Given your willingness to stick to the facts I would have hoped that you would be be supportive of plugin hybrids.
Given the current high cost and energy intensity of batteries, it is important that they are used efficiently. Unfortunately this is not the case with most full EVs. The batteries typically have a range many times greater than the daily commute. It is a bit like having a smartphone with a massive 8 day battery. Full EVs make sense in towns and cities in commercial vehicles, where batteries are used efficiently on a daily basis and charging is readily available. In other situations they are suboptimal.
Toyota have done a useful analysis showing how using scarce batteries more efficiently in hybrids and plug-in hybrids is a far more effective way of reducing emissions that switching to full electric.
A crucial advantage of plug-in hybrids is that they can be charged off a regular plug and there is no need to install a high speed charging network. This means they can be used in any part of any country.
This is a very important point. Using less battery in a plug-in hybrid makes it cheaper and gives it longer range and less weight as well as not requiring a built out charging network. Right now only 10% of new cars are electric, imagine if that went to 90% tomorrow. If all those new cars are PHEVs emissions would decrease and no great change would be needed (more electricity used for overnight charging), but if they were BEVs the existing charging networks would be overrun and there would be long wait times. It will take many years to build out charging networks. Even home charging to be effective for BEV needs to be several kilowatts and this huge increase would stress neighborhood electricity demand. Not only that, there would soon be a shortage of lithium, cobalt and nickel for all the new batteries and until mines and refineries are expanded the price would spike and those cars would be much more expensive. Something that works well at small scale can cause huge problems when scaled and most EV promoters completely ignore this problem.
Another problem with full EVs is that widespread domestic fast charging would put significant strain on distribution networks, especially when you taken into account the need to replace fossil fuel heating with heat pumps. The electricity demand in a typical house and neighbour would require substantial upgrades to the electricity distribution networks, at least in the UK. Upgrading the distribution networks, which were not built for this much higher required demand, will be extremely expensive and take decades.
Just to put a personal spin on Andrew's point, I owned and drove a Nissan Leaf for years and because our daily driving range was small, I was able to charge it from a 120 V wall socket. With a different electrification strategy (namely, encouraging people to use low-cost, low-speed vehicles for local trips) we could arguably make faster progress toward a BEV future without installing a high-speed charging network. The idea that every vehicle sold needs to have a range of hundreds of miles is pervasive. But I think here in the United States with federal and state rebates we've been missing the opportunity to subsidize the low end of the market to drive down the cost of BEVs to below $10,000 now (taking a $20,000 vehicle to $10,000); instead, we've been subsidizing the high end of the market (taking a $75,000 vehicle to $65,000). Anyway, appreciate the comments about plug-in hybrids and I understand that the majority view that they are superior in many ways at the current moment to BEVs.
I've always thought it should make a lot of sense for two car families to have a low-range ev for their second car. That way the use case of rare long-distance trips is covered by the other (fossil) car and a lot of daily driving can switch to electric. So many people talk about their one long trip per year preventing them from going electric, but there's a lot of people out there with two fossil cars in the driveway.
I guess the idea of the PHEV is to combine this approach into one vehicle, but personally I'd be put off buying one because it has similarly high up-front cost to an EV, without the advantage of reduced mechanical complexity from getting rid of the engine.
This is pretty much why we chose to get a PHEV. We had dropped down to one car and did not think we could replace it with an EV. I agree that if you need two cars anyway it makes sense now to get a low range EV as your second car rather than a PHEV.
Yeah, especially if your usage pattern is that you frequently commute with just one adult in the car, but sometimes do things with two adults plus kids in the car. Then you can have your large SUV for family use, and your EV for commuting.
There is a decent chance I get a PHEV with my next car purchase, even though I don't have a place to plug it in, because they aren't much more expensive than a regular hybrid.
I am not from US, from my understanding there is subsidy for used EV in the inflation reduction act. Main reason for including this subsidy was to lower the price of an EV. To your point it's not a brand new EV or under $10,000 but still gives an option for people who want a affordable EV.
Dont know if anyone will see this but i think the point 'Unfortunately this is not the case with most full EVs. The batteries typically have a range many times greater than the daily commute...' doesn't imply that hybrids are better in that area. Research (eg. icct https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/real-world-phev-use-jun22-1.pdf) I've seen shows that drivers of hybrids use electricity only around 50% of the time. So for a fair comparison you should compare the lifetime emissions of a hybrid with 50% of km using oil, against the lifetime emissions of an EV.
