Important to know that real-world testing shows that PHEVs are rarely plugged in and just burn oil much of the time
That’s a shame. I love my PHEV because it’s an EV for driving around the city, but I can still use gas stations on road trips. I plug it in everywhere I can.
Same here, and I am hoping that as battery density increases I may be able to extend the range on mine when the car gets old enough for a rebuild.
They still get way better gas mileage. They also don’t cost $15,000 when the battery goes bad. I replaced my 12 year old prius battery myself in like two hours after buying a brand new $2,900 replacement from the Toyota dealership. Could have just bought and replaced the bad cell in it, but in a 12 year old battery I’d probably have another to replace within a year and just have to keep going in and replacing one after the other, which would be a pain.
Thanks for sharing this. Very interesting and a little surprising. I love my phev and keep it charged as much as possible because I notice acceleration benefits, pre-conditioning benefits, and obvious fuel savings, as well as time saving not having to gas up. I also have no fears of battery discharge like I would with full electric. I live in the states and charging stations are still pretty rare outside major metro areas and a lot of things are pretty spread out here so I still find full EV unfortunately a bit impractical. I CN imagine anyone not charging their phev whenever the opportunity presents.
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The average real-world electric driving share is about 45%–49% for private (phev) cars and about 11%–15% for company cars
45-49% on privately owned cars isn’t rarely, but 10-15% on the corporate side totally is. However I can also understand employees not wanting to give their company free electricity every night, while simultaneously companies do not have plans in place for employees to charge at work.
Company purchasing managers would be better off just buying regular hybrids if they’re not going to set up a plan to keep these charged, otherwise they’ll never get the financial benefits that sold them on the phev in the first place.
This was a problem with government owned Volts, they reimbursed for gas as this was already happening for the rest of the ICE fleet but had no way to reimburse for charging. Would not be surprised if this trend is the same for many company fleets too. Fix that and you would probably see similar numbers to private ownership.
That makes no sense. The entire point of a PHEV is that you can just plug it in at your house and drive to work for virtually free, well still being able to visit people who live a decent distance away on the weekends.
And burn even more than pure ICEs since they also carry the added weight from the electric stuff. At a time where we need much less cars overall, including EVs.
That’s news to me considering the EPA-rated fuel economy of vehicles with both hybrid and pure ICE drivetrains is universally higher for the hybrid versions.
An ICE vehicle needs a much larger engine than is truly necessary due to the inefficiencies and limitations of mechanical transmissions, whereas a hybrid can have a much smaller, more efficient engine.
A hybrid can potentially act like a ‘perfect’ transmission, capable of taking in power from an engine running at its single most efficient RPM and, with the aid of battery storage, produce any combination of speed and torque that has an average power less than the output of the ICE.
I think what he might be saying is running a Plug in hybrid only on gas takes more than a regular hybrid because of the extra weight. That makes sense to me but I’m not sure if that’s what he means
They said “pure ICE,” so I don’t think that’s what they’re saying. But yes, a non-plugin hybrid should do better than a plugin hybrid if the plugin is never plugged in.
But it doesn’t. PHEVs can still regenerate during braking though. ICE only vehicles can cut fuel when off throttle, but that’s not going reclaim the heat lost to braking.
PHEVs should still be more efficient overall especially in cities and stop and go traffic.
If we had ICE only vehicles with tiny engines maybe your point could work, but we don’t anymore at least not in the US.
That’s news to me considering the EPA-rated fuel economy of vehicles with both hybrid and pure ICE drivetrains is universally higher for the hybrid versions.
Because they make certain assumptions. Fortunately the EU mandated that cars measures those things since various years. That caused a review of those hybrids. They’re usually not charged.
Nothing in that comment discussed plugin hybrids though.
A non plug-in hybrid will be more efficient than a full gas vehicle because of the efficiency you can gain through minimizing the engine and tuning it for a more limited rpm range.
This ideally carries over to a plug-in hybrid in the same way even if it’s never plugged in, if all the gas engine does is charge the battery it can be more efficient than a gas only car due to reduced engine size requirements.
And electric is better for acceleration, so you get the best of both worlds.
I love how you completely ignored the context of my comment and thus completely missed the point.
