As always a great post and I cannot argue with the facts as laid out. But (and the following is valid, if at all, only in the USA, where I live) I think you leave out the range anxiety issue. Data point of 1: I used to own two ICE vehicles. I sold one and replaced it with a BEV. On my first long trip I ran into broken chargers, chargers that would not read my card, and wildly fluctuating remaining-range estimates on my dashboard (insert here obligatory "Should have gotten a Tesla!" comment). Unsettling. I kept the BEV but replaced ICE #2 with a PHEV. I have had the PHEV (Prius Prime) for half a year. I have taken TWO long trips in it, and indeed then it runs on gasoline (~50 MPG). For 100% of the rest of the time (and I do mean 100%) I charge it. Range anxiety gone. None of what I have written does anything to change the facts you have laid out, but I wanted to highlight the motivation (at least for me) for buying one, that was not emphasized in your post, which stressed mostly the supply side, not the demand side. Purists will (correctly!) argue that we should be 100% BEV (or FCEV). I agree. But the best can be the enemy of the good. I have persuaded 3 people I know to swap an ICE for a PHEV, 3 people who would not have bought a BEV. Was this not a good thing to do? Would a vegan dissuade an omnivore from becoming a vegetarian, because being a vegan is the best outcome?
The main advantage of PHEV is their flexibility for when reliable charging infrastructure is not available but people still want some cost savings from an electric drive train. This is the very scenario our household is facing. Living in an older building, it may take several years before we have individual charging available in our parking spots, so a BEV is basically out of the question. There is also a general lack of charging available in the areas surrounding our city here in eastern Ontario, as much of the territory is quite rustic. A PHEV hedges that there may be better charging available in the lifespan of the car, but still operates for those unavoidable long range drives. Much much better charging infrastructure and ranges (at least 600km) are needed to make BEVs viable in geographicallly dispersed, low density areas.
Great work as always. Re: “Many standards have vastly underestimated the fuel consumption, efficiency rating, and carbon emissions of PHEVs because they are too optimistic about how often drivers recharge and run on electric power”, the one factor you didn’t discuss is the availability of public charging. I have to say, as as PHEV driver, it really stinks right now, in my area (Northern Virginia) and I’m sure, many other places. While I hear comments about how it’s getting better, but I see it happening too slowly in the US with too little government involvement and incentives. We have to invest in this infrastructure, especially for those who don’t have sufficient personal garage space.
I very much appreciate the information. I’d driven a Prius Hybrid from 2004-2019 when the big battery died. Replaced it in 2020 with Prius PHEV (I had a 2nd Prius so traded 2 for 1). Toyota still wanted that dead battery. My office is 4 miles away but we can work from home. Most other places are about the same distance away here in my US suburb. I plug in nightly and get approx. 30 battery miles. Rare trips away we have gas option so almost all battery usage. Few plug in options here and you get the occasional non-EV vehicle blocking the chargers or vandalism . The US is creeping along this journey but hope to one day get an EV.
I continue to believe that plug-in hybrids have their place in the transportation transition, especially in the U.S. where we are so diverse in geography and ideology. One size does not fit all and will not for a long time.
Maybe I'm biased. I live in Albuquerque, NM and drive a RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid. I charge it every night and almost always get over 100 miles per gallon, sometimes close to 200. I did this without hardly any loss in functionality or need for charging infrastructure. If we could go straight to all EVs across the U.S. that would be great but I just don't think it is realistic and I think it is more realistic to offer people options that have almost the same carbon footprint as an EV.
Isn't it also the case that fully electric is so far only for people that live in individual houses with a driveway? For the rest of us living in apartment, there's usually no good solution to charge a BEV daily. You could also travel to countries where there is not enough charging stations. So PHEV may be the best choice for a large share of the population.
By the way, I wonder if carbon footprint of an individual house (especially the extra road required + commute) could exceed any savings from going electric.
Whether a BEV is an option does depend on availability of charging, but I can’t charge at home and a combo of destination, plus (very infrequently) on-street, charging works fine for me. Not saying it’ll work for everyonr, but you really just need to have a sort of minimum penetration of diverse charging options. I’d say a PHEV is actually worse because you do need to charge it more often. So if you run into a bad charger or you are out in a charging desert for a day, you have no choice but to run on petrol. A BEV has a more comfortable buffer.
