[patentatt]

As a recent PHEV purchaser, I have to disagree on most counts. All typical driving is fully electric, meaning routine commuting, shopping, etc. is all covered by the battery. The home charger is required, but so so simple because it fully charges off a normal (15A) circuit overnight. So it's literally just plugged in to a normal wall outlet. No big deal. Sure you're lugging around the ICE, but it has a much smaller and lighter battery compared to an all electric. Id be curious to see what the real weights involved are, but it's not like you're adding an ICE to a full electric battery. The thing still gets 46mpg even when the battery is depleted, which is better than any other ICE car I've ever had. And there is no transmission in the electric power train as far as I can tell, if there is it's seamless. As for maintenance costs, we'll see. I suspect your analysis will be at least partially correct, having the two independent drive trains and the system to combine them seems like a minefield of long term maintenance. But that was the risk I was willing to take given all of the other benefits.