This is a bit surprising to me tbh, Europe seems like the perfect place for little 100 mile range EV’s to kick ass. Over here in North America I can see hybrids being the current hot ticket because people regularly drive hundreds of miles for trips and work. Seems less common there but I may be wrong
It’s an issue of charging. Europe has cities that are very old. Streets are narrower than North America. Many apartments don’t have underground parking. Cars are parked on the street. There’s nowhere to plugin the EV overnight.
Definitely this. And it can be very difficult to connect your meter to your parking spot.
In France if you have a parking spot, you have a legal right to get a plug there even if you’re renting.
It doesn’t fix the problem for people with no parking who do only street parking, but people who can’t afford a parking spot rarely buy a shiny new EV to start with.
People still go on holiday once or twice a year, snd many travel by car and always prefer their own car over rental. A 100 mile range EV being good for 95% of your use cases doesn’t help you much with the other 5%.
People need to hire vehicles occasionally rather than buy more polluting vehicles against some rare edge case
I’m not saying they shouldn’t rent a car for these occasions, I’m just saying that’s probably the reason why hybrids are more popular.
Or we need to try to accommodate the needs that people actually have rather than telling them they should change what they need. That’s somewhat more likely to actually work.
I mostly agree with your statement. If you want people to switch to alternatives, the alternative needs to be better than the status quo in some way.
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Rent one for holidays or better go by train. And no i think most fly.
Going by train in some countries is a huge pain in the butt though (Germany for example).
Cagers have this argument of “but what if I want to do this cross country trip to bumfucknowhere” … Similar to when asked why they can’t give up their car “what if I want to transport a washing machine” … As if those people load up their cars with 5 tons of bulky cargo and be driving around the world on a daily basis and there not being any other ways to handle such edge cases.
To be fair, this could be an argument. I don’t have a car now, and when I do buy it - the usecase would be long road trips to where public transport is bad or carrying cargo to my vacation house. Only half of that would be easily doable with an EV’s range. For city commutes, public transport is preferred, and trips to the vacation house without cargo could be made on electric trains faster.
What’s a cager? I can’t give up my car because I can’t bike to work, buses go way too fast on the highway which is dangerous and illegal, and I don’t earn enough to buy an EV or to relocate near my job.
You must understand that poor people can’t live in the EV utopia right now. Car makers will have to sell small and cheap EVs.
I was buying new (used) car half a year ago. There were two reasons why I ended with ICE again.
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Price. EV, even used ones, are so damn expensive it’s just not for normal people. Everyone is saying how they lose value instantly and so on, but when I look at the market, even the cheapest ones (over 10 years old Nissan Leaf that will do less than 80 km on battery at summer) are ridiculously priced compared to ICE of the same age and similar specs. At least that’s what it is in my country.
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Chargers. I live in an appartement without garage, parking on the street. No way to charge it with “cheap household electricity” over night. There are I believe 3 chargers in my ~15k town and every single one is ridiculously overpriced. 1 kWh there costs almost as half a litre of gas. Considering fuel/electricity consumption, this is making the cost per km of both options virtually identical for me.
Everyone around me is very EV-skeptical and old fashioned. I’m not and I’m cheering for EVs. So I really wanted to switch, but hell it wasn’t making any sense yet.
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Batteries are expensive, range causes anxiety, a small battery is possible in a hybrid thus price is lower
Yeah and new plug in hybrids get like 50 miles or so of range. So most people can use that for work commutes and everyday stuff, etc, but still have the gas engine for their long road trips
Except people don’t plug in their hybrids and run them on fossil fuels. Hybrids are yet another way the FF industry keeps itself going while pretending things are being fixed
Since the study was from Europe I’m going to assume that the primary thing holding people back from plugging in is that they can’t. Many, if not most, of them will live in multi-tenant dwellings and most of those dwellings likely don’t have the infrastructure to make it possible.
It’s the same problem that apartment dwellers here in the US have, there’s nowhere convenient to recharge.
The average real-world electric driving share is about 45%–49% for private cars and about 11%–15% for company cars.
I would argue that 45% electric driving is still significant. Company cars not being used similarly likely has a deeper issue
It seems to be a misleading title.
It mentions a European associations data but then they only point to the German Market, that Germans are cooling on electric.