For travel, that depends where you go. I can’t think of any location *I’d* drive to in Europe where I wouldn’t be able to charge, admittedly sometimes at cost of convenience or price (if you’re relying on fast charging, it gets expensive quickly).
Consider if you’re taking a PHEV on a road trip you’re just running it on petrol the whole way. So if you are worried about co2 impact, doesn’t seem the way to go.
Just a quick reply Wim, I am actually driving a PHEV in Corsica and I cannot find a single charger that works. Or the plug is a different one. So I'm forced to drive on petrol but the whole rest of the year I'm using electric at home.
That’s more an issue of running costs. If charging from home electricity the running costs are usually very low. Whereas public charging usually raises the running cost of an electric vehicle. But in most cases the running costs are still not as high as for gasoline. And when the purchase cost for the battery electric car fall below the gasoline car… then the battery car is still cheaper.
Charging availability is pretty good in most European countries. There’s relatively few places where finding chargers is a real issue. Unless you’re living somewhere truly remote and wild it’s probably fine.
I’ve been tracking the carbon footprint resulting from the natural gas and electricity usage of our house as well as the footprint of our car. In 2023 our house was responsible for 15,605 pounds (7079 kg) of CO2 emissions. Our hybrid car, at 35 miles/gallon (14.88 km/liter) and driven 20,000 miles (32,187 km) caused 11,400 pounds (5171 kg) of CO2 emissions. An EV such as a Tesla 3 is estimated to have a carbon footprint of about 6000 pounds (2721 kg) if driven 20,000 miles.
Here are my takeaways from this:
1) The carbon emissions of a car can approach the emissions attributed to natural gas and electricity usage in a house.
2) Switching to an EV can significantly reduce carbon emissions but, as you implied Joannes, the house would be responsible for significantly more CO2 emissions than the EV.
3) On a personal note, if we are really serious about reducing our carbon footprint, my wife and I should move into an apartment.
Here's a note from New Nuclear is HOT! on achieving an auto energy transition.
PLUG-IN HYBRID CAR GRADUALISM
Plug-in hybrid autos use a quarter of the production-limiting battery materials of EVs. A typical plug-in can travel 44 miles on electricity before burning gasoline at 50 miles per gallon; 50% of commuter trips can be made without switching on the internal combustion (IC) engine at all. Estimated emissions savings are only two-thirds those of a fully electric EV, but the auto industry can make four times as many vehicles with the same, expensive, constraining battery materials.
Plug-ins can meet the needs of commuters and shoppers, without range anxiety. Today’s EV drivers typically own an IC vehicle, which they drive more than the EV, avoiding the anxiety of finding a working charging station. A plug-in owner may not want a second, IC auto at all.
Driving with home-priced electricity can be cheaper than driving with gasoline. Plug-ins can be gradually charged overnight from a 120 VAC socket. The U.S. would not have to install a half million fast charging stations costing ~ $100,000 each, totaling ~ $50 billion. As neighborhoods adopt plug-ins, utilities can gradually upgrade distribution transformers and lines, and eventually transmission and power generation services.
Something now mentioned in the article is the difficulty of home charging a BEV. You can't fully charge it overnight on 110 volt power while you can with a plug in. Also if the battery runs out on the road you are SOL.
A friend of mine gets 100 mpg with his plug in. That's 2.5x what I am getting with my hybrid. My plan formulated in 2005 was to get a hybrid as my next car, then a plug in, and a BEV in the mid 2030's when I figured chargers would be plentiful.
But these hybrids are really lasting a long time. If they last long enough we might not for a plug in and BEV. We only have a one car garage an one outside electrical outlet.
I have a 2017 Prius Prime. While it will get 55+ mpg on the road on gas, my average over ~ 80K miles is a combined mpg rating of > 90 mpg. I live ~ 15 miles from the shopping area, so I have to use some gas in addition to the electric for my trip to town and when I visit my nearby kids, I have a round trip of about 90 miles - far beyond my electric range. But if I visit my daughter in Utah, I am looking at a 950 mile trip - which I can easily do in a day with gas, but never could with a BEV and its charging time. Frankly, I would love a 100 mile electric range, I would hardly ever use gas, but the car is paid for and is likely to last the rest of my driving lifetime, so the issue is moot.
