There is no one government rule that dictates how efficient a car should be. In reality, it’s a few different rules and calculations. The one we were all focused on recently was about tailpipe emissions, but then there’s a less talked-about data point called the Petroleum Equivalency Factor, or PEF, which was also changed. And that change leads to some potential weirdness.
Hey, it’s Monday, we’re all excited about looking at the eclipse. And Eclipses. But there are other things to cast our (protected) eyes on this morning.
Ferrari is taking a closer look at battery technology, even if it’s, you know, not going to make any battery cells itself. Toyota is taking a closer at its scandal-plagued Daihatsu unit.
And we’re looking at used car values, because prices are coming down a bit.
Why PEF Could Mean More PHEVs
There’s a helpful and very detailed article from The Detroit News that gets into the obscure, but very important PEF issue. The whole idea of PEF actually goes back to Jimmy Carter, Lee Iacocca and a plan by the government to figure out how to calculate the mileage equivalency of EVs and hybrids, even if no one was yet making EVs or hybrids.
In an effort to make EVs an attractive proposition, the rules made an EV worth way, way more than a gas-powered car, even if the total emissions surrounding that vehicle and the energy it used didn’t quite match up. Non-EV automakers liked this PEF math because it allowed them to offset their gas-powered cars more easily. Companies like Tesla and environmental groups like the Sierra Club were averse, saying it slowed the transition to EVs by giving automakers too much credit.
Here’s how The Detroit News describes the impact of phasing in a more accurate calculation:
Imagining a world where Ford Motor Co. only sold its best-selling F-150 trucks, which come in electric and gas-powered varieties, the automaker could meet Biden’s proposed 2032 fuel economy targets by reaching 25% EV sales under the old PEF math.
With the new calculation, 98% of sales would have to be for the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning models.
That’s a big difference. The auto industry’s main hype man, John Bozzella, doesn’t love this, as pointed out in this blog post:
Today the PEF formula equates a pure battery electric vehicle (BEV) with a gas-powered car that gets about 300 miles per gallon. That’s really high fuel economy. An EV doesn’t use gas, so that makes sense. (In truth, a BEV’s fuel economy is actually… infinity).
But the Energy Department proposed changing the PEF formula, slashing the equivalent fuel economy rating of a BEV by 72 percent in 2027.
That would have – for the purposes of a CAFE rating – said a battery electric vehicle is not that much more efficient than the most efficient internal combustion engine vehicle out there.
Really? The EV doesn’t use gas.
And, just for balance, here’s some of Tesla’s comments on the then-proposed rule changes:
Delaying the PEF would reward lengthy and inefficient vehicle design cycles. As some have called for, the design cycle in vehicle development should be ramped, modernized, and shortened. This is particularly true as the need to electrify rapidly the light duty vehicle sector is fundamental to addressing the climate crisis.
Ultimately, the Biden Administration agreed to delay the changeover until 2030 and downgraded EV fuel economy by about 25% less than originally proposed, which seems to be a decent compromise.
So where do hybrids fit into all this? Here is the full PEF rule change as printed in the Federal Register, and there’s a fun little bit of information tucked in there:
Some stakeholders commented on the application of the PEF to Plug-in Hybrid EVs (PHEVs) and argued that PHEVs were disproportionately advantaged by the new PEF. Tesla, Doc. No. 18, pg. 4; ZETA, Doc. No. 21, pg. 2. Specifically, they asserted that revised PEF value would decrease the fuel economy of PHEVs to approximately 60 to 75 percent of their current levels. However, according to these commenters, the revised PEF value would decrease the fuel economy of battery EVs (BEVs) to approximately 30 percent of their current levels. These commenters stated that DOE should address this “skewed incentive” because the revised PEF value would favor the inefficient PHEVs over more efficient BEVs. Tesla, Doc. No. 18, pg. 4; ZETA, Doc. No. 21, pg. 2.