I see no numbers for that being the case in say in Denmark where I live, where even people with hybrids are switching to electric due to legislation placing hybrids in the same category as CE cars. No body here is “cooling on electric” and we have a much higher rate of adoption than Germany, easily veried by a small trip over the border.
Europeans are not cooling on electric, maybe Germans are, but Germans are Europes “Murica” when it comes to cars. They require huge German SUVs with a minimum speed of 200 kmh on the autobahn…
Also isnt is because subsides on electric cars ended so either A everyone bought while you could get them cheaper so the demand has fallen of B they are more expensive so naturaly pepole are picking cheaper car. It doesnt really matter if car will save you 30000 thousands euro throught it lifetime on fuel if you dont have 30000 more to spend.
Ultimately we will see in a year whetewer electric cars just went to its natural equlibrium without subsidies and its share will continue to rise once again or its an actual trend.
Not sure what you mean :)
My point was that the article was making false assumptions about Europeans are cooling on EVs as a whole based on one dataset which cherry picked Germany.
I will make a few assumptions of my own based on what I see: 1: Germany Auto industry have been show to make good EVS, they do huge hybrids 2: Germany have a culture of huge German SUV and Sedan cars (much like macho culture of Americans with trucks). 3: Germans love buying German cars 4: Germany subsidies it’s own cars more than imported cars (whatever the fuel type)
All that I would think would have a much higher effect on German buying trends than whatever EV vs CE vs Hybrid debate they try to pin the data on.
Again they have to show me legit data across Europe if you wanna show “a trend” in Europe, not one country which have a huge vested interest in not adopting imported EVs which are better/cheaper than their German counterparts.
It’s sad to see the oil industry’s propaganda campaign working so well.
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It’s infrastructure. Too inconvenient to find a spot to charge, the apartments where you live probably don’t have chargers, your workplace doesn’t either…
In France installing a charger in appartement building is mandatory if the resident asks for it, even if they’re renting.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
According to figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), BEVs accounted for 12.5 percent of the EU car market, a drop from 13.8 percent a year ago.
Electric vehicles in the EU tend to be more expensive than their traditionally powered siblings, and charging infrastructure in the region requires investment if the EU’s CO2 reduction targets are to be met.
Another survey [PDF] found the top three challenges facing BEVs were price, a lack of availability of private recharging, and too few public recharging points.
A recent report found that at the end of 2023, the EU had 632,423 public charging points, serving around 3 million BEVs.
According to the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the BEV market share in the UK for the year to May 2024 stood at 16.1 percent, slightly up from the same period last year, when the figure was 15.7 percent.
A survey with more than 19,000 respondents – of which just over 2,000 were BEV drivers – by the European Alternative Fuels Observatory found that just over half of non-electric car drivers (57 percent) were considering an electric car purchase, but nearly two-thirds of all respondents considered cost as a barrier.
The original article contains 392 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 49%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
but nearly two-thirds of all respondents considered cost as a barrier.
That’s really the only thing preventing mass adaptation, but as long as they’re so expensive (which they likely will be until we see a new battery technology) they simply aren’t a viable choice for many people.
Many of the people who are willing to spend a fortune on a vehicle already get an EV in the last few years (which they still are using rn), resulting in declining sales. It is time to cater to a broader market: more budget conscious people!
EVs are more expensive up front, then cost less as electricity is cheaper than gas. And cheaper maintenance and longer lifespan.
Vimes Boots Theory.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
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Yes, but you have to drive a lot to make up for the price. Dropping from 10€ per 100 km to 5€ per 100 km and slightly less maintenance cost (modern Diesel motors - and by modern I mean the last few decades, given that the motor has been treated well - are pretty carefree already) takes a long time to pay off. If you drive 10.000 km per year that’ll save you 500€ per year + minor maintenance savings, but you pay 10.000+ € more when buying the car. For electric motorcycles it’s even less notable since they need less fuel.
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Lifespan also is difficult to evaluate. I’m currently using a 25 year old Skoda Octavia and it’s still causing no problems and I still could resell it for 3000-4000€. When driving an EV for 20+ years you’ll very likely have to replace the battery, probably twice (easily 10.000€ with current batteries every time you need a new one).
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Another point: Resell value. Due to battery degradation and especially very quick technological advancements EVs tend to lose their value quicker than fuel powered vehicles.