Also, I think that toyota link is a bit misleading. it implies that 'The overall carbon reduction of those 90 hybrids over their lifetimes is 37 times as much as a single battery electric vehicle'. This is not true. It might be true for the emissions from material extraction/refining but that is only a portion of emissions. There is still the emissions from driving, and creating the car. See here what i consider a pretty trusworthy source for the emissions for ICE vs BEV. (If you consider a hybrid driving 50% on oil, then you can imagine how the bar for that would look): https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle
Since this is “sustainability by numbers,” it’s important to look at the vehicle miles traveled, not just ownership numbers. The typical household uses their car 30 miles/day. As a result, it is far more sustainable to have a plug-in hybrid vehicle for one’s everyday driving, as these vehicles can be charged at home with a 110-outlet (thus reducing demand from the grid) and use far fewer rare earth minerals in their smaller (but still powerful and sufficient) batteries. PHEVs are a key enabler of the democratization of electric vehicle ownership and are purpose-built for everyday needs. This article needs to be edited to consider the real world uses of the PHEVs and BEVs.
I agree with your assessment. Many BEV devotees are often critical that plug-in hybrids are dragging around an engine most of the time forget that BEVs are dragging around 300 miles of battery capacity that they seldom use or need, i.e. a Model Y Tesla is heavier than my RAV4 Prime.
I would like to offer one clarification. Rare-earth elements, e.g., neodymium, are used in the magnets of the electric motors not the batteries. Some of the materials in batteries, e.g, lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, are more scarce than common materials like steel and aluminum but are not considered "rare-earth" elements.
A large % of BEV batteries no longer use cobalt and less or no manganese and nickel mainly in the casing as part of the stainless steel. The batteries have transitioned to LiFeP, which are 20% or so cheaper to make, but have ~80-85% of the capacity of LiMnCo batteries. Some high end (ie $100k +) EV do still use the LiMnCo batteries.
I've noticed her in the UK that many PHEVs are used by Uber and other taxi forms and also business drivers. This is partly because the UK government gave grants to promote the purchase of "electric" vehicles. Not long after came reports that many owners were never plugging them in. This make sense for vehicles that are probably used for at least 8 hours a day, when most private cars are probably used for about 1h per day on average. This means that the emissions savings will be much less and also shows that private owner of motor vehicles unsustainable and a gross waste of resources and space. Alternatives need to be found + and quickly.
Using a PHEV in without ever plugging it in may give mean a cut in emissions of maybe 10% over an ICE car, but is less than using an HEV. Half of UK new car purchases are company cars. They get tax breaks, but I'm not sure if they ever qualified for the PHEV grant, which was scrapped in 2018.
I was surprised when a friend took a job in the UK, ages ago, and part of the deal was a company provided car. (He was surprised, too, but it was a deal sweetener.) I thought it was just the custom. I hadn't considered that there was a tax policy behind it.
It's not something I've studied and the regulations are now really complex, but the government does favour EVs (see part 6 in the link below). I suspect that, on top of the benefits to employers and employees, the former will be able to secure discounts from car dealers that individuals can't, buying several cars at a time and maybe on a rolling basis.
See comments above; there's no difference in ability to charge a plug-in hybrid versus a BEV from a 120 V outlet to provide 30 miles of driving per day. I owned a Nissan Leaf and did that. When I later bought a Volt, I had to buy fuel and the gasoline engine had to come on periodically to ensure the engine would continue to work reliably. (I also discovered that the Volt also had a design flaw that ran the engine whenever the temperature was low, which was pretty much all winter here in Maine.) So in many use cases, a plug-in hybrid simply wastes time and money and creates unnecessary pollution compared to a BEV.
Hi Fred, your point is exactly what we're hoping to elevate here. We shouldn't be making value judgements based on ownership alone. It's how you use the technology and in what context that matters more.
Good discovery about Europe, but the real question is why? Is it primarily a tax play as another commenter mentioned? Or cost and availability of pure EVs? Or perhaps limited charging options, misunderstanding of benefits of a pure EV, etc? Some sort of survey or poll of hybrid owners would be really helpful I think.
Plug-in hybrids absolutely should be included. Based on lifecycle emission's analysis, they are often as "green" as BEVs.
I recommend checking out the comparative tool at https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore . In general, BEVS have the lowest lifecycle emissions followed by Plug-in Hybrids, Hybrids and then ICE vehicles. We should be encouraging everyone to find the car with the lowest emissions that meets their needs. I drive a Toyota RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid and put over 2100 miles on my last tank of gas.
Can you elaborate what value you see in reporting electrification statistics that include plug-in hybrids with BEVs? In my view, it's better to lump together all vehicles that require gasoline to function, all vehicles that require diesel to function, and all vehicles that can run on electricity alone. Conventional, non-plug-in hybrids, and plug-in hybrids all require batteries, electric motors, fuel tanks, fuel pumps, engines, transmissions, and exhaust systems, plus fueling infrastructure. BEVs eliminate everything except the batteries and electric motors. I think that's the key thing we need to be keeping track of: how much time and money do we need to allocate to support the fueling requirement. At some point we're going to need to have a plan for closing down fueling stations; plug-in hybrids simply prolong the transition period for no real benefit that I can see.
