[credit_guy]

Range could be a reason too. EV's have a decent range nowadays, but in wintertime the range could decrease dramatically. With an ICE you always know what your range is.

A hybrid can give the best of both worlds. A hybrid with a battery range of 50 miles can reduce your ICE usage by a factor of 10 easily (the vast majority of trips are shorter than that). But a lot of people think that reducing emissions by only 90% is not enough. With this you get to the full 100%.

[AtlasBarfed]

Well, ICEs do drop in range in winter. Not as much as a BEV, and I believe some of the BEV range loss was the HVAC which has improved.

I too think the 50 mile hybrid would have been a game changer. In an ideal world, 10 years after the Prius release (1997?) in 2007 the US government mandated a 50 mile all-electric range PHEV for all consumer cars.

But now the car companies face a choice: invest in a BEV drivetrain, or invest in a PHEV drivetrain. Almost all will do the BEV, because CEOs that don't get fired (see: BMW, VW, etc).