On the mining front - it’s timeframe that really matters. Ie will we have enough materials by x date to electrify y% of vehicles without substantially driving up EV prices
Just a note - there are some forms of driving that an EV will NEVER support due to charging time issues. I grew up in a hard driving family, our typical vacation driving day was 10 to 12 hours - and we did not stop to eat, we gassed up every 4 hours and used the toilet then as well. We made and ate sandwiches in the car while driving. And I remember some trips when the kids all had licenses where we rotated drivers and never really stopped. We would always make it from the DC area to central Kansas to see the grandparents in a single day's drive, even in winter. I am in my 70's now and have slowed down and reduced my driving range - but if the route is on an interstate and I won't hit rush hour at a major city, I still can cover ~ 900 miles a day. EV's don't do that - and are unlikely to ever reliably do so given charging network issues.
John, I hear you and grew up with similar long distance road trip vacation experiences. In the USA, especially western states with long miles with not much in between, my wife and I (both retired) still will make one two to three week long, extended mileage road trip every 12 to 18 months. The first day’s drive is usually 650 to 825 miles. Leave at 4:30 am, rotate drivers, pre-make our food and eat while driving. All other driving is around town errands and 95 percent of that is 35 miles or less. If we were to trade in one or both ICE cars (we buy and drive to the grave) on a PHEV, charge at home off of rooftop solar, it’s quite possible we’d only be buying gasoline once or twice per year, except for that long road trip where a full EV is not an option. Vehicle energy costs and footprint would plummet. Side note: I’ve read a few articles that state for situations like ours, buy a full EV and rent a ICE for the road trip, but considering some of the dirt roads I’ve gone down, I’d bring it back in pieces.
Here in Australia , I wanted the Cupra , Formentor and waited a further 12 mths to source the PHEV. I plus in overnight to my normal hone power point. Run most of the year on cheap home electricity and then when touring I charge each night again at strip motel power outlets. But have no need to visit barren , sparsely place , expensive fast chargers. So My phev has converted me from the real sports car I was buying to the mostly electric ownership I’ll now have for 10 years while you argue. If I’d been a city driver rather than regional then EV could be considered or if I’d needed another complex project in my life when I wanted to go touring but no my easy life is PHEV.
Not sure if you’d seen this data, but in the EU at least PHEVs performing badly due to driver behaviour:
“For plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the real-world CO2 emissions were on average 3.5 times higher than the laboratory values, which confirms that these vehicles are currently not realising their potential, largely because they are not being charged and driven fully electrically as frequently as assumed.”
I wonder if there’s a composition issue with existing PHEV buyers as in they didn’t exactly know why they bought one. Maybe there’s an educational component that’s missing. Usually money talks so why aren’t people plugging at home? Maybe because they can’t or as mentioned it’s a work vehicle and they don’t pay for the gas.
I love my 2014 Chevy Volt. It is silent and quick. I rarely use my brakes due to the regenerative motor braking. I only fuel it 4-5 times a year. Lifetime, between the previous owner and me, it has gotten 192 mpg. Since I’ve owned it, I have gotten 347 mpg. On average, my electric bill has been about $25-$30 more a month since I’ve owned it.
On the other, I can't believe you can run a whole post on (plug-in) hybrids vs. full-on electric cars without bringing up the main worry: places that have gas but not chargers for electric cars (which is, obviously, very much not the same as having electricity). Maybe it's not common in the US, but the world doesn't end there.
(The opposite worry - absence of gas stations while chargers are present - is much less substantiated, since you can drive a gas canister with you and probably will in a world where that is a worry; on the other hand, charging from a 220V socket, even when possible (and not all cars seem to allow this) is, AFAIK, simply too slow for such a scenario, not to mention not covering your typical "stuck in the middle of nowhere".)
“Most countries will need to add significant battery storage to the grid anyway; why not utilise the cars sitting idle in peoples’ driveways?”
Except that most people dont have driveways but live in cities with restricted parking spaces, no garages etc. seems like suburban dream only still exist in environmentalist eyes when they have to use it as an argument for demand side power management.