I believe comparing total lifecycle CO2 emissions (cradle-to-grave) for vehicles is the right metric for comparing the relative merits of a vehicle. BEVs are not zero emission vehicles. There is energy and emissions associated with the manufacture of the vehicle, the batteries and the electricity to charge the vehicle and then disposal. Not everyone or every region in the country is ready for 100% adoption of electric vehicles due to lack of charging infrastructure. Further, if you consider the supply of critical minerals like lithium to be a limiting factor, you can build several plug-in hybrids with the same amount of lithium it takes for one BEV. Because they have similar lifecycle emissions, you have gotten several times the benefit in reduced overall emissions. I am basically reinforcing Andrew's points with data based on scientific analysis.
I further believe that there are people who will resist switching to a full electric vehicle for various reasons including range anxiety and that plug-in hybrids might be a good transition vehicles for them with nearly the same emission benefits as a full electric vehicle. I think Toyota has it right that offering diverse options as we transition is just as effective and beneficial as trying to force the issue, e.g. see Anton's link.
Gasoline and especially diesel are not going away in the next few decades. Most trucks, vans, construction equipment are not available in any electric powered versions and won’t be anytime soon. All the stats on the percentage of electric cars don’t mention the large number of ICE cars that still remain. Even a new electric car won’t reduce emissions if it’s not completely replacing an existing ICE car (which now last over 20 years and 200,000 miles). Even unwanted ones in US, Europe and Japan are exported to developing countries which have subsidized fuel availability. As more BEVs are made the price of batteries and motors will rise because of how long it takes to develop mineral supplies while since petroleum demand declines it’s price will go down, which will further move more buyers toward cars with engines. I don’t expect the number of roadway charging stations to exceed the number of gas stations for decades, at least in the US.
Check out the stats Hannah has published based on the IEA data, which do mention the large number of ICE cars that remain. A new electric car will reduce emissions because people don't have enough money to buy a new electric car AND a new gas car. The more new electric cars a person buys, the fewer new ICE cars that person buys. I'm willing to bet that as more BEVs are made, the price of batteries and motors will decline because of economies of scale and competitive pressures. And I think your prediction of roadway charging stations not exceeding the number of gas stations for decades will be wrong by a factor of approximately 100%, depending on how you count "roadway charging stations." Already, there are vastly more electric plugs than gas pumps -- you can recharge a BEV overnight from any outlet.
In the US, at least, most people commute by automobile, and their commute is rarely more than 50 miles round trip. They have a garage, carport or at least a driveway for parking next to their house. They almost always have a 120V hookup and usually have a 220V three phase outlet. If they typically charge overnight, they could easily go for months without burning gasoline.
The most common use case gives them all the benefit of an EV. When they travel farther, they get the benefit of existing gasoline infrastructure and the same or better range as a gasoline only car. Since hybrids run the engine at an optimized speed when charging the battery, they tend to get good mileage. They even do better with the less common use case involving long range travel.
If they had two cars, one a short range EV and one burning fossil fuel, we'd all be better off if they commuted and ran local errands with the EV and saved the fossil fuel car for road trips. A hybrid effectively gives you a very nice mixed strategy with overall benefits.
Good points. Just a couple additional observations / thoughts.
1) In the US most residential electrical connections are single split phase 240 V, not three phase 220 V. There are two "hot" wires and one neutral wire. Connecting the two hot wires gives you a potential difference of 240 V. Connecting either of the two hot wires to neutral gives you 120 V. A transformer steps down voltage from one of the phases of the local distribution power grid. In rural areas, distribution poles will often have just one wire so there is no opportunity to get three phase power. In urban areas, most poles have all three phases so businesses can get three-phase power if they want. Few residences have three-phase power because there is no compelling reason to get it, especially now that most motors are electronically commutated.
2) Perhaps newer plug-in hybrids would allow owners to go months without burning gasoline, but the plug-in hybrids I have owned have all burned gasoline more frequently, even when being used for short trips. Occasionally firing up the engine is touted as a feature not a bug, since engines that sit idle for long periods can have reliability problems. (Gas-powered generators have the same issue -- most of them require occasionally firing them up just to make sure they will work when you need them.)
