MotorTrend: Plug-In Hybrids? Just Say Hell No

[LuisBoston]

I've been of this belief for a long time, in fact before I leased my Polestar 2 in 2021 I really, really wanted a V60 T8 Recharge. But I quickly saw the limitations that a PHEV would bring: more frequent charging if I want to stay in EV mode, carrying around a second motor (ICE + EV/batteries and all the maintenance required for ICE), for what? An occasional need for a road trip.

To me, the PHEV was the compromise, and it's even more so today.

I'm now on my second EV, an iX. I love it. There's no going back.

This editor writes it all way better. And I thank them for it.

Plug-In Hybrids? Just Say Hell No
EVs have progressed. It’s time to ditch the training wheels.

https://www.motortrend.com/features/...inion-feature/

Sir Alec Issigonis, famed designer of the original Mini once said, “A camel is a racehorse designed by committee.” I just spent a week driving around Los Angeles in a 2024 Toyota Prius Prime, and let me tell you, Sir Alec’s brilliant turn of phrase was living rent free in my head the entire time. See, the Prime variant of the Prius is a plug-in hybrid vehicle, also known as a PHEV. On paper, that sort of vehicle makes all sorts of sense. The Prime has a range of around 40 miles (maybe 44 miles if you go the speed limit with the A/C and other accessories off), and when the battery is depleted, a gasoline engine fires up to keep on truckin’. The best of both worlds, right? Wrong, I say. In my mind, PHEVs represent the worse of two technologies. In other words, you’re driving a camel.

PHEVs Live in the Past

Before I go any further, I need to doff my hat to my friend, mentor, and Pulitzer Prize–winning auto scribe Dan Neil. He very rightly pointed out that PHEVs create “the illusion of eco-consciousness.” While corporate greenwashing is not the focus of this screed, Neil’s absolutely right in that PHEVs certainly are a convenient way for legacy automakers to lower their CAFE averages without doing the heavy lifting (i.e., spending big R&D dollars, a commitment to carbon neutrality, vision for humanity’s future) required to go fully electric. You might notice there’s been exactly one PHEV-only startup of any note, the OG iteration of Fisker, and said company lasted about a year. Fourteen years ago, when the Chevrolet Volt made its debut, the notion of modest EV range backed up by a gasoline powerplant did seem futuristic. We gave the thing our Car of the Year award and called it GM’s moonshot. But these days, in a market where the Tesla Model Y racked up 1.2 million global registrations in 2023, knocking the sales crown from the Toyota RAV4 in the process, to become the bestselling car in the world? Chevy discontinued the Volt. PHEVs live in the past.

Is there anything good about them? Well, the reason the first-generation Volt came with a 16-kWh battery is that a study reported most people, most of the time, drive their cars just 29 miles per day. Sixteen kWh (later embiggened to 18.4 kWh for generation two) was enough to give an owner around 30 miles of electric driving. If you wind your mind backwards to 2011, there was almost no EV infrastructure whatsoever. Tesla hadn’t even started building out the Supercharger network, and home chargers seemed like something out of The Jetsons. PHEVs made all the sense in the world. Back then. While still nowhere near mature, today's EV infrastructure is worlds better than it was. More crucially, I’d argue, is that Level 2 vehicle charging (i.e., home chargers) has become increasingly commonplace. Talk to the overwhelming majority of EV owners—and not people considering buying one—and you’ll learn that a vast amount of their charging happens at home. Now, do we need a solution for apartment dwellers whose landlords aren’t allowing them to install chargers? Hell yes, we do.

No Charging, No Benefit

PHEVs get charged at home, too. Or at least, they’re supposed to be. While some PHEV owners charge at home (and given the tiny ranges of PHEVs, that’s something they probably need to do every day), a large number do not. A dead PHEV battery means you’re needlessly dragging a heavy EV drivetrain around town with you. As Neil points out, that means a discharged PHEV will almost certainly achieve worse mileage than a comparable full-ICE vehicle. But let’s say you dutifully charge your PHEV before you drive it. You’re being trained to use an EV in the worst way. Fully charging a battery to 100 percent and then running it down to zero is terrible for the long-term health of any battery. Battery health is best achieved by charging to between 70 to 80 percent (or less), and then plugging in when you dip below 20 percent. Sure, juice it to max for the occasional road trip, but most of the time an 80 percent or lower charge works. You drive on a less than a full gas tank all the time. If your EV has a 300-mile range, 80 percent of that is 240 miles, or six times the range of a fully charged Prius Prime. That’s potentially five additional charges per week for the PHEV, for a total of more than 300 times per year. That poor battery.