So, Tesla, ZETA, and some other folks complained that the math favors PHEVs because PHEVs only have part of their calculation changed since the other part of the car is gas-powered. Is that true? The Department of Energy says kinda yes and kinda no:
The PEF value is used to convert the measured electrical energy consumption of an EV into a gasoline-equivalent fuel economy of electricity. For PHEVs, which consume both electricity and petroleum, PEF only applies to the measured electrical energy consumption and does not apply to the energy consumption of petroleum. Accordingly, the impact of a decreased PEF value on the fuel economy of a PHEV is less than the impact of a decreased PEF value on the fuel economy of a BEV, which consumes only electricity. In addition, the fuel economy of a BEV is still significantly greater than that of a PHEV. Accordingly, under the revised PEV value, auto manufacturers are still incentivized to invest in the more efficient BEVs.
I kinda see the point Tesla and others are making here, because if an automaker gets the right blend of fuel-efficient engine (in depletion mode) with a medium-sized battery pack that might be a faster/cheaper/easier way of offsetting the value of a specific vehicle. For example, here’s a vehicle that has enough battery to get about 60% of its range covered by EV mode and 40% by a gas-powered motor that gets 50 MPG:
Because this is an equivalency based on the power used (in watt hours per mile), the gasoline-powered portion of the equation hasn’t changed. It’s just EVs are worth less. If you’re trying to hit a number it might be cheaper and easier to supplant a portion of that with an electric motor for certain vehicles, rather than try to swap everything over to electric motors. As Tesla pointed out, a PHEV may be worth about 2/3rds of what it is worth now, whereas a BEV will only be worth about a third.
Clearly, we need to make PHEVs better.
Ferrari: ‘We Cannot Afford To Take Cells As Black Boxes’
I appreciate the forthrightness of the average exec for an Italian car company.
Ferrari is going to start making EVs because pretty much everyone has to make EVs. Ferrari also isn’t going to make any of its own batteries, but it at least is going to understand them, just to be safe.
Per Reuters, here’s CEO Benedetto Vigna:
“We want to open up cells and understand what is in there,” Vigna said at the opening of a research centre on battery cells in partnership with Italy’s Bologna University and chipmaker NXP Semiconductors.
“Production will always be done through external manufacturers, based on the know-how we hope to acquire through this research centre,” Vigna said during a presentation.“We cannot afford to take cells as black boxes,” he added.
Toyota Clamping Down On Daihatsu After Daihatsu Charade
The Daihatsu Charade was a black mark for Toyota as the company had to admit that one of its subsidiaries falsified safety test results for decades in an effort to quickly get cars out the door.
While Daihatsu will maintain its position as the company making and developing certain small cars for Toyota (which it is very good at), it’s going to be Toyota that does the certifying. From Reuters again:
Daihatsu will move its reporting line for development and certification to another Toyota segment that focuses on compact cars.
The change will be made based on model changeover schedules.Toyota would also become responsible for resource management and its optimisation related to Daihatsu’s business and product planning, Daihatsu President Masahiro Inoue said.
Used EVs Are Still Declining In Price
We’ve talked about how there’s a glut of cheap-but-nice used EVs that have suffered rapid depreciation and that seems to be borne out in the data, according to Cox Automotive/Manheim:
With the increase in interest in electric vehicle (EV) values versus the non-EV market, we are working on sharing metrics for those segments. Seasonally adjusted EV values for March 2024 were down 19.1%, while non-EVs were down 12.8% year over year. Regarding values against last month, seasonally adjusted EV values decreased substantially, falling by 5.3% from February 2024, while non-EVs were flat over the same period.
Right now BEVs are just lumped into one category, so it’ll be interesting to see if Cox/Manheim can come up with more specifics (are EV cars doing worse than EV SUVs?)
What I’m Listening To While Doing TMD
I played this for the kiddo today and even I was not prepared for how hard Bonnie Tyler goes on this song. Turn it up today!
The Big Question
What’s the right range for a PHEV? How big should the battery be?
We just bought a new Rav4 PHEV a couple of weeks ago. The battery-only range has been as high as 45 miles and as low as 36 miles at the first charge (got better over time). For our running around town, it takes us 3 days before we -need- to charge up, though we charge it after eash use. It has plenty of battery for our use.
Another thought – how much range depends a ton on circumstances.