3) Whether incentivizing people to buy plug-in hybrids is a good or bad strategy depends on how quickly you'd like to achieve the goal of transitioning from a fuel-burning infrastructure to a sustainable electric infrastructure. My view is that allocating capital in 2023 to buying new equipment that burns fossil fuel is a bad idea. We already have plenty of vehicles on the road that burn fossil fuel, so if people aren't ready to make the switch to EV, they have options in the used vehicle market. I know some modeling disagrees with me, but in my analysis the sooner we get to 100% of new vehicles sales being all electric, the sooner we will be able to stop burning fossil fuel. But I appreciate that I am in the minority with this viewpoint. In policy discussions I've seen, most people say they believe that hybrids cars are a good idea. I'm guessing that will change in the next five years as battery prices decline and BEVs become much more affordable than hybrids, but for now there is relative price parity between hybrids and BEVs.
Very misleading---paragraph 3 of "What is a plug-in hybrid" You need to say "What is the electric range of a plug-in hybrid vs. an all electric car?" You make it sound like a plug-in hybrid has very little range. "Range anxiety" is a big problem with all electric! A plug in hybrid has a lot of range---way more than the comparable all-electric. 40-50 miles (all electric) will get most people around all day. And if you go on a longer trip or cannot recharge overnite you have the IC engine backing you up---extending your range a significant amount! And if you need to refuel it is way more convenient and way faster than hunting for a charger---just zip in and "fill-er-up"!
My parents are about to drop down to being a one car household for the first time in decades - if it takes a plug in hybrid rather than BEV to get them to do that, then I’m all for it (they just got solar panels so are excited about driving for free)
It is also important to note that people don’t buy cars forever. They change in ten years or so. The following article discusses why hybrid vehicles are better than electric vehicles (EVs) for the environment and the cost in India. It cites a research paper from IIT Kanpur that compares the emissions and the total cost of ownership of EVs, hybrids, and petrol cars over a 10-year period. The paper finds that hybrids have lower emissions and lower cost than EVs, especially if they get similar subsidies from the government.
I wonder how much of the discrepancy is on the supply side? I know that in Canada is it vey difficult to get your hands on a PHEV. And I suspect those buyers are then reverting to regular hybrids and ICE vehicles rather than EVs.
This is true, Toyota sells the most number of HEV and PHEV in Canada and the supply is very constrained. Although it has improved a lot. Nearly 40-45% all new Toyota sold this year will be electrified(HEV+PHEV+BEV) and some 50-55% of Lexus. Toyota prioritizes Quebec and British Columbia for it's PHEV. Meanwhile in Ontario the Hybrids get sold the most because wait times for Rav4 Prime and Prius Prime is very long.
Hannah, I'd love to get your view on whether it would be more useful to group together all vehicles that have a fuel tank, engine, transmission, etc. (which includes conventional ICE, hybrid ICE, and plug-in ICE) to compare against vehicles that do not have these components in them. I understand the argument that plug-in hybrids are currently a good option for many people, but to me it seems like the important statistic to capture is how many vehicles need to burn fuel to function versus how many do not. I owned a plug-in hybrid (a Volt) and a BEV (an e-Golf), and at least for me, the ownership and driving experience of the plug-in hybrid was very similar to all of the fuel-burning cars I've ever owned. BEV is a different experience. There are also many public policy considerations raised when you're no longer buying fuel for transportation. My personal view is that lumping together plug-in hybrids with BEVs is NOT that useful for any sort of analysis that I've been interested in. But again, I'm curious to know if you see any value in that grouping versus grouping together vehicles based on whether they require fuel or not.
Usually, the car crashes, then the battery catches fire as a result of damage from the crash. It's a lot like gas tank fires. They burn hot and they can be hard to put out. Lithium battery fires are worse because fire crews aren't always ready for them.
I don’t know how scientifically true, however, climate conditions factor needs to be considered.
Hybrid battery new or replacement price play major role in international market and political uncertainty also influences where imports of Lithium-ion (Li-ion), Nickel Manganese cobalt (NMC), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Sulphur (Li-S), and Lead-Acid are critical.
Given your willingness to stick to the facts I would have hoped that you would be be supportive of plugin hybrids.
Given the current high cost and energy intensity of batteries, it is important that they are used efficiently. Unfortunately this is not the case with most full EVs. The batteries typically have a range many times greater than the daily commute. It is a bit like having a smartphone with a massive 8 day battery. Full EVs make sense in towns and cities in commercial vehicles, where batteries are used efficiently on a daily basis and charging is readily available. In other situations they are suboptimal.
Toyota have done a useful analysis showing how using scarce batteries more efficiently in hybrids and plug-in hybrids is a far more effective way of reducing emissions that switching to full electric.