Back to the Prius Prime. Yes, when it was charged and I drove it around as an EV, it’s pretty dang good. After all, this model was part of the decision-making that led to the fifth-generation Prius being named our 2024 Car of the Year. A charged Prius Prime is smooth and silent and torquey; it does indeed offer most of the inherent good benefits of EV driving. Until the battery runs dry. Then the weak, coarse 2.0-liter Atkinson-cycle inline-four fires up and routes its power through a continuously variable transmission. Not exactly my idea of a good time. The whole driving experience gets worse. I kept thinking, Man, why not just plop a larger battery into the Prime and turn it into a damn fine EV? Who wants 2011’s cutting-edge technology today?

[SteVTEC]

Not a PHEV fan here either. You basically need two entire drivetrains, which is too complicated, too much to go wrong, and too expensive. If you really want to save fuel or whatever, either get a regular ol hybrid the same ones Toyota has been making for 25 years now, or go full BEV and skip the in between "one foot in each door" stuff which are all compromises. I don't think BMW actually makes any of the Toyota style hybrids, which is a shame because they're practically unbeatable as far as overall energy efficiency goes. PHEV's are trying to be two different types of cars, and end up being good at neither imho.

[Humdizzle]

they each have their issues. EV's problem is still the long range issue. Especially if you do 80-90mph on the highway. there's no way im waiting at a station for 20-30 minutes or more to charge when driving home. or planning a trip around a station.

phev main issue is they say is repeated charging and complexity. most companies have some type of separate warranty on it. i think volvo is 8 years / 100k miles and if it drops under 70% before then they change it. same as tesla.

the volvo xc60 recharge i rented was silent, you couldn't tell the 4 cylinder was on.

using ev mode on a hybrid will cut down on the ice mileage / wear and tear. less maintenance. granted, its still more than an EV. but that seems like a small thing to complain about imo given the above benefits of convenience.

[kyriian]

This topic has been brought up many times in one thread

And I say this again, all of them have their own use case, buy what fits YOUR use case and leave others to make their own choice. It’s not up to you how others spend their money.
My wife’s use case fit a PHEV fully and I am looking at some PHEV to replace her F15 X5
-she drives short distances during the week, and can charge at home
-EV cost is still way too high, and any governmental supports way too lacking. Depreciation is still too high on most current EV and likely to continue as new technology keeps rendering anything today obsolete
-I don’t need to commit to installing a charger which is thousands of extra costs
-we live where temps drop below 0 for 5-6 months of the year, where an EV will lose range
-charging infrastructures here is still lacking once you step out of any major cities. But you can always find a pump
-we do odd road trips on weekends and even though it will cost more fuel to cover that cost, I am not limited to running my trip based on where I can plug in.

Of course it’s a comprimise, PHEV is always just a bridge solution until there is a clearer solution to where the future of personal transportation is going.

[BlkGS]

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read.

First of all PHEVs don't have two entire powertrains. Most of the time they're sandwiching an electric motor in with the transmission, add ing little complexity. The smaller battery dramatically cuts the cost down as well. Big wins there.

Second, you don't drive a PHEV to try to have an EV. You drive a PHEV to offset a bit of ICE use. Just like a regular hybrid, except you can charge it on your own. Personally, I don't think it makes sense to sell a hybrid that ISN'T a PHEV. Literally, just add a charging port. Admittedly some of the hybrids use small batteries and electric motors that wouldn't give much range, but even something like the powerboost f150, which is very much a regular ass hybrid, can do city speeds for a couple miles with a 1kwh battery. A PHEV with a 5kwh or 10kwh battery would cover the city driving of a lot of people really easily.

The reality is, PHEVs expose the lie of the BEV movement. It's not about using less gas. It's about money and control. PHEVs easily add the ability for many to add a lot of electric only miles without the drawbacks of having huge batteries or electric motors or all new platforms (all this adds LOTS of cost). But the EV gestapo hate them, despite them making that carbon reduction a lot easier to achieve. And that's why they really hate PHEVs, because PHEVs out the fact that they're not out here trying to reduce greenhouse gases, they're trying to bleed money out of consumers, and the environment is the lie they're using for it.

IMO, the US should end all subsidies for BEVs, and instead subsidize PHEVs.

[Efthreeoh]

I agree with BlkGS, dumbest thing I've read in a while.

The complaint about dragging around a 16kWh battery when it is empty is a bit funny when EV drag around 80kWh batteries (which are 5x heavier) at just 20% charge and need to be recharged for 30 minutes, weather depending.