We have two vehicles: a PHEV Chrysler Pacifica and an e-golf. The pacifica is our family hauler/long range vehicle with ~50km of range and the golf is an EV with ~180km of range that we just use for around town.
We live near-ish the center of a city, and 90% of our round trips are less than 30km. However, we have a bunch of kids and end up driving a bunch of times a day.
Excluding winter, which I complained about below, the 50km of range is fine because we have an L2 charger at home and can fill up quickly between trips. This means we can go all summer on electric (excluding trips).
With the EV, 180km is great for around town – we charge maybe twice a week – and terrible if you have to go further.
So, how much range?
Can you charge quickly at home? Yes -> Maybe less than you think
Can’t charge quickly at home? More range or maybe a hybrid or full EV
Have a second car? Make it an EV and you’ll drive the other car less around town so you might be ok with a standard hybrid or non-hybrid car.
Long story short, how much range doesn’t mean anything without context, and that context needs to consider individual needs, living circumstances, and your portfolio of vehicles. Otherwise the answer is 42.
The answer to “how much range…?” always ends up being “more!” – consumers are not known for being reasonable. That said, my morning run ended up as 30.6mi electric, 0.6mi gas, so clearly I ‘needed’ more range…
I think the Volt had it about right – less than 30 is too little, more than 50 is probably a waste of battery capacity. In my mind the ideal PHEV is one that totally eliminates my round-trip commute fuel consumption as long as I charge every night. The ICE powered range is there to cover off-nominal usage – I had to run a few errands at lunch, its time to take that 1000 mile road trip to visit relatives over the summer, I had to tow the utility trailer to help my buddy move houses, stuff like that.
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV seems to have it about right. I’m also keeping my eyes on Volvo S60 Recharge PHEV sedans on the used market…
As much as I love the work with Meat Loaf, I think “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is peak Jim Steinman.
How can both options for the calculation be so bad?
As for new rules instead of all electric it should be all electrified so including PHEV and Hybrid, maybe even requiring them all be PHEV? As for battery size, if they can pull about 50-75 miles that would be great. They are already creeping up in range in many vehicles but covering most people’s normal daily use would be a great goal.
Well….I actually did a lot of work on this topic at an old employer way back in the early 2010s. You have two extremes: Prius prime which represents the optimization of cost (at the time) and Volt which maximized the range. Both of these are the right answer depending on you commute/usage. Both represent an opportunity to drive electrically even if the overall trip cannot be completed electrically. In many ways a pure EV is also a hybrid, but it requires you to own a separate vehicle and choose ahead of time which trips you will drive electrically. Yeah PHEVs make a lot of sense for EVERYONE and maximize EV driving while minimizing battery size. The downside of course is complexity and certification which automakers do not like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My wife wants an EV as a second car. But honestly, our big comfy road trip car is a rav4 hybrid. If we’re looking for an efficient city runabout, and given she’s vetoed a Nissan Leaf or a Chevy Bolt, why not get a Prius Prime or a used Volt? It would cost less, wouldn’t need a big battery, and would use so little gas that I’d have to add stabilizer to the tank. 40 miles would be more than enough range.
PHEV and plug it into the wall, or consider Kia’s Niro or Hyundai’s Soul if she wants more space and personality for the EV runabout.
The soul still has CHAdeMO so I would avoid anything with that. That one time you need fast charging, and you would be out of luck pretty soon.
Yeah why not? Then you can use it for a road trip too in a pinch.
Do you want to lease or buy? As the article says the secondary market is great and I have seen some amazing deals on the Mach E. It can also be used for longer trips if needed thanks its now access to the supercharger network.
I have nothing to add to the discussion other than the fact that I totally crushed on Bonnie Tyler back in the day.
Same. But then I defected to Laura Branigan
I never knew Bonnie Tyler was Welsh. She sang in American-accented English.
Damnit why did nobody buy the Volt?? I picked up a 2017 about a month ago, and it might be one of the most logical commuter cars ever engineered. It just does its job so well. I get to be one of those smarmy people who talks about never putting gas in their car, because its true! My commute is totally covered in EV mode (40 miles round trip) and at my electric rate (7.7 cents a kwh) it only costs me about $1.25 to charge. Plus when I DO need the gas motor, it gets 40 mpg!