As always a great post and I cannot argue with the facts as laid out. But (and the following is valid, if at all, only in the USA, where I live) I think you leave out the range anxiety issue. Data point of 1: I used to own two ICE vehicles. I sold one and replaced it with a BEV. On my first long trip I ran into broken chargers, chargers that would not read my card, and wildly fluctuating remaining-range estimates on my dashboard (insert here obligatory "Should have gotten a Tesla!" comment). Unsettling. I kept the BEV but replaced ICE #2 with a PHEV. I have had the PHEV (Prius Prime) for half a year. I have taken TWO long trips in it, and indeed then it runs on gasoline (~50 MPG). For 100% of the rest of the time (and I do mean 100%) I charge it. Range anxiety gone. None of what I have written does anything to change the facts you have laid out, but I wanted to highlight the motivation (at least for me) for buying one, that was not emphasized in your post, which stressed mostly the supply side, not the demand side. Purists will (correctly!) argue that we should be 100% BEV (or FCEV). I agree. But the best can be the enemy of the good. I have persuaded 3 people I know to swap an ICE for a PHEV, 3 people who would not have bought a BEV. Was this not a good thing to do? Would a vegan dissuade an omnivore from becoming a vegetarian, because being a vegan is the best outcome?
The main advantage of PHEV is their flexibility for when reliable charging infrastructure is not available but people still want some cost savings from an electric drive train. This is the very scenario our household is facing. Living in an older building, it may take several years before we have individual charging available in our parking spots, so a BEV is basically out of the question. There is also a general lack of charging available in the areas surrounding our city here in eastern Ontario, as much of the territory is quite rustic. A PHEV hedges that there may be better charging available in the lifespan of the car, but still operates for those unavoidable long range drives. Much much better charging infrastructure and ranges (at least 600km) are needed to make BEVs viable in geographicallly dispersed, low density areas.
Great work as always. Re: “Many standards have vastly underestimated the fuel consumption, efficiency rating, and carbon emissions of PHEVs because they are too optimistic about how often drivers recharge and run on electric power”, the one factor you didn’t discuss is the availability of public charging. I have to say, as as PHEV driver, it really stinks right now, in my area (Northern Virginia) and I’m sure, many other places. While I hear comments about how it’s getting better, but I see it happening too slowly in the US with too little government involvement and incentives. We have to invest in this infrastructure, especially for those who don’t have sufficient personal garage space.
I very much appreciate the information. I’d driven a Prius Hybrid from 2004-2019 when the big battery died. Replaced it in 2020 with Prius PHEV (I had a 2nd Prius so traded 2 for 1). Toyota still wanted that dead battery. My office is 4 miles away but we can work from home. Most other places are about the same distance away here in my US suburb. I plug in nightly and get approx. 30 battery miles. Rare trips away we have gas option so almost all battery usage. Few plug in options here and you get the occasional non-EV vehicle blocking the chargers or vandalism . The US is creeping along this journey but hope to one day get an EV.
I continue to believe that plug-in hybrids have their place in the transportation transition, especially in the U.S. where we are so diverse in geography and ideology. One size does not fit all and will not for a long time.
A recent survey reported 82% of Republicans would not consider buying an electric car, https://goodauthority.org/news/elon-musk-politics-problematic-tesla-trump-election/ , but maybe they are willing to buy a hybrid or plug-in hybrid. Anything that we can do to limit the amount of CO2 emissions is a win.
Maybe I'm biased. I live in Albuquerque, NM and drive a RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid. I charge it every night and almost always get over 100 miles per gallon, sometimes close to 200. I did this without hardly any loss in functionality or need for charging infrastructure. If we could go straight to all EVs across the U.S. that would be great but I just don't think it is realistic and I think it is more realistic to offer people options that have almost the same carbon footprint as an EV.
This Ramcharger is a neat concept and it may very well fill a niche that would otherwise go to an ICE version
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/first-look-2025-ram-1500-ramcharger.html
Thanks Hannah.
Isn't it also the case that fully electric is so far only for people that live in individual houses with a driveway? For the rest of us living in apartment, there's usually no good solution to charge a BEV daily. You could also travel to countries where there is not enough charging stations. So PHEV may be the best choice for a large share of the population.
By the way, I wonder if carbon footprint of an individual house (especially the extra road required + commute) could exceed any savings from going electric.
Whether a BEV is an option does depend on availability of charging, but I can’t charge at home and a combo of destination, plus (very infrequently) on-street, charging works fine for me. Not saying it’ll work for everyonr, but you really just need to have a sort of minimum penetration of diverse charging options. I’d say a PHEV is actually worse because you do need to charge it more often. So if you run into a bad charger or you are out in a charging desert for a day, you have no choice but to run on petrol. A BEV has a more comfortable buffer.