IMO, the Chevrolet Volt was an engineering masterpiece (of its time) as it is as close to a pure series hybrid EV as possible. The Gen 1 got 38 miles in pure EV range and the Gen 2 got 53 miles in EV mode. Then in gas mode, unlimited miles and 5-minute recharges. The 2014 Volt weighs 500 pounds less than a current long-range Model 3.

While it is disappointing GM dropped the Voltec hybrid architecture, I like to think how far advanced GM would have moved the Voltec drive system with an additional 12 years of engineering development and with the engineering budget levels it's wasted on EV development.

Powering EV drivetrains with big heavy batteries is an antique idea, same as it was a 120 years ago. Powering EV drivetrains with on-board electrical generation using a lightweight fuel-efficient ICE not connected to the drive wheels is the correct engineering solution. Government emission regulations in support of the asinine concept of a carbon-neutral society will prevent the ideal EV hybrid solution from reaching fruition. Of course, borrowing trillions of dollars to subsidize BEV mobility and build out charging infrastructure that will be antiquated by the time it is finished, if and when the next gen (solid-state) battery (funded by those trillions of government R&D dollars), makes the most sense.

Develop an EV with unlimited range and 5-minute recharging with the existing fueling infrastructure already in place, the market will adopt it without question. Serial Hybrid technology is the way to achieve that state and it can be accomplished far sooner than the magical 600-mile, 15-minute solid-state battery (that will still be too heavy).

[Sedoy]

This is not quite as simple as just adding a charging port. If you add Level 1, customers will complain about the slow charging speed. Manufacturers would probably add Level 2, which will require extra components like inverters, liquid cooling system for the battery, and possibly a different battery chemistry to withstand faster charging and discharging rates. Next, since you have a faster discharge rate, you would upgrade the electrical motor to benefit from that. All this adds R&D, costs, new components, more complications etc... There is a reason Toyota stuck with regular hybrids for years—they didn't want to overcomplicate things with extra "hybrid plug-in" components.

Originally Posted by BlkGS

...Second, you don't drive a PHEV to try to have an EV. You drive a PHEV to offset a bit of ICE use. Just like a regular hybrid, except you can charge it on your own. Personally, I don't think it makes sense to sell a hybrid that ISN'T a PHEV. Literally, just add a charging port...

[SteVTEC]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read.

First of all PHEVs don't have two entire powertrains. Most of the time they're sandwiching an electric motor in with the transmission, add ing little complexity. The smaller battery dramatically cuts the cost down as well. Big wins there.

Second, you don't drive a PHEV to try to have an EV. You drive a PHEV to offset a bit of ICE use. Just like a regular hybrid, except you can charge it on your own. Personally, I don't think it makes sense to sell a hybrid that ISN'T a PHEV. Literally, just add a charging port. Admittedly some of the hybrids use small batteries and electric motors that wouldn't give much range, but even something like the powerboost f150, which is very much a regular ass hybrid, can do city speeds for a couple miles with a 1kwh battery. A PHEV with a 5kwh or 10kwh battery would cover the city driving of a lot of people really easily.

It's not nearly that simple.

If you have electric motors powerful enough to drive the car on its own, and batteries big enough to power the car on their own for some reasonable distance (30+ miles), and an ICE and a fuel tank to do the same thing, then yes you have two entirely separate powertrains, possibly joined at a common point. Yes it does add a lot of complexity, cost, and weight.

In comparison, the electric motors in a regular hybrid (or mild hybrid) only need to be powerful enough to augment the ICE and not run independently from it other than for low speed maneuvers, and the batteries only need to be a fraction of the size as well, something on the order of 1kWh of usable capacity. They're much more size, cost, and energy efficient all around.

Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid-Max (PHEV) barely clears 24 mpg highway because of all of the dead weight it ends up lugging around, which is hardly any better than my Suburban! The regular hybrid can hit 32 mpg, and if you look at total energy consumption is actually more energy efficient than a Kia EV9.

I prefer to look at things from a total energy consumption perspective (including grid power consumed to deliver power to "xEV's"), and every bit of weight you add to a vehicle increases its total energy consumption profile, while not necessarily making it "more efficient" than a lesser vehicle.