I’ve just been so impressed with the thought that went into the car, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised GM canned it.
7.7 cents per KWH!!!!! WTF California. My electric just got bumped from .47 to .51 per KWH. I was lamenting how much it costs to charge my EV until I saw that gas is $5.59. Can’t wait to retire and get out of this money pit.
Western Washington. Thanks Grand Coulee! Hmm, you and just about every other Californian. Sure has made it difficult to afford a home…
Don’t blame me. I work with my hands and can’t afford my current house. I sure as hell am not the demographic raising prices. Anyways, I am not moving to where it’s colder, you can have the cold and rain.
If it makes you feel better, that is almost certainly an off-peak rate.
It recently came to my attention that the off-peak rate in Colorado is $0.05/kWhr. I used to throw that number around as the target that carbon taxes should subsidize electricity down to to stimulate electrification, but I didn’t actually think anyone would do it. Bravo Colorado.
Now they just need to work on that peak rate.
Nope, we don’t have variable rates in my area for residential service. 7.7 cents a kwh 24 hours a day. We DO have quite high monthly baseline charges however.
Interesting, what region?
Here in SE Michigan, we’re at a brutal $0.15/0.21 off-/on-peak. Dividing the $ number at the bottom of my last bill by the number of kWhrs delivered yields just over $0.21/kWhr on average. It might be cheaper to run a natural gas generator.
Holy crap I just did the math and it IS cheaper to run a NG generator! At 9.72/Mcf and 25% thermodynamic efficiency, it’s under $0.13/kWhr. Granted that doesn’t even begin to get into the costs of running your own power station, but there’s a lot of margin left to eat into.
Yeah same here, brutal DTE rates. Up North at my cabin I’m <$0.10/kWh but that’s 50% Hydro. I did the math a while back and I’m better off with electric than propane to keep the pipes thawed over winter.
WA state has about the lowest power rates in the world. 7.7 cents/kWh is normal for the west side of the state outside of Seattle City Light (which is roughly double that). If you go east and put down roots right next to the Grand Coulee dam in Grant County, you can be paying as low as 4.8 cents/kWh.
$0.05/kWh is maybe the base rate without stuff like taxes and transmission fees, but the actual CO rate is $0.13/kWh, or $0.12 to $0.19/kWh for time-of-use rates in winter and I think higher for peak summer. Still well below CA rates, though.
I am in NorCal and my electricity cost is less than 50% of yours; Off peak is .14, Mid peak (noon-5) is .19, peak is .34. Thanks to free charging at work, it cost me $16 to operate my car over the last 30 days. I spent more on gasoline on a 3-day trip in Florida last week.
SMUD? They’ve always been way cheaper than PG&E.
The worst is San Diego though, they are even more expensive. I think that all power should be through community owned power systems like SMUD.
Don’t most of the power companies in CA offer the ability to get cheap overnight electricity rates? Like in the 6-10 cents range (after you pay some extra each month for that “privilege”)
Many do, my provider which Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is community owned, and our power is already way cheaper than others in the state. A lot of them have time of day charges and you don’t pay anything for that so it can be 50% cheaper after like 10 PM. Peak is 5-8 around me and then it’s a bit cheaper before it drops off even more.
yeah, I live in the land of SDGE so I get the privilege of living in the highest cost electricity in existence (potentially hyperbole but it sure doesn’t feel like it) and you have to get on a specific EV plan otherwise your min price is 37.3c/kWh from midnight to 6am. You can *only* get down to 12.2c/kWh from midnight to 6am with an EV plan (after $16/month), so not quite as low as I was originally thinking. I’m not exactly in a hurry to get an EV because of that.
That price hurts, that’s higher than the supercharger prices around NorCal.
I almost bought one but I can’t charge at work, and back then I commuted 80 miles round trip. The fuel economy once you burn through the EV mode isn’t that great, so I went with a cheaper Prius instead. If I could take advantage of more EV range on my commute, the Volt would have been the winner.