A crucial advantage of plug-in hybrids is that they can be charged off a regular plug and there is no need to install a high speed charging network. This means they can be used in any part of any country.
https://www.teslarati.com/toyota-defends-ev-strategy/
This is a very important point. Using less battery in a plug-in hybrid makes it cheaper and gives it longer range and less weight as well as not requiring a built out charging network. Right now only 10% of new cars are electric, imagine if that went to 90% tomorrow. If all those new cars are PHEVs emissions would decrease and no great change would be needed (more electricity used for overnight charging), but if they were BEVs the existing charging networks would be overrun and there would be long wait times. It will take many years to build out charging networks. Even home charging to be effective for BEV needs to be several kilowatts and this huge increase would stress neighborhood electricity demand. Not only that, there would soon be a shortage of lithium, cobalt and nickel for all the new batteries and until mines and refineries are expanded the price would spike and those cars would be much more expensive. Something that works well at small scale can cause huge problems when scaled and most EV promoters completely ignore this problem.
Another problem with full EVs is that widespread domestic fast charging would put significant strain on distribution networks, especially when you taken into account the need to replace fossil fuel heating with heat pumps. The electricity demand in a typical house and neighbour would require substantial upgrades to the electricity distribution networks, at least in the UK. Upgrading the distribution networks, which were not built for this much higher required demand, will be extremely expensive and take decades.
You can charge a full electric off a wall socket as well. Only difference is the battery is bigger so takes longer to get a full change.
Just to put a personal spin on Andrew's point, I owned and drove a Nissan Leaf for years and because our daily driving range was small, I was able to charge it from a 120 V wall socket. With a different electrification strategy (namely, encouraging people to use low-cost, low-speed vehicles for local trips) we could arguably make faster progress toward a BEV future without installing a high-speed charging network. The idea that every vehicle sold needs to have a range of hundreds of miles is pervasive. But I think here in the United States with federal and state rebates we've been missing the opportunity to subsidize the low end of the market to drive down the cost of BEVs to below $10,000 now (taking a $20,000 vehicle to $10,000); instead, we've been subsidizing the high end of the market (taking a $75,000 vehicle to $65,000). Anyway, appreciate the comments about plug-in hybrids and I understand that the majority view that they are superior in many ways at the current moment to BEVs.
I've always thought it should make a lot of sense for two car families to have a low-range ev for their second car. That way the use case of rare long-distance trips is covered by the other (fossil) car and a lot of daily driving can switch to electric. So many people talk about their one long trip per year preventing them from going electric, but there's a lot of people out there with two fossil cars in the driveway.
I guess the idea of the PHEV is to combine this approach into one vehicle, but personally I'd be put off buying one because it has similarly high up-front cost to an EV, without the advantage of reduced mechanical complexity from getting rid of the engine.
This is pretty much why we chose to get a PHEV. We had dropped down to one car and did not think we could replace it with an EV. I agree that if you need two cars anyway it makes sense now to get a low range EV as your second car rather than a PHEV.
Yeah, especially if your usage pattern is that you frequently commute with just one adult in the car, but sometimes do things with two adults plus kids in the car. Then you can have your large SUV for family use, and your EV for commuting.
There is a decent chance I get a PHEV with my next car purchase, even though I don't have a place to plug it in, because they aren't much more expensive than a regular hybrid.
I am not from US, from my understanding there is subsidy for used EV in the inflation reduction act. Main reason for including this subsidy was to lower the price of an EV. To your point it's not a brand new EV or under $10,000 but still gives an option for people who want a affordable EV.
Dont know if anyone will see this but i think the point 'Unfortunately this is not the case with most full EVs. The batteries typically have a range many times greater than the daily commute...' doesn't imply that hybrids are better in that area. Research (eg. icct https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/real-world-phev-use-jun22-1.pdf) I've seen shows that drivers of hybrids use electricity only around 50% of the time. So for a fair comparison you should compare the lifetime emissions of a hybrid with 50% of km using oil, against the lifetime emissions of an EV.
Also, I think that toyota link is a bit misleading. it implies that 'The overall carbon reduction of those 90 hybrids over their lifetimes is 37 times as much as a single battery electric vehicle'. This is not true. It might be true for the emissions from material extraction/refining but that is only a portion of emissions. There is still the emissions from driving, and creating the car. See here what i consider a pretty trusworthy source for the emissions for ICE vs BEV. (If you consider a hybrid driving 50% on oil, then you can imagine how the bar for that would look): https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle
I guess you can easily find comparitive emissions of BEV vs hybrids and it would show something like what i described, but just slamming a chart like this down would spoil the fun https://theicct.org/publication/ghg-benefits-incentives-ev-mar22/.
I would be interested to see if there are any studies which goes against my intuition.
Since this is “sustainability by numbers,” it’s important to look at the vehicle miles traveled, not just ownership numbers. The typical household uses their car 30 miles/day. As a result, it is far more sustainable to have a plug-in hybrid vehicle for one’s everyday driving, as these vehicles can be charged at home with a 110-outlet (thus reducing demand from the grid) and use far fewer rare earth minerals in their smaller (but still powerful and sufficient) batteries. PHEVs are a key enabler of the democratization of electric vehicle ownership and are purpose-built for everyday needs. This article needs to be edited to consider the real world uses of the PHEVs and BEVs.