For travel, that depends where you go. I can’t think of any location *I’d* drive to in Europe where I wouldn’t be able to charge, admittedly sometimes at cost of convenience or price (if you’re relying on fast charging, it gets expensive quickly).
Consider if you’re taking a PHEV on a road trip you’re just running it on petrol the whole way. So if you are worried about co2 impact, doesn’t seem the way to go.
Just a quick reply Wim, I am actually driving a PHEV in Corsica and I cannot find a single charger that works. Or the plug is a different one. So I'm forced to drive on petrol but the whole rest of the year I'm using electric at home.
That’s more an issue of running costs. If charging from home electricity the running costs are usually very low. Whereas public charging usually raises the running cost of an electric vehicle. But in most cases the running costs are still not as high as for gasoline. And when the purchase cost for the battery electric car fall below the gasoline car… then the battery car is still cheaper.
Charging availability is pretty good in most European countries. There’s relatively few places where finding chargers is a real issue. Unless you’re living somewhere truly remote and wild it’s probably fine.
I’ve been tracking the carbon footprint resulting from the natural gas and electricity usage of our house as well as the footprint of our car. In 2023 our house was responsible for 15,605 pounds (7079 kg) of CO2 emissions. Our hybrid car, at 35 miles/gallon (14.88 km/liter) and driven 20,000 miles (32,187 km) caused 11,400 pounds (5171 kg) of CO2 emissions. An EV such as a Tesla 3 is estimated to have a carbon footprint of about 6000 pounds (2721 kg) if driven 20,000 miles.
Here are my takeaways from this:
1) The carbon emissions of a car can approach the emissions attributed to natural gas and electricity usage in a house.
2) Switching to an EV can significantly reduce carbon emissions but, as you implied Joannes, the house would be responsible for significantly more CO2 emissions than the EV.
3) On a personal note, if we are really serious about reducing our carbon footprint, my wife and I should move into an apartment.
Here's a note from New Nuclear is HOT! on achieving an auto energy transition.
PLUG-IN HYBRID CAR GRADUALISM
Plug-in hybrid autos use a quarter of the production-limiting battery materials of EVs. A typical plug-in can travel 44 miles on electricity before burning gasoline at 50 miles per gallon; 50% of commuter trips can be made without switching on the internal combustion (IC) engine at all. Estimated emissions savings are only two-thirds those of a fully electric EV, but the auto industry can make four times as many vehicles with the same, expensive, constraining battery materials.
Plug-ins can meet the needs of commuters and shoppers, without range anxiety. Today’s EV drivers typically own an IC vehicle, which they drive more than the EV, avoiding the anxiety of finding a working charging station. A plug-in owner may not want a second, IC auto at all.
Driving with home-priced electricity can be cheaper than driving with gasoline. Plug-ins can be gradually charged overnight from a 120 VAC socket. The U.S. would not have to install a half million fast charging stations costing ~ $100,000 each, totaling ~ $50 billion. As neighborhoods adopt plug-ins, utilities can gradually upgrade distribution transformers and lines, and eventually transmission and power generation services.
Something now mentioned in the article is the difficulty of home charging a BEV. You can't fully charge it overnight on 110 volt power while you can with a plug in. Also if the battery runs out on the road you are SOL.
A friend of mine gets 100 mpg with his plug in. That's 2.5x what I am getting with my hybrid. My plan formulated in 2005 was to get a hybrid as my next car, then a plug in, and a BEV in the mid 2030's when I figured chargers would be plentiful.
But these hybrids are really lasting a long time. If they last long enough we might not for a plug in and BEV. We only have a one car garage an one outside electrical outlet.
I have a 2017 Prius Prime. While it will get 55+ mpg on the road on gas, my average over ~ 80K miles is a combined mpg rating of > 90 mpg. I live ~ 15 miles from the shopping area, so I have to use some gas in addition to the electric for my trip to town and when I visit my nearby kids, I have a round trip of about 90 miles - far beyond my electric range. But if I visit my daughter in Utah, I am looking at a 950 mile trip - which I can easily do in a day with gas, but never could with a BEV and its charging time. Frankly, I would love a 100 mile electric range, I would hardly ever use gas, but the car is paid for and is likely to last the rest of my driving lifetime, so the issue is moot.