By the way, MotorTrend is totally in the tank for the BEV industry and puts out a lot of garbage propaganda articles, of which this is certainly one. These articles never seem to mention that a power grid run on mostly natural gas, coal, and nuclear with a net efficiency of around 40% blows the whole narrative for any "xEV" apart, and which is why I'm much more of a regular or mild hybrid fan. The systems engineering is all wrong for any xEV to truly make sense. The primary benefit is for shifting pollution out of densely populated areas (especially in Europe), but there's still direct and indirect pollution either way.

[dreamingat30fps]

My girlfriend has a Ford C-Max Plugin Hybrid for a while. Honestly it was a shitty EV and a shitty ICE. Only got a few miles of range. At that time I think it was enough for her to get to work, but not get all the way back. When the ICE kicked in that shit was dog slow.

Maybe it was the C-Max that sucked, but just turned me off PHEV.

[RM7]

The first gen Volt seemed to do pretty well, I talked to people that said they would have months where they wouldn't have to fill up, for mostly city driving, but I agree with all these arguments, that would be better as an EV-only then. There are big gains for mpg and driveability/power for mild-hybrid systems doing the work for big/initial accelerations, but that doesn't need a plug-in system. I would theorize though that cars with enough excess performance (that are more complex due to their performance) may be able to function rather well as a plug-in, but you'll be paying for that and still have more complexity.

[LuisBoston]

Originally Posted by RM7

The first gen Volt seemed to do pretty well, I talked to people that said they would have months where they wouldn't have to fill up, for mostly city driving, but I agree with all these arguments, that would be better as an EV-only then. There are big gains for mpg and driveability/power for mild-hybrid systems doing the work for big/initial accelerations, but that doesn't need a plug-in system. I would theorize though that cars with enough excess performance (that are more complex due to their performance) may be able to function rather well as a plug-in, but you'll be paying for that and still have more complexity.

The point of the editorial is that those people who went months without filling up would do well enough with an EV. Clearly they did not need the ICE complexity. Back then, public chargers were scarce to nonexistent. Today, there are plenty of public chargers to handle occasional road trips.

PHEV unnecessary. That’s what the author is getting at.

[LuisBoston]

Originally Posted by SteVTEC

It's not nearly that simple.

If you have electric motors powerful enough to drive the car on its own, and batteries big enough to power the car on their own for some reasonable distance (30+ miles), and an ICE and a fuel tank to do the same thing, then yes you have two entirely separate powertrains, possibly joined at a common point. Yes it does add a lot of complexity, cost, and weight.

In comparison, the electric motors in a regular hybrid (or mild hybrid) only need to be powerful enough to augment the ICE and not run independently from it other than for low speed maneuvers, and the batteries only need to be a fraction of the size as well, something on the order of 1kWh of usable capacity. They're much more size, cost, and energy efficient all around.

Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid-Max (PHEV) barely clears 24 mpg highway because of all of the dead weight it ends up lugging around, which is hardly any better than my Suburban! The regular hybrid can hit 32 mpg, and if you look at total energy consumption is actually more energy efficient than a Kia EV9.

I prefer to look at things from a total energy consumption perspective (including grid power consumed to deliver power to "xEV's"), and every bit of weight you add to a vehicle increases its total energy consumption profile, while not necessarily making it "more efficient" than a lesser vehicle.

By the way, MotorTrend is totally in the tank for the BEV industry and puts out a lot of garbage propaganda articles, of which this is certainly one. These articles never seem to mention that a power grid run [...]

Enough with the power grid already. Talk about spouting fossil fuel industry talking points.

The grid is getting cleaner every day. An ICE car put on the road today will be on the road for 15-20 years. That’s perpetuating the need for fossil fuels and all the intense infrastructure to support it. It’s just what the fossil fuel industry (and the autocrats who benefit from it) wants the public to be dependent on.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by SteVTEC

It's not nearly that simple.

If you have electric motors powerful enough to drive the car on its own, and batteries big enough to power the car on their own for some reasonable distance (30+ miles), and an ICE and a fuel tank to do the same thing, then yes you have two entirely separate powertrains, possibly joined at a common point. Yes it does add a lot of complexity, cost, and weight.

In comparison, the electric motors in a regular hybrid (or mild hybrid) only need to be powerful enough to augment the ICE and not run independently from it other than for low speed maneuvers, and the batteries only need to be a fraction of the size as well, something on the order of 1kWh of usable capacity. They're much more size, cost, and energy efficient all around.

Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid-Max (PHEV) barely clears 24 mpg highway because of all of the dead weight it ends up lugging around, which is hardly any better than my Suburban! The regular hybrid can hit 32 mpg, and if you look at total energy consumption is actually more energy efficient than a Kia EV9.