I really want to buy an EV but it just doesn’t make sense yet. Give me an EV that’s not wasting any money on fancy screens, excessively good speakers, … with like 300 km of effective uphill range for a reasonable price and I’m in.
Some quick math from this https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2022/09/22/how_expensive_is_it_to_charge_an_ev_in_europe_and_is_it_really_cheaper_than_gas_854618.html#!
Puts slow charging at 1/4 the price of gasoline. That’s substantial.
Other searching says average of 18k km per year in Europe. With 6 l/ 100 km average age 1.76€/ l, gasoline costs €1,901 per year. Vs €475 for electricity. Saving €1,426 a year (1,527 US) Do that for 10 years and that’s €14,260 saved ($15, 270 US). I can only expect that savings will increase as gas prices go up.
As for maintenance anything with a timing belt is going to have a massive maintenance cost. There’s just no comparison in the design of these things. Electric motors have such a simple design. ICE cars have oil changes, transmission oil changes, coolant changes, spark plugs, starters, 12 v battery, accessory belt, timing belt, alternator. Yes EV’s have a 12v battery and coolant but these are not taxed nearly as much as ice cars.
EV motors are so simple they’ll handily outlast ice engines. And no transmission either. Boy if you’ve ever had transmission problems you’d never want another, EVs don’t have that. Tesla used to be on about a million mile drivetrain warranty because it really should be feasible. Ice cars can’t ever get that (on average).
Batteries yeah we’ll see how well new ones last. For a million miles you’ll go through a few batteries, which get better each time.
Alright, time to do actual numbers.
18.000 is heavily influenced by all the people driving >100.000 km per year, unless that’s the median, not the average. I’m far below 10.000 and still waiting for it to be worth it for me. I’ll calculate with 10.000 for now.
Modern ICE cars need far less than 6l. A modern VW Golf for example only needs 4-5 l per 100 km (4.5 avg, and yes it actually is that low, I’ve been driving a modern VW Golf at the military a few times and have tracked my average fuel consumption there).
Gas currently fluctuates from 1.525 to 1.599 in my area, so I’m always only filling the car on Monday mornings when it’s 1.525.
10 000 * 1.525 * 4.5/100 = 686.25€ per year.
Even if there’s a major crisis like when the war in Ukraine started and the price goes up to 2€ per liter for some time and I’m at 1.8€ average for the year (I have never had such a high average so this is really stretching it), we get 10 000 * 1.8 * 4.5/100 = 810€ per year. Worst case, never happened before scenario.
Economic modern EV need ~16 kWh per 100 km. The average price per kWh at home is 0.2€ in my area.
10 000 * 0.2 * 20/100 = 400€ per year.
= 286.25€ (410€ worst case) per year saved (purely for moving the car), assuming I always charge at home. If I do longer trips on holidays and have to charge somewhere else that gap gets lower.
Even when adding less taxes, less repairs (but modern engines really don’t need much repairing, even though they’re much more complex than electric motors and wasting more energy) it will still will take a long time to break equal (probably never because I need a new battery before breaking equal).
If I have an average of 10k km per year that’s 16.200€ for 200.000 km over 20 years with an ICE car at 1.8€/l (higher average than I’ve ever experienced) or 6.400€ for the same with an electric car at 0.2€/kWh (which is below my average of the last two years). Ignoring inflation for simplicity, just assume my salary goes up with inflation so percentually it stays the same.
If I need a new battery (10.000€, actually more but I’ll just say 10.000 for now since they’ll likely go down at some point) every 10 years then I’m just about to break equal after 20 years, right before going negative again by buying another battery.
You have an incredibly adversarial tone with that “actual numbers” as if mine aren’t, so I’m not going to continue.
But I will point out I’m using averages and you are cherry picking low mileage per year, low fuel consumption, and low gas prices. And I’m guessing funny electric numbers to change 1/4 the cost of gas to nearly 2/3 the cost. And funny enough you are combining low mileage per year with moderately-high battery replacement rate. You are picking and choosing.
I meant actual numbers in regards to my last comment (the one you previously replied to) since I was just basing that one on calculations I did like a year ago. So now I made another comment where I used actual numbers instead of just roughly writing my conclusion from a year ago. It was not directed at your comment, sorry for the misunderstanding.
