> PH = Plug-in hybrid (Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home)
Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"
The only energy input for a "hybrid" is from petrol. It's slightly more efficient. A Toyota Yaris 1.5 hubrid gets about 65mpg rather than the 45mpg on a Skoda Kamiq
> Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"
Not really. The petrol drivetrain takes up so much room there's no space for a large battery, so the much smaller battery will only take you a short distance if you used it alone, plus now it's much less efficient because you're carrying around a heavy engine with you.
Which is ~enough to cover the vast majority of commutes, and the majority of US commutes.
Keep in mind that even if 20% of your commute is done on petrol, the other 80% isn't.
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[1] Yes, there are PHEVs with shorter ranges, but those tend to be weird luxury models that for some compliance reason have a battery strapped to them.
That data needs to be split out by how the person acquired their PHEV. In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives. I remember seeing a study which said that people who are driving a PHEV because it was assigned to them by their employer are much less likely to plug it in than are ordinary consumers who bought or leased a PHEV.
Does it? It’s a million cars sampled at random. Perhaps fleet affects that a little, but these are big numbers. Claimed 80% reduction in emissions, real world 20%. Some fleet skew is not going to impact that meaningfully
> In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives.
Love to see some evidence for that being the majority
In Portugal a whopping 87% of PHEV registrations are to corporations [1]. It was close to 60% in the UK a few years ago [2].
This should not be too surprising, once you learn another fact that is probably more surprising: corporate sales make up a majority of car sales in much of Europe. Around 65% in Germany, 60% in UK, 55% in France (the 3 largest car markets in Europe).
Corporate buyers love PHEVs. They get many of the same or similar tax breaks that full EVs get, whereas hybrids that are not PHEVs usually just get the same corporate tax treatment that ICE cars get. Even though a PHEV usually costs more upfront than a similar regular hybrid which usually costs more than a similar pure ICE, the tax breaks make the PHEV a better deal even if the company has no intention of ever plugging it in.
Compare to individual buyers. They get much fewer incentives from the government. For them the higher cost of a PHEV over a regular hybrid only makes sense if they are going to plug the thing in.
Countries are starting to phase out the PHEV tax breaks for corporations, so we should start seeing the percent of PHEVs that actually get plugged in start to go up.
IIRC, the latest Honda Civic Hybrid has the ICE decoupled from the drivetrain most of the time (even if it is running to generate power), but it can couple to the drivetrain under some conditions?
That sounds like what the Chevy Volt did back in the day. Turns out that it just was not feasible to achieve higher efficiency through the generator when cruising on the highway than just direct driving the wheels.
Almost certainly why nearly all hybrids have been parallel hybrids up to now. What is changing, I think, is that a significant number of people are warming to the idea of a BEV, and want all of the benefits of that, but want to fall back on gasoline in a pinch. Thus EREV, or series hybrid, which provides that crutch. Expensive, though.
I'm curious why exactly they haven't made 2-3 speed trans typical in EVs already, like Porsche did. Single gear is too inefficient at freeway speeds. Tesla supposedly solved this with dual-motor models where the second motor has a different final drive ratio, but I feel like that's more expensive than 2WD w/ trans, which doesn't need to be nearly as advanced as the