[baumy]

This is completely false. I own one. It goes up to the low 80s mph before the gas engine kicks in. Acceleration from a stop is sub 6 second 0-60. Hardly weak. Charges from fully empty to full in about 2.5 hours.

Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range. I drive 10-12k miles per year, and ignoring extended multi-day vacation road trips once every couple years, I fill up the tank 2-3 times per year.

[armadsen]

My experience with my Prius PHEV is the same. I don’t even have a level 2 charger. I just plug it in in the garage overnight, and most days I don’t use any gas.

The only time the ICE turns on before my EV range is up is if I hit the windshield defrost button when it’s cold. That’s presumably to prioritize getting heat out through the vents quickly. I’ve never accelerated fast enough, nor gone fast enough to trigger the ICE engine taking over. It’s straight up an EV for my first ~40 miles every day.

[r00fus]

I rented a BYD M9 PHEV minivan while on vacation in Cancun, Mexico and other than the vehicle winning over my family in, like 2 days, the mileage was amazing. 1000km range, of which, 180km was battery (that's 520mi of gas + 100mi battery range).

PHEVs in the US are gimped by poor regulatory incentives - we should be forcing manufacturers to increase overall range + EV range. If this model were sold in the US by a US manufacturer, I bet the ranges would be halved (and still considered good/decent in comparison to existing alternatives).

[jader201]

> Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range.

That sounds like the real issue, vs. EVs. This sounds like you basically have to plug it in every time you park it. And there’s no way you could do any sort of (even small) road trip without using gas.

(For comparison, our EV6 has about 200-250 mile range, and we charge it about once a week or so, give or take, unless we take a road trip.)

Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles.

[dalyons]

> This sounds like you basically have to plug it in every time you park it. And there’s no way you could do any sort of (even small) road trip without using gas.

Yep, so people (mostly) don’t , in aggregate:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

[Marsymars]

> Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles.

I keep seeing this repeated, but I kept a detailed decade-plus spreadsheet of maintenace costs for my last ICE car, and ~2/3 of the costs were for components that are common to EVs.

[jader201]

1. Maintenance isn’t just about cost. It’s about the number of things that move and/or need fluids, and can fail/leak. It’s about dealing with service centers trying to upsell you on every little possible thing that could go wrong.

When I take my EV in, it’s for one of two things: I need my tires rotated, or I need new tires. That’s it. There’s no “curtsy inspection” that comes back with literally 40 different things that I could have done to it.

2. Our household has four vehicles: one EV, three ICE vehicles. There’s no way the occasional new tires (rotations are free where we bought our tires) amount to 2/3 the cost of the maintenance needed on our ICE vehicles. It’s probably closer to 1/10.

I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV.

[Marsymars]

> I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV.

I'm not doing any estimating, I kept a detailed spreadsheet of every dollar I put into the car, and am familiar with which items are common to an EV.

[jader201]

> and am familiar with which items are common to an EV.

This is the overestimating I was referring to. I think you’re either mistaken in what items are common to EV, or you’re overestimating the cost of those items.

There is only one thing that needs maintenance on an EV: tires.

Unless you’re saying that tires amount to 2/3 of an ICE vehicles maintenance. In which case you may want to shop around for more reasonably priced tires.

[socialcommenter]

Not the person you replied to, but I'm not sure how you arrived here. Brakes, coolant, washer fluid, diff oil, gearbox oil, cabin air filter, wiper blades. Did you know EV motors can also require oil changes (at hundreds of thousands of miles, in fairness)?

Nice Michelins for my ICE have been something resembling 1/3 of service costs. Not 2/3 but not negligible either.

[cityofdelusion]

ICE maintenance is pretty cheap, with the exception of tires, which are a huge outlay (but also the most important safety item!). My Honda only needs $35 of oil/filter once a year, maybe $40 of brake pads once in 80,000 miles, and a burned out bulb for a few bucks. Top tires all around though, easily $600-$800. A few one time things around the 100k mile mark, maybe plugs/sparkys/belt or similar, but not regular in any sense, most cars will only have them ever done once.

[Marsymars]

You can see my post from a few months ago where I list all the non-ICE-specific maintenance costs from my spreadsheet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45629438

[devmor]

I think you also might be overestimating what the average ICE owner has to take care of.

Most Americans don’t keep a car long enough to even pay it off - they’re in an endless loop of trade-ins, meaning that most non-accident damage is covered by warranty.

I’ve had my current ICE car for just over 5 years now and finally paid my first out of pocket repair cost: $40 for a new washable air filter. Other than that, my expenditures have been tires and a couple hundred bucks in oil changes that I didn’t want to do myself.

