold my ‘15 Volt a few years back as I had about 120k miles on it and saw some potential issues on the horizon (plus the used market was peaking). If there had been an option to swap out the battery every 5-10 years or something for a fair price, I might have held on to that vehicle forever.
And yes, 10-15 miles (at minimum) isn’t necessarily going to cover all of your driving. But this is the low-end version…and if you charge every night, or have the ability to charge at work, that adds up. Low weight, lower cost, and easy to swap out the battery. Have a massive commute – well then maybe not the best option for you…buy something with a 50mile range, or a regular hybrid, or an EV. But this sort of option in a maverick sized truck…I just think it would work.
I think the ability to choose a battery size for your range-extended EV (and the ability to upgrade) would be AMAZING.
This would also be incredible on EVs, especially if you could just rent a standardized battery for longer trips. Around town? 100-150 mile battery (or whatever works for you): low weight, plenty of range for all your day-to-day. Heading out of town? Swing by a place and get the range you need. Get home, drop off the battery, and you are back to low weight.
Comment jinx. I guess I owe you a Coke? Or maybe a quart of 0-20w full synthetic?
A good idea warrants repetition! 😀
If Nio and Geely’s battery-swapping idea takes off, this would be fantastic. Give me a 20 kWh daily commuter, but let me swap that battery out at a charging station for a 70 kWh pack when I’m about to head out on a road trip.
Do you know how big a 70KwH battery pack is? On a typical EV, it takes up the whole floor within the wheelbase, several inches thick. Square that into a cube, and there goes your cargo area, plus your weight distribution. If you have to reserve space for such a big battery, it makes sense to install the big battery and be done with it.
Mostly cost would be my thought. I’d rather it be a floor based battery that’s swappable, and saves purchasers the cost of buying something so big. It also makes it easier to recycle and for people to get new batteries when the old one wears out, a major hesitation among potential customers.
Like a hotswap hard drive in a server. That seems like it should be doable? Pizza box battery blades.
As much heat as Toyota is getting for their lack of a competitive EV, I think they have the right strategy for the next five years.
PHEVs are great if people plug them in. Out of the three PHEV owners I’ve spoken to, only one plugged theirs in.
The problem with PHEVs is no one ever plugs them in.
Mine’s plugged in right now
Tell that to a majority of PHEV owners https://insideevs.com/news/630341/plug-in-hybrids-arent-being-plugged-in-study/
That study doesn’t necessarily suggest most PHEV owners aren’t plugging in. It definitely suggests they are doing more gas driving than the EPA anticipates, but that can come from more frequent drives beyond EV range, as well as the tendency to only use fuelly to calculate gas mileage when it makes sense to do so. For example, I have used fuelly on longer trips, but using it day-to-day creates ridiculous numbers that don’t tell me much of use (at least, last I checked–it’s possible they’ve added actual tracking of electricity usage).
Their cleanliness is totally based on how they’re used — agreed on that point.
I’d argue, though, that part of the issue is that today’s PHEVs are gas cars first, EVs second. Ask any BMW i3 driver how often they plug in, and the answer will be: All the time.
What’s more, that issue can be solved with software (you could “force” a driver to plug in), but that doesn’t really solve the issue, which is infrastructure.
This is one of those things where supporters suggest they get plugged in more than they do and detractors say they get plugged in less than they do. Some of the issue is that a lot of PHEVs have such short range that people don’t see enough point in using the range. I’ve personally heard people say that it doesn’t matter if they plug in because they go two to three times the range every day. An electric range that covers daily use is important. Not only does it further reduce gas use by people who normally plug in, but it changes the way others see plugging in.
Unfortunately, I don’t know for sure what range it would take or how much it would help, but it would make a difference on two fronts.
That depends. I can’t find the report now but it basically said a fleet of PHEVs bought for official use was worthless. That’s because the officials just used the government’s gas card and never bothered to plug it in. When you yourself are paying for fuel, it behooves you to charge your PHEV. The kWh/mile cost is anywhere from 50%-75% less than what you pay for gasoline/mile, depending on your state.
If they can block public EV chargers at my favorite ski mountain, then they will absolutely plug them in. Ask me how I know!
I wonder if making any federal rebate contingent on driving a certain percentage of miles or miles per day on electric could change this?