On the mining front - it’s timeframe that really matters. Ie will we have enough materials by x date to electrify y% of vehicles without substantially driving up EV prices
Just a note - there are some forms of driving that an EV will NEVER support due to charging time issues. I grew up in a hard driving family, our typical vacation driving day was 10 to 12 hours - and we did not stop to eat, we gassed up every 4 hours and used the toilet then as well. We made and ate sandwiches in the car while driving. And I remember some trips when the kids all had licenses where we rotated drivers and never really stopped. We would always make it from the DC area to central Kansas to see the grandparents in a single day's drive, even in winter. I am in my 70's now and have slowed down and reduced my driving range - but if the route is on an interstate and I won't hit rush hour at a major city, I still can cover ~ 900 miles a day. EV's don't do that - and are unlikely to ever reliably do so given charging network issues.
John, I hear you and grew up with similar long distance road trip vacation experiences. In the USA, especially western states with long miles with not much in between, my wife and I (both retired) still will make one two to three week long, extended mileage road trip every 12 to 18 months. The first day’s drive is usually 650 to 825 miles. Leave at 4:30 am, rotate drivers, pre-make our food and eat while driving. All other driving is around town errands and 95 percent of that is 35 miles or less. If we were to trade in one or both ICE cars (we buy and drive to the grave) on a PHEV, charge at home off of rooftop solar, it’s quite possible we’d only be buying gasoline once or twice per year, except for that long road trip where a full EV is not an option. Vehicle energy costs and footprint would plummet. Side note: I’ve read a few articles that state for situations like ours, buy a full EV and rent a ICE for the road trip, but considering some of the dirt roads I’ve gone down, I’d bring it back in pieces.
Here in Australia , I wanted the Cupra , Formentor and waited a further 12 mths to source the PHEV. I plus in overnight to my normal hone power point. Run most of the year on cheap home electricity and then when touring I charge each night again at strip motel power outlets. But have no need to visit barren , sparsely place , expensive fast chargers. So My phev has converted me from the real sports car I was buying to the mostly electric ownership I’ll now have for 10 years while you argue. If I’d been a city driver rather than regional then EV could be considered or if I’d needed another complex project in my life when I wanted to go touring but no my easy life is PHEV.
Not sure if you’d seen this data, but in the EU at least PHEVs performing badly due to driver behaviour:
“For plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the real-world CO2 emissions were on average 3.5 times higher than the laboratory values, which confirms that these vehicles are currently not realising their potential, largely because they are not being charged and driven fully electrically as frequently as assumed.”
https://climate.ec.europa.eu/news-your-voice/news/first-commission-report-real-world-co2-emissions-cars-and-vans-using-data-board-fuel-consumption-2024-03-18_en
Here’s hoping for a lovely comment section :)
I wonder if there’s a composition issue with existing PHEV buyers as in they didn’t exactly know why they bought one. Maybe there’s an educational component that’s missing. Usually money talks so why aren’t people plugging at home? Maybe because they can’t or as mentioned it’s a work vehicle and they don’t pay for the gas.
I love my 2014 Chevy Volt. It is silent and quick. I rarely use my brakes due to the regenerative motor braking. I only fuel it 4-5 times a year. Lifetime, between the previous owner and me, it has gotten 192 mpg. Since I’ve owned it, I have gotten 347 mpg. On average, my electric bill has been about $25-$30 more a month since I’ve owned it.
On one hand, a great post.
On the other, I can't believe you can run a whole post on (plug-in) hybrids vs. full-on electric cars without bringing up the main worry: places that have gas but not chargers for electric cars (which is, obviously, very much not the same as having electricity). Maybe it's not common in the US, but the world doesn't end there.
(The opposite worry - absence of gas stations while chargers are present - is much less substantiated, since you can drive a gas canister with you and probably will in a world where that is a worry; on the other hand, charging from a 220V socket, even when possible (and not all cars seem to allow this) is, AFAIK, simply too slow for such a scenario, not to mention not covering your typical "stuck in the middle of nowhere".)
“Most countries will need to add significant battery storage to the grid anyway; why not utilise the cars sitting idle in peoples’ driveways?”
Except that most people dont have driveways but live in cities with restricted parking spaces, no garages etc. seems like suburban dream only still exist in environmentalist eyes when they have to use it as an argument for demand side power management.