I agree with your assessment. Many BEV devotees are often critical that plug-in hybrids are dragging around an engine most of the time forget that BEVs are dragging around 300 miles of battery capacity that they seldom use or need, i.e. a Model Y Tesla is heavier than my RAV4 Prime.
I would like to offer one clarification. Rare-earth elements, e.g., neodymium, are used in the magnets of the electric motors not the batteries. Some of the materials in batteries, e.g, lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, are more scarce than common materials like steel and aluminum but are not considered "rare-earth" elements.
A large % of BEV batteries no longer use cobalt and less or no manganese and nickel mainly in the casing as part of the stainless steel. The batteries have transitioned to LiFeP, which are 20% or so cheaper to make, but have ~80-85% of the capacity of LiMnCo batteries. Some high end (ie $100k +) EV do still use the LiMnCo batteries.
Do you have a reference? An IEA report claims that LiNMC batteries were 60% of the market in 2022. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/trends-in-batteries
I've noticed her in the UK that many PHEVs are used by Uber and other taxi forms and also business drivers. This is partly because the UK government gave grants to promote the purchase of "electric" vehicles. Not long after came reports that many owners were never plugging them in. This make sense for vehicles that are probably used for at least 8 hours a day, when most private cars are probably used for about 1h per day on average. This means that the emissions savings will be much less and also shows that private owner of motor vehicles unsustainable and a gross waste of resources and space. Alternatives need to be found + and quickly.
1) Hybrids still get better mileage than non-hybrids.
2) Relatively few people are Uber drivers.
Using a PHEV in without ever plugging it in may give mean a cut in emissions of maybe 10% over an ICE car, but is less than using an HEV. Half of UK new car purchases are company cars. They get tax breaks, but I'm not sure if they ever qualified for the PHEV grant, which was scrapped in 2018.
I was surprised when a friend took a job in the UK, ages ago, and part of the deal was a company provided car. (He was surprised, too, but it was a deal sweetener.) I thought it was just the custom. I hadn't considered that there was a tax policy behind it.
It's not something I've studied and the regulations are now really complex, but the government does favour EVs (see part 6 in the link below). I suspect that, on top of the benefits to employers and employees, the former will be able to secure discounts from car dealers that individuals can't, buying several cars at a time and maybe on a rolling basis.
https://www.moneydonut.co.uk/tax/payroll-and-benefits/essential-guide-to-company-cars-and-tax
See comments above; there's no difference in ability to charge a plug-in hybrid versus a BEV from a 120 V outlet to provide 30 miles of driving per day. I owned a Nissan Leaf and did that. When I later bought a Volt, I had to buy fuel and the gasoline engine had to come on periodically to ensure the engine would continue to work reliably. (I also discovered that the Volt also had a design flaw that ran the engine whenever the temperature was low, which was pretty much all winter here in Maine.) So in many use cases, a plug-in hybrid simply wastes time and money and creates unnecessary pollution compared to a BEV.
Hi Fred, your point is exactly what we're hoping to elevate here. We shouldn't be making value judgements based on ownership alone. It's how you use the technology and in what context that matters more.
Good discovery about Europe, but the real question is why? Is it primarily a tax play as another commenter mentioned? Or cost and availability of pure EVs? Or perhaps limited charging options, misunderstanding of benefits of a pure EV, etc? Some sort of survey or poll of hybrid owners would be really helpful I think.
Great point. Or possibly country level electricity prices? Norway has very cheap electricity compared to southern Europe right now.
Plug-in hybrids absolutely should be included. Based on lifecycle emission's analysis, they are often as "green" as BEVs.
I recommend checking out the comparative tool at https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore . In general, BEVS have the lowest lifecycle emissions followed by Plug-in Hybrids, Hybrids and then ICE vehicles. We should be encouraging everyone to find the car with the lowest emissions that meets their needs. I drive a Toyota RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid and put over 2100 miles on my last tank of gas.
If you want to learn even more about the tradeoffs, I recommend analysis and reports by the folks at Argonne National Laboratory, e.g. https://greet.es.anl.gov/publication-c2g_lca_us_ldv and a shorter, more consumable report at https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/21003-life-cycle-ghg-emissions-small-suvs.pdf .