And I’m using low mileage per year because as I stated in the comment before this is about my situation, about if an EV is practical for me or if I’m forced to wait until they’re getting cheaper. Currently I’m at around 5000 km per year, I use public transport a lot (and am not expecting that to change anytime soon).
Also the price per kWh is the average price per kWh in my area and is roughly the average I’m getting (I think I have 0.17€ rn since it’s cheaper in summer but I also had 0.42€ already in winter so 0.2€ average really isn’t high).
Battery replacement rate is based on this (first search result for ev battery degradation):
At the average degradation rate of 2.3% per year, an EV battery would take 15 years to decline to 70% maximum charge. However, as we expect EV battery life to decline non-linearly, there would likely be a more significant drop-off as the battery ages.
This means the battery is at 80% capacity after 10 years, which already drops the range below 300 km in winter for not insanely expensive EV. I do not have first hand experience on how many years a battery lasts, but even if it lasts 20 years (63% with this formula, although they do state that it’s expected to decline quicker after longer usage, and current EVs wouldn’t get my minimum 300 km winter range anymore) I’m still at break even point when buying a new battery after those 20 years.
That’s why I’m holding off for now and just continue driving my reliable 25 year old Skoda, hoping for EV to become cheaper soon (all it takes is a new battery technology… the battery is why EVs are so expensive rn).
And your source is calculating with prices from 2019. Before COVID, before the Russo-Ukrainian war. I’m using numbers from this year.
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I just don’t trust the used market or resale value of these things. I bought a new ICE vehicle and don’t plan on considering EV or electric for at least another decade
I always wonder who is buying brand new vehicles. Why buy new instead of a car from one year ago?
Depends on the cost of new vs used…extra warranty on new, and cheaper monthly rates on new compared to used.
Financially, depending on the cars being compared it can actually be cheaper in the long run to buy new instead of used.
Every comparison I’ve ever seen puts the new car as far, far more expensive than used.
Do two cars have to be different models and different years? Can it work out to compare the same trim level of the same car, and have the new one cost less overall than the used one?
I’ve never figured for any warranty in my car buying, so I’m playing a whole different ballgame here. I just go by advertised price, average gas milage, and how expensive is it when it breaks?
Because I really want it in grey!!
- seriously, these are the people.
But like, so many used cars are grey? I always heard that people buy white, black, and grey because they sell better later on.
Grey was meant as a variable there. People buying new cars are typically either heavy on disposable income and/or have placed high value on arbitrary criteria that most of us would not consider worth the very high price difference between New and used cars.
Ah, so any specific color. Yeah, that makes more sense.
Something I’ve heard from people in my life is that once you have a nicer car with all the creature comforts, it is really hard to go back. Strong air conditioning, extra comfy seats, quiet driving or the right kind of loud driving are all hard to give up.
Hybrids: the worst of both worlds.
If you want to keep relying on gasoline then just buy an ICE car
In the US they’re the best of both worlds, especially if you get a plugin electric car. Charging infrastructure sucks for longer trips (fast charging is often broken or missing), and Americans like longer trips, so gas is preferred. But around town, it’s nice to not need to fill up.
That may not be the case in Europe, idk.
Where I am the charging infrastructure is terrible and electricity prices are bad. I was considering a hybrid but I guess if it’s no better I’ll just grab a regular ICE
It’s sort of a flawed opinion. If you’re never charging at home and doing a lot of driving, a hybrid won’t make much difference and might cost more. If you’re conscientious about charging when you can and mostly drive within range of your battery’s capacity, it can be almost as effective as full electric. Stats indicate most PHEV owners use the the same way you would use an ICE, car, which is more expensive and a bit of a waste.
More than the charging infrastructure it is the city infrastructure: when you have condos built without any planning 50 or more years ago, even if you pass a law that every home need to have a charging station in these condos it is physically impossible to do it. Charging infrastructure comes after you solve the problem where to put 70 or more charging station for every condo in the district.
Hybrids: the worst of both worlds.
If you want to keep relying on gasoline then just buy an ICE car
Maybe I can use a hydrid: short trip (to the train station/mall/small affairs in the vicinity) go in electric, longer trip use gasoline.
Not everyone has a charging station at home and in many places you cannot install it, be because forbidden by some old laws or because there is not the physical option.