Yeah 40 mpg for a hybrid is fairly meh. I did look into what a same year/mileage Prius would cost around here, and the Volt was substantially cheaper. Toyota Tax is a big thing in Washington, plus you don’t get the $4000 dollar tax incentive or the sales tax incentive. An extra 5-10 MPG out of a regular prius would take a looong time to pay back that 4000 bucks.
I was buying new. $23k (2013) for the Prius, or whatever the Volt was, which was more.
Imagine a Ute variant… Seriously the Volt had a ton of life left in it, and GM shot the Golden Goose.
I don’t know if a ute or even crossover bodystyle would have worked with the voltec platform. At least not without a fairly significant lift. The battery pack is a very strange T-shape that protrudes into the cabin fairly significantly. Now that being said? I’d friggin looooove a wagon or small lil trucklet with the volts capabilities.
I think GM could have pulled it off, but sadly we’ll never know :'(
For me it would be around 40 miles. Obviously more would be better, but assuming that further range would come at an increased cost there would be a substantial reduction in ROI for range beyond 40 miles for me. 40 miles would cover 85% of my driving but it would take several hundred or more to cover the remaning 15%.
Why don’t we compare the total efficiency of the vehicle, regardless of propulsion? The battery is fully charged and the gasoline, if present, is converted to watt hours. Then measure how many watt hours are used to travel 300 miles.
This would promote efficiency above all else and isn’t that the whole point? Inefficient EVs like the Hummer would not look good against an EV sedan even though they could have the same range estimate.
Extended range EVs would be better than PHEVs because the ICE engine is operating at optimal efficiency. Everything would be better than a pure ICE because burning gasoline is inherently inefficient.
I support this 100%. Inefficient electric cars not only require more electricity, but also require larger batteries that pollute more up front (manufacturing) and over their lifetime (tire wear, road maintenance). A good system would promote both the Tesla 3 and the Prius Prime, while penalizing both the Ford Expedition and the Hummer EV. And to be clear, I’m not proposing banning either the Ford Expedition or the Hummer. Just tax them more to help offset their externalities.
About 60-80 miles would work for most of the people I know.
Regular Hybrid, thanks. PHEV doesn’t work for me just like an EV doesn’t work.
The average American travels 42 miles a day. Give us 50 miles of EV range (YES, in winter too) for those occasional detours and we should be fine.
I feel like there needs to be more PHEV categories than just “PHEV”.
Like base level is your Jeep Wrangler/Ford Fusion/Kia models with 20 miles or so of range and the electric motor isn’t very powerful.
Mid level is your Rav4/Prius Primes with their 40-50 miles of range and powerful motors.
Top level is your BMW i3/Ramcharger which are EVs with near 100 miles of range and a range extender.
I think the mid-level is the sweet spot for cost/ease of use, in most normal driving it can act like an EV but doesn’t carry around a lot of extra battery it won’t need.
Your “top level” designation… does it even exist anymore? The i3 REX is gone, the Chevy Volt is gone… what’s left?
the upcoming Ramcharger will basically be that(if they make it), 175 miles of range with a range extender. The Volt I think was more in the Rav/Prius Prime category as most it got was mid-50s towards the end.
Oh there was also the Mazda MX-30 with it’s range extender! If that’s still a thing?
Ramcharger is a huge piece of equipment, right?
Yes, cause ‘murica! But only a 92kwh battery which isn’t terrible(compared to like a Silverado/Lightning/Cybertruck). And then a V6 range extender.
“which isn’t terrible…”
Insanity.
I’d actually put the top at somewhere in the 40-60 mile category and not bother with one above it. The diminishing returns are strong – for most people 50ish miles covers basically all around-town driving. Roadtrips are going to be mostly gas anyways, short of a full BEV with 250+ miles of range and DC fast charging.
Man, I’d sure appreciate an obscure government.
lol
Yep DT is right again – look call it a PHEV if you need to for regs/taxes, but the marketing for actual people should be as a range extended EV. The Dodge Ramcharger announcement had it right – they said “unlimited range EV”. Now that’s the message the average person needs to hear.
Now to the question – I think as low as 35 miles of pure EV range would be just fine. That’s provided it’s actually 35 miles of range in all weather conditions and potentially at highway speeds. And this would be USA highway speeds so 75mph at a minimum.
