| While I'm not the commenter that you are replying to, I do drive a plug-in hybrid. I find fuel economy is worse if you don't heavily utilise the electric side, and on-the-road cost is more than a straight petrol engine version of the same car, with less boot storage space as well, as the battery takes up space (and space where a spare tyre now cannot be), although it can make economic sense due to some taxes being less. (e.g. BIK tax rate of ~8-10% vs ~25-30%). You'll only really get good fuel economy if you are plugging it in to charge every night, and doing a correspondingly suitable amount of daily miles. And if you're plugging the car in overnight every night... you might as well just get a full BEV anyway. The whole plug-in hybrid thing just feels like a tax dodge (either because it take advantage of perverse incentives, or works around low emission schemes), or a halfway house for people who aren't yet ready to make the jump to a BEV. For me, even driving one (for the aforementioned financial considerations), I feel the reasons to buy/drive a plug in hybrid don't really make sense from any other point-of-view, and at this stage my next car is most likely to be a BEV. |
Regenerative breaking is a huge MPG win and you can't do that without being Hybrid.