Can you elaborate what value you see in reporting electrification statistics that include plug-in hybrids with BEVs? In my view, it's better to lump together all vehicles that require gasoline to function, all vehicles that require diesel to function, and all vehicles that can run on electricity alone. Conventional, non-plug-in hybrids, and plug-in hybrids all require batteries, electric motors, fuel tanks, fuel pumps, engines, transmissions, and exhaust systems, plus fueling infrastructure. BEVs eliminate everything except the batteries and electric motors. I think that's the key thing we need to be keeping track of: how much time and money do we need to allocate to support the fueling requirement. At some point we're going to need to have a plan for closing down fueling stations; plug-in hybrids simply prolong the transition period for no real benefit that I can see.
I believe comparing total lifecycle CO2 emissions (cradle-to-grave) for vehicles is the right metric for comparing the relative merits of a vehicle. BEVs are not zero emission vehicles. There is energy and emissions associated with the manufacture of the vehicle, the batteries and the electricity to charge the vehicle and then disposal. Not everyone or every region in the country is ready for 100% adoption of electric vehicles due to lack of charging infrastructure. Further, if you consider the supply of critical minerals like lithium to be a limiting factor, you can build several plug-in hybrids with the same amount of lithium it takes for one BEV. Because they have similar lifecycle emissions, you have gotten several times the benefit in reduced overall emissions. I am basically reinforcing Andrew's points with data based on scientific analysis.
I further believe that there are people who will resist switching to a full electric vehicle for various reasons including range anxiety and that plug-in hybrids might be a good transition vehicles for them with nearly the same emission benefits as a full electric vehicle. I think Toyota has it right that offering diverse options as we transition is just as effective and beneficial as trying to force the issue, e.g. see Anton's link.
Gasoline and especially diesel are not going away in the next few decades. Most trucks, vans, construction equipment are not available in any electric powered versions and won’t be anytime soon. All the stats on the percentage of electric cars don’t mention the large number of ICE cars that still remain. Even a new electric car won’t reduce emissions if it’s not completely replacing an existing ICE car (which now last over 20 years and 200,000 miles). Even unwanted ones in US, Europe and Japan are exported to developing countries which have subsidized fuel availability. As more BEVs are made the price of batteries and motors will rise because of how long it takes to develop mineral supplies while since petroleum demand declines it’s price will go down, which will further move more buyers toward cars with engines. I don’t expect the number of roadway charging stations to exceed the number of gas stations for decades, at least in the US.
Check out the stats Hannah has published based on the IEA data, which do mention the large number of ICE cars that remain. A new electric car will reduce emissions because people don't have enough money to buy a new electric car AND a new gas car. The more new electric cars a person buys, the fewer new ICE cars that person buys. I'm willing to bet that as more BEVs are made, the price of batteries and motors will decline because of economies of scale and competitive pressures. And I think your prediction of roadway charging stations not exceeding the number of gas stations for decades will be wrong by a factor of approximately 100%, depending on how you count "roadway charging stations." Already, there are vastly more electric plugs than gas pumps -- you can recharge a BEV overnight from any outlet.
In the US, at least, most people commute by automobile, and their commute is rarely more than 50 miles round trip. They have a garage, carport or at least a driveway for parking next to their house. They almost always have a 120V hookup and usually have a 220V three phase outlet. If they typically charge overnight, they could easily go for months without burning gasoline.
The most common use case gives them all the benefit of an EV. When they travel farther, they get the benefit of existing gasoline infrastructure and the same or better range as a gasoline only car. Since hybrids run the engine at an optimized speed when charging the battery, they tend to get good mileage. They even do better with the less common use case involving long range travel.
If they had two cars, one a short range EV and one burning fossil fuel, we'd all be better off if they commuted and ran local errands with the EV and saved the fossil fuel car for road trips. A hybrid effectively gives you a very nice mixed strategy with overall benefits.
Good points. Just a couple additional observations / thoughts.
1) In the US most residential electrical connections are single split phase 240 V, not three phase 220 V. There are two "hot" wires and one neutral wire. Connecting the two hot wires gives you a potential difference of 240 V. Connecting either of the two hot wires to neutral gives you 120 V. A transformer steps down voltage from one of the phases of the local distribution power grid. In rural areas, distribution poles will often have just one wire so there is no opportunity to get three phase power. In urban areas, most poles have all three phases so businesses can get three-phase power if they want. Few residences have three-phase power because there is no compelling reason to get it, especially now that most motors are electronically commutated.
2) Perhaps newer plug-in hybrids would allow owners to go months without burning gasoline, but the plug-in hybrids I have owned have all burned gasoline more frequently, even when being used for short trips. Occasionally firing up the engine is touted as a feature not a bug, since engines that sit idle for long periods can have reliability problems. (Gas-powered generators have the same issue -- most of them require occasionally firing them up just to make sure they will work when you need them.)