Your Grand Highlander comparison is comparing the gutless base hybrid to a not realistic number for the PHEV. The EPA rates the PHEV at 29 combined. That doesn't factor in the 30 something miles of electric range. That said, I don't disagree with your comments that really the fuel economy in them is unimpressive. Our Ecoboost expedition gets 21 highway with everything working against it. The big issue is that the ROI isn't there on most PHEVs. Even if we did all our around town stuff in electric only model we would never save the difference in price by charging vs gas. So it has no value to us. Were the PHEV the same price, then we would obviously get it and save a lot of ga susage over it's lifetime.

I think the other thing we have to get over is the idea that the electric drivetrain has to be responsive. It doesn't, it can be slow in a PHEV. If you want to go faster, you kick out of EV only mode. People will adapt to stay in EV mode of they want to, or won't adapt of they don't want to. Again, if the PHEV had a price parity with the gas motor then no big deal, worst case scenario you've added an energy recapture system to the vehicle.

That said, I agree, Motor trend and others have just become propaganda machines for EVs.

[c1pher]

Originally Posted by LuisBoston

The point of the editorial is that those people who went months without filling up would do well enough with an EV. Clearly they did not need the ICE complexity. Back then, public chargers were scarce to nonexistent. Today, there are plenty of public chargers to handle occasional road trips.

PHEV unnecessary. That’s what the author is getting at.

Charging locations aren’t nearly as plentiful, convenient or reliable as a gas pump. PHEV lets you charge via electricity or via the gas engine. I like that they combine the best of two technologies. I know some people who have Cayenne EHybrids who go 12-1400 miles a tank. I was actually hoping Porsche would offer a Macan EHybrid along with its EV. I will keep my GTS longer.

[Efthreeoh]

ICE require sparkplugs at 100,000 mile intervals and oil changes every 10,000 miles. Not much of a burden. Lol.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by LuisBoston

Enough with the power grid already. Talk about spouting fossil fuel industry talking points.

The grid is getting cleaner every day. An ICE car put on the road today will be on the road for 15-20 years. That’s perpetuating the need for fossil fuels and all the intense infrastructure to support it. It’s just what the fossil fuel industry (and the autocrats who benefit from it) wants the public to be dependent on.

The grid is way undersized for the exponential growth of planned data centers that's on top of EV requirements. It's not going to stay clean.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by LuisBoston

Enough with the power grid already. Talk about spouting fossil fuel industry talking points.

The grid is getting cleaner every day. An ICE car put on the road today will be on the road for 15-20 years. That’s perpetuating the need for fossil fuels and all the intense infrastructure to support it. It’s just what the fossil fuel industry (and the autocrats who benefit from it) wants the public to be dependent on.

Commerical air travel is what is and going to perpetuate the need for "fossil" fuels. Inexpensive gasoline will be a byproduct of it. To make gasoline expensive to drive the relative cost of EV ownership downwards, Governments are going to tax the everlivingshit out of gasoline and diesel. Read that as Governments are going to drastically increase the cost of driving an ICEV.

[lakefront]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Commerical air travel is what is and going to perpetuate the need for "fossil" fuels. Inexpensive gasoline will be a byproduct of it. To make gasoline expensive to drive the relative cost of EV ownership downwards, Governments are going to tax the everlivingshit out of gasoline and diesel. Read that as Governments are going to drastically increase the cost of driving an ICEV.

Then when everyone is forced to drive electric, what could possibly happen to the price of electricity?

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by lakefront

Then when everyone is forced to drive electric, what could possibly happen to the price of electricity?

To quote a past President, "... the price of elecricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

[G30M]

Originally Posted by LuisBoston

I've been of this belief for a long time, in fact before I leased my Polestar 2 in 2021 I really, really wanted a V60 T8 Recharge. But I quickly saw the limitations that a PHEV would bring: more frequent charging if I want to stay in EV mode, carrying around a second motor (ICE + EV/batteries and all the maintenance required for ICE), for what? An occasional need for a road trip.

To me, the PHEV was the compromise, and it's even more so today.

to me every PHEV has an underpowered ICE, underpowered E motor, undersized battery. lose lose lose for me. so sad for the G90 M5.

always have a hyper guzzling gas car, and EV when it suits. win- win.

[G30M]

Originally Posted by lakefront

Then when everyone is forced to drive electric, what could possibly happen to the price of electricity?

i'm hoping in that case nobody would buy petrol and i would fill up my V8 for cheap ... but i doubt that will happen *sigh

[LuisBoston]

I just want an i5 Touring.

That’s all.