If said PHEV is a properly thought out Range Extended BEV I’d be fine with as little as 15 miles of BEV range. Of course I’d prefer 25 miles of BEV range, but with how bad the overwhelming majority of PHEVs are if a PHEV met most of my specs other than range it would be hard to say no to it.
As the owner of a PHEV, the right range is anything that doesn’t turn the engine on when it’s cold out. I go through more gas in the winter doing a 2km/1ish mile commute to drop of kids than a summer full of 50km trips to go mountain biking.
PHEVs that use gas to heat up the car suck. And so long as they work like this they aren’t the answer because the real electric range in winter is 0.
And I feel bad for the engine not reaching optimal temperature since it shut down way before the oil is warm enough or coolant is around 150F. Then it will kick on again 10 min later (Depending of how cold is) to do the same again, running and screaming at you while you are at the stop sign.
I’ve got a Volt, cabin heat is provided by a resistive electric unit (not the most efficient for battery usage, but does not require the engine). I believe the battery pack has the option of being heated by either electric, or by engine coolant.
Mine is a Pacifica, and I’ll be honest I have no idea how the heating works. What I do know is the engine runs all winter here in Canada while I do short trips and the van’s overall range is about 500km between trips to the gas station (outside of trips).
Compare that to the summer: I use zero gas except for trips. Will drive maybe 5000km on electric alone (we have an L2 charger at home so sometimes charge a couple times a day).
We have an electric city car for our second car, and the experience has me ready for a fully electric van/SUV for two reasons:
1. The van was supposed cover 90% of our driving on electric. Instead it ends up being more like 50%. That’s just enough to make me realize how much it sucks going to the gas station vs charging at home.
2. I can charge at home and we have reasonable charging options between here and the places we go. I’ve decided I can’t ethically buy another gas vehicle given there are cleaner alternatives that work for me (which sucks because the cars I’ve always wanted aren’t electric).
Long story short, a phev van with a ok if not great range was supposed to be the perfect vehicle for us. But it’s not, and it has nothing to do with the range. Maybe it’s because it’s a Chrysler.
I think the ideal PHEV is really a range-extended BEV. Something that doesn’t have weird transitions from EV-mode to gas-mode and has enough range that most people won’t write off the EV range and run primarily on gas.
I think about 100 miles EV range and 250 additional miles with the gas generator would be a pretty sweet setup. More than enough battery for around town, enough total range for reasonable long-range driving, and just little enough gas range to make running on gas inconvenient day-to-day.
Just make the battery as big as the engine compartment. Put a generator in the trunk to charge the battery and solar panel on the roof for backup. Put the motors next to the wheels and call it a day! PS Don’t use cheap sunglasses!
I don’t really need a say in PHEV range, as my daily commute is generally 3.5 miles, but I’d just take whatever the average mileage into work is and add like 5 miles for lunch trips, as a just in case.
So, in the current case, 47-50 miles for pure electric driving.
Size wise, whatever is the most efficient to both the customer and the OE to put in there.
Just like Dimon said in the release of his shareholder meeting this morning, oil (not coal) is the way for the rest of our lifetimes.
EV’s are a fun, and crazy expensive toy, but they are not the future. It’s time that fact is realized. Shit, if GM even knows that…
lol
I’ll throw 40 miles out as a good PHEV. Around where I am, the work commute can be upwards of 40 miles, with some highway speeds. So 40 miles would allow for a good amount of stop-n-go and pure city time to be run on electrons even when the very first and last parts are gasoline highway miles.
People with shorter runs or just school shuttling duties, the 40 miles could do 2 to 4 days worth of driving between charges.
40 miles? The average world citizen does that every week on a common bicycle.
And your point?
One trick is to tell stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville? I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Gimme five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now where were we? Oh, yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…
Because it’s a compromise for no good reason. It’s not helping, only handicapping the individual.
You do you, though.
I’m on my second 40ish mile range PHEV. My commute is 40ish miles return. I go months without refilling.