3) Whether incentivizing people to buy plug-in hybrids is a good or bad strategy depends on how quickly you'd like to achieve the goal of transitioning from a fuel-burning infrastructure to a sustainable electric infrastructure. My view is that allocating capital in 2023 to buying new equipment that burns fossil fuel is a bad idea. We already have plenty of vehicles on the road that burn fossil fuel, so if people aren't ready to make the switch to EV, they have options in the used vehicle market. I know some modeling disagrees with me, but in my analysis the sooner we get to 100% of new vehicles sales being all electric, the sooner we will be able to stop burning fossil fuel. But I appreciate that I am in the minority with this viewpoint. In policy discussions I've seen, most people say they believe that hybrids cars are a good idea. I'm guessing that will change in the next five years as battery prices decline and BEVs become much more affordable than hybrids, but for now there is relative price parity between hybrids and BEVs.
Very misleading---paragraph 3 of "What is a plug-in hybrid" You need to say "What is the electric range of a plug-in hybrid vs. an all electric car?" You make it sound like a plug-in hybrid has very little range. "Range anxiety" is a big problem with all electric! A plug in hybrid has a lot of range---way more than the comparable all-electric. 40-50 miles (all electric) will get most people around all day. And if you go on a longer trip or cannot recharge overnite you have the IC engine backing you up---extending your range a significant amount! And if you need to refuel it is way more convenient and way faster than hunting for a charger---just zip in and "fill-er-up"!
My parents are about to drop down to being a one car household for the first time in decades - if it takes a plug in hybrid rather than BEV to get them to do that, then I’m all for it (they just got solar panels so are excited about driving for free)
It is also important to note that people don’t buy cars forever. They change in ten years or so. The following article discusses why hybrid vehicles are better than electric vehicles (EVs) for the environment and the cost in India. It cites a research paper from IIT Kanpur that compares the emissions and the total cost of ownership of EVs, hybrids, and petrol cars over a 10-year period. The paper finds that hybrids have lower emissions and lower cost than EVs, especially if they get similar subsidies from the government.
https://finshots.in/archive/your-ev-could-be-hurting-the-world-and-your-pocket/
I wonder how much of the discrepancy is on the supply side? I know that in Canada is it vey difficult to get your hands on a PHEV. And I suspect those buyers are then reverting to regular hybrids and ICE vehicles rather than EVs.
This is true, Toyota sells the most number of HEV and PHEV in Canada and the supply is very constrained. Although it has improved a lot. Nearly 40-45% all new Toyota sold this year will be electrified(HEV+PHEV+BEV) and some 50-55% of Lexus. Toyota prioritizes Quebec and British Columbia for it's PHEV. Meanwhile in Ontario the Hybrids get sold the most because wait times for Rav4 Prime and Prius Prime is very long.
Plug in hybrids are just a tax dodge. Many people don’t actually get the charge cable out of the box.
People figure out they can save on tax buying a phev, but can't figure out they can save money on petrol by plugging it in?
Probably the same number of BEV owners buy them as a second car and continue to drive their main SUV instead.
Great stuff, Hannah! I linked it here:
https://www.libertyrpf.com/i/128834946/liberty-labs
Keep up the good work 💚 🥃
I wonder if there are any stats on how many of each of those are the users only car vs have more than one, and what type the other vehicles are?
Theory: if you only have one car, it’s more likely to be a PHEV, if you have an IC other vehicle, it’s more likely to be a BEV.
Hannah, I'd love to get your view on whether it would be more useful to group together all vehicles that have a fuel tank, engine, transmission, etc. (which includes conventional ICE, hybrid ICE, and plug-in ICE) to compare against vehicles that do not have these components in them. I understand the argument that plug-in hybrids are currently a good option for many people, but to me it seems like the important statistic to capture is how many vehicles need to burn fuel to function versus how many do not. I owned a plug-in hybrid (a Volt) and a BEV (an e-Golf), and at least for me, the ownership and driving experience of the plug-in hybrid was very similar to all of the fuel-burning cars I've ever owned. BEV is a different experience. There are also many public policy considerations raised when you're no longer buying fuel for transportation. My personal view is that lumping together plug-in hybrids with BEVs is NOT that useful for any sort of analysis that I've been interested in. But again, I'm curious to know if you see any value in that grouping versus grouping together vehicles based on whether they require fuel or not.
There are many incidents of battery burst or sudden fire after extreme heat, where vehicle or passenger cannot escape such fire.
Usually, the car crashes, then the battery catches fire as a result of damage from the crash. It's a lot like gas tank fires. They burn hot and they can be hard to put out. Lithium battery fires are worse because fire crews aren't always ready for them.
I don’t know how scientifically true, however, climate conditions factor needs to be considered.
Hybrid battery new or replacement price play major role in international market and political uncertainty also influences where imports of Lithium-ion (Li-ion), Nickel Manganese cobalt (NMC), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Sulphur (Li-S), and Lead-Acid are critical.