[jader201]

> I think you also might be overestimating what the average ICE owner has to take care of.

> Most Americans don’t keep a car long enough to even pay it off - they’re in an endless loop of trade-ins, meaning that most non-accident damage is covered by warranty.

No, I think you may be underestimating. According to this article [1] at least, it’s close to 13 years. That’s well into large/costly maintenance items.

Maybe on HN, people don’t keep their cars long enough to need new brakes or transmission flush, but that’s not typical.

[1] https://www.spglobal.com/automotive-insights/en/blogs/2025/0...

> I’ve had my current ICE car for just over 5 years now and finally paid my first out of pocket repair cost: $40 for a new washable air filter.

Repairs are only a subset of maintenance. Maintenance includes oil changes, brakes, transmission flushes, etc.

All of this is part of the maintenance that ICE vehicles need that EVs don’t.

[devmor]

Vehicle age != ownership duration. The used car market is thriving and aftermarket warranties are a huge part of this.

I also clearly mentioned maintenance in my post - you chose to quote the sentence before it, leaving it out and then respond as if I hadn’t.

Please don’t engage me with this kind of dishonest conversation. It’s a waste of both our time.

[anon7000]

Curious for the big examples. Some major things EVs don’t have: oil changes, belts/chains, transmissions, most things related to the engine & drive train are different… seems like the main similarities would be tires, brakes, body work, amenities.

[kalleboo]

No the GP, but in the 10 years of owning my ICE vehicle I've had these things serviced:

Oil change/Oil filter, Spark plugs, Alternator belt, Aircon belt, Brake pads, Brake fluid, Wiper blades, Wiper fluid, 12V battery, Tyres, an accessory fuse, a jammed seatbelt buckle. Two of the power locks are a bit sticky and probably need a touch-up of oil.

The first 4 are ICE-only, and brake pads are worn less if you mostly use regen. The rest are the same on EVs.

[freetime2]

And by far the biggest cost of car ownership (for new cars at least) is depreciation. And EVs depreciate rapidly - enough to offset the costs of oil changes I imagine. And I actually like bringing my car into the dealer twice a year for service. I get to wander around and check out what's new, eat some free snacks, shoot the breeze with my dealer about what's happening in the industry, and then spend the rest of the time on my laptop. Maybe this is sad to admit, but I actually kind of look forward to it.

That being said, if you're in the market for a used EV right now, that depreciation actually works in your favor. I was looking at prices on used luxury EVs recently, and have to admit I was pretty tempted by some 2-3 year old cars selling at less than half MSRP.

[3eb7988a1663]

That is the point of a PHEV. Just enough battery to cover the daily commute. Plug it in each night, and M-F you could use zero gas.

[rssoconnor]

Not that I'm disagreeing with your main point, but I will say that Toyota's hybrid design is one of the best ICE engines out there. The transmission is replaced with planetary gears and the starter and alternators are replaced with a pair of motors to control the throttle and continuously variable transmission, making it one of the gentlest engine designs out there.

But yes, there is engine oil to be replaced and whatnot.

And also, to your point, my experience with my PHEV is my short range driving is electric, but it turns out most of my miles is consumed by annual long range trips. If I commuted to work, things would tip more in favour of EV driving. All to say how much EV you get out of your PHEV will depend highly on the type of driving one does.

[riku_iki]

> Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range. That sounds like the real issue, vs. EVs. This sounds like you basically have to plug it in every time you park it. And there’s no way you could do any sort of (even small) road trip without using gas.

> (For comparison, our EV6 has about 200-250 mile range, and we charge it about once a week or so, give or take, unless we take a road trip.)

its gasoline car. You use 45miles for every day commute while charging overnight, and use gas for roadtrips: 500 miles range + 3 mins put gas into car

[dalyons]

Toyotas hybrid uses gas when you accelerate hard to get that 0-60, it’s a combined system horsepower. Unlike phevs, EREVs are only driven by the electric drive, and the gas system is a series generator, so the EV is fully capable & always doing 100% of the work. PHEVs fundamentally aren’t.

Anyway, the real world data from PHEV usage shows you are the outlier, most people don’t bother plugging them in regularly due to their limitations.

[baumy]

Again, false. You can clearly hear when the combustion engine kicks in and it's indicated in the dash. I can floor it in electric mode and it still gets up to 60 in around 6 seconds, no gas involved. Hybrid mode is probably slightly faster but it's a very marginal difference.

I don't believe your last statement because you've been wrong about everything else, and it doesn't make sense. Plugging it in is exactly as easy as literally any electric car, and it simply doesn't have the limitations you claim it does.

I don't know what you've been reading, but you should evaluate the veracity of it as a source and talk to actual owners. I know several others who have one and we're all quite happy with them and don't get gas often

[dalyons]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

“ The researchers attributed most of the gap to overestimates of the “utility factor” – the ratio of miles travelled in electric mode to the total miles travelled – finding that 27% of driving was done in electric mode even though official estimates assumed 84%. ”

Perhaps the rav4 prime @ 41ml max ev range is a better system than all the other low range PHEVs like it, and has better real world usage data than them. I doubt it though, but I don’t have the data on just the rav.

[wanderr]

0 mention of rav4 in this article which seems to be about European cars.

[dalyons]

European registered cars. The RAV4 PHEV is a popular car in Europe so is assuredly well represented in this data set of 800,000 phevs.

[freetime2]

It's an interesting article - thanks for sharing! The original report is worth reading too. [1]

I agree with the premise. The "utility factor" used to estimate fuel efficiency for PHEVs does not line up with real-world data, which effectively creates a loophole to avoid emissions regulations and keep selling gas guzzlers. This is a problem, and should be fixed.

In regards to which cars are most to blame:

> Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW account for the lion’s share of fines avoided over the past three years, together responsible for 89% of the total.

This is a recent trend where luxury carmakers are using PHEVs to circumvent emissions regulations. The latest BMW M5 [2], for example, is a PHEV with a monster 4.4L V8 engine. Car enthusiasts actually hate it compared to the old model because the hybrid system increased the weight by 1000 lbs. But making it a PHEV is probably the only way that BMW is still able to sell a V8. It seems kind of stupid all around.

The RAV4 PHEV is also a big, heavy (4,500 lb) car with a large (by European standards) 2.5L engine. But I would hesitate to lump it in with luxury cars from BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, etc. I would also hesitate to apply findings from a European study to the US market, where large gasoline cars are currently very popular (not that every discussion needs to be about the US - but the RAV4 is the best selling car in the US so it's important to that market). Not saying you're wrong about RAV4 PHEV emissions relative to the gasoline RAV4, just that the study you linked doesn't really support making any specific claims about that model. The report only mentions Toyota once, where it is lumped into an "others" category on a chart along with Ford, Hyundai, JLR, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Suzuki.

[1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q_dlfQFyg

[rsynnott]

_If used correctly_, they're pretty good. Most people don't use them correctly.

[dalyons]

If you build a product that most people don’t “use correctly” then you have not built a good product suitable for that use. Blaming the customer and expecting them to change is a losing strategy

[tonyedgecombe]

So if you are too lazy to plug it in every night or your day to day driving exceeds the battery range you shouldn't buy one.

One of my neighbours has one but nowhere to plug it in. I have no idea why they bought it.

This wouldn't stop me from buying one.

[freetime2]

There are reasons to buy a PHEV even if you never plug it in. Their electric motors tend to output more power than HEV versions of the same model, leading to more performance and a quieter drivetrain (even with the engine running, it doesn't have to work as hard). You can also run climate control and infotainment while parked without having to idle the engine, which is nice when waiting around on a hot day. Or you can remotely start the air conditioner with your phone.

Basically you can get EV quality-of-life features on a gasoline-powered vehicle.

I probably wouldn't recommend a PHEV to someone who doesn't have a place to plug it in every day. But there are reasons to buy a PHEV beyond just fuel efficiency.

[Yizahi]

Not everyone is rich enough to live in a private house, where one could plug EVs daily.

[tonyedgecombe]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the poor.

[olyjohn]

What limitations stop someone from plugging them in regularly? If you have a charger at home, what stops people from plugging them in at night?

And who cares if this guy is the outlier? You're going to bash on the car because people are dumb and don't know how to operate their cars?

[dalyons]

The cars fine. It’s great it works for him. I wouldn’t personally buy one today when lots of options for real BEVs exist, but you do you.

What I do care about, and why I care that he’s an outlier, is that low range PHEVs mainly exist to get emissions credits for manufacturers so that they can sell more gas cars, and those emission savings aren’t real [1]. You could say everyone’s dumb for using them this way, but clearly the ergonomics of the electrical capabilities in this category are lacking in important ways.

And I can’t prove it but I bet the manufacturers have known this for a long time. But adding a plug to a hybrid with a tiny battery was an awfully cheap way to get your existing car counted as “green” for credits, so too tempting.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...