My Honda Clarity would regularly go about 800 miles on a six U.S. gallon tank. The new S60 Recharge isn’t as long legged, but also has double the horsepower. Both also give me the ability to conventionally road trip with zero worries, and to my mind and experience really are the best of both worlds.
And I still have no idea what six miles a day on a bike has to do with a 40 mile daily commute.
I think it is similar to say, talking about good restaurants and then someone deciding to talk about being a vegan. Related because its about food, but still diverting from the topic.
Not even the same ballpark. A restaurant is a willing choice. Transportation on many levels is not a choice, but a necessity.
That’s cool, and I’m glad it works for you!
The point is that all in, it’d take less time on the bike. For much less money.
I’m really trying in good faith to understand your point here. A PHEV with 40-mile range is a bad idea because we could ride our bikes instead?
Meh, it’s not that. A PHEV is a fine mode of transportation, but it’s not a bragging point.
…If you live somewhere with perfect weather and with drivers that pay attention. Here in the real world where rain and snow are a thing and folks are looking at their phones while they drive, I’ll take the hybrid.
Except what you describe is a fantasy.
No, it’s current reality. Where do you live?
I live in the southeast. Where sane people live, lol
Yes, I know about that. And I know the drivers too. I’d still take a hybrid or better, a BEV. I’ll arrive sooner, refreshed and not dead.
I live in the southeast as well, we are not sane.
Depends on your tolerance for depends.
Shelbyville is well beyond the electric range of my PHEV. I’m glad we don’t have to go all the way there for shoe repairs these days.
Not too many world citizens around here, so that leaves cars/SUVs/trucks. Bicycles are fine for short trips, but there simply isn’t too much bike friendly infrastructure.
Do you not have sidewalks where you live?
There is literally nowhere I could ride a bike–safely–from my home. No sidewalks, just roads with no shoulders. I live less than 10 miles from the largest city in the region, so it’s not like I’m out in the sticks. Just your average suburbs. For better or worse, biking is not a logical form of transportation for most folks in the US. Temps where I live drop into the teens in the winter and summer temps can crest 100, not unusual in large parts of the country. I have yet to see a single dedicated bike lane in my city, all require you to ride in lanes shared with traffic, or a hilariously small section of road on the shoulder, undivided from automobile traffic. I don’t think that’s how things should be, but that’s how they are. If you’re able to make a bike work for your daily commute, that’s great! But unfortunately it’s not an option for most of us, even if we wanted to.
you aren’t supposed to ride bicycles on the sidewalk, due to pedestrians.
Well, “supposed to” and “logic” don’t always align.
It’s illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk in many places of the United States.
We do have sidewalks, but they are not consistent from point A to B. Also, some cities and towns prohibit bikes on sidewalks (aside from little kids where it would be unsafe for them to ride on the road). Adults are expected to ride mostly on the roadway.
If you get into the urban’ish city, there are dedicated bike lanes on some designated roads, but again, they are not consistent and the bike lanes are as torn up as the car lanes.
As someone who bike commutes 32 miles round trip 4 days a week in Maine year round, I’m a big fan of bike commuting. But culturally, America is so far removed from making bike commutes common for the Average Joe that we’re going to need a whole lot stop gaps before feasibility. Obviously you have examples to contrary (Boston, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, any dense wealthy core not located in Texas really). For the rest of us, Its a major lifestyle commitment. And it’s not the hills or the weather that stops people. It’s that to be feasible you basically have to accept death. In my 84k miles ridden according to Strava, I’ve been hit my car three times. My body is full of scars and in two places glass from a Subaru Impreza. Most people would stop after one, maybe two, at three you’re pushing your luck.
Yep, I used to bike to and from class and work when I was in college. On campus was fine, but once you hit regular roads it got dangerous quickly. After getting run off the road a couple times I gave up the bike. I’ve known other people to do the same thing. You’re absolutely right–in most places in the US, bike commuting really has to be a serious commitment, primarily because it isn’t very safe much of the time. I only ride recreationally these days, on a dedicated bike/walking path that runs along the Ohio River on top of the flood wall. Beautiful ride, and I don’t have to worry about motorized traffic (except people absolutely flying on their e-bikes, that is). I genuinely admire your commitment to making it work for you!