I’m the perfect use case for a PHEV (own a house with a garage, 8-mile commute with the occasional road trip) and would absolutely be interested if there were more compelling options out there. Of the available PHEVs out there, the only one in my price range that I would be at all interested in is the new Prius.If Mazda released a Mazda 3 hatchback PHEV, or Honda a Civic version, I’d be very seriously considering it.
I was shopping PHEVs and yeah, they are all high-trim models and command a $10K premium over the same car in gas/hybrid. Boooo.
Excuse me, but missing from your list of “coolest PHEVs” is the awesome Volvo V60 Recharge with up to 41 miles of electric range and all the gold Polestar Engineered go fast bits.
(I may be slightly biased by the one sitting in my driveway, but it’s so good)
I actually quite like many of the PHEVs on the list, but they could be better. Namely they could have more range and use the gas engine as just a small generator (thereby eliminating the transmission/most of the driveline).
Oh I 100% agree with you. Just sad to not see my sport wagon PHEV included on the cool list. 😛
That’s a legitimately cool machine!
And the S60 Recharge, which is $13K less, made in North Carolina and still is 41electric/455hp. (also biased owner)
Honestly, a top-tier plug-in and I wish it would have worked vs the much heavier (and non-wagon) Polestar 2 we ended up with. Just no place to charge at home, which removed nearly all the convenience aspect and environmental benefits, especially since I’m often driving much farther than 41 miles in a day for work.
The gold go fast bits are simple pleasures for my simple mind lol.
Plus with PHEV’s there is no need for a million public chargers as you could reasonably charge on a 120v outlet. We don’t need massive amounts of superchargers, which require a lot of resources and a big reason why copper prices are so high. Plus superchargers I think trash the cost benefit of EVs, other day I checked and my closest supercharger was 5x the cost to charge at home. Though I doubt most EV owners have any clue what its costing them per mile based on charging cost.
A PHEV with a sufficiently large battery will still want an L2 charger at home.
It depends. I get home at 8PM, park the car until 8AM the next day. 12 kWh at 4 mi/kWh means I end up with almost 50 miles of juice to get to work the next morning.
True but the large vehicles the US prefers would be better served with a larger battery in the PHEV. Even in my Tesla I can plug into a 120v and generally cover my daily driving needs.
Agreed. Pickups would probably want a Level 2 just to make it easy.
Part of the value is that you don’t have to charge EVERY time. You’ll want to – you’ll walk a bit further to find a charger when you park downtown / at a shopping center / etc…but if you can’t, no biggie.
If you’re buying a PHEV, you’re going to use some gas…you just need to get comfortable with that, and charge as much as you can.
I drive a BEV and I don’t charge every time I stop or even everyday really. I charge at work and when it’s convenient if I am out somewhere, particularly if it’s free.
15kw battery from 0-100% in 8hrs on Level 1
Yes but in the US people prefer larger vehicles and I believe we could push up battery size some. I still think a L2 is a better option but a 120v is still usable. Even in my Tesla I can charge on a 120v and cover most of my daily needs.
I think most EV owners are doing most of their charging at home. I know quite a few who have actually put together spreadsheets to keep track of their savings. If you only take a road trip a couple times each year, you likely save money vs an equivalent ICE vehicle, and maybe over a hybrid (my own math suggests I would not, however, save money over my PHEV, and I live where electricity is cheap due to hydro power).
The problem with EVs is that you have to either give them significant range, which means significant batter (or much better aero), or you have to make sure there are sufficient charging stations. Otherwise, people aren’t going to want an EV as their primary or only car.
Personally, I like the concept of range-extended EVs, where the power is delivered by electric motor and the engine is just a generator. It seems like that should reduce the powertrain components vs the ICE power/EV power combos we currently have, while still allowing a reasonably small battery. Maybe I’m missing something, since there have not been many of those.
With PHEVs you could reasonably charge on 120v?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I see 0 advantage over a regular electric car in this regard. If charging for 5 hours on 120v gets you 36 miles on your PHEV, it would also get you 36 miles on your BEV. Charging a hybrid on 120v seems just as reasonable/unreasonable as charging anything else on 120v.
Because a PHEV with 36 miles of battery range is still a practical vehicle that will take you as far as you need to go. An EV with 36 miles of charge is not very useful.
So it’s not that charging on 120v is any better, it’s that you can better compensate for how bad charging on 120v is.
This is, as the youths say, a W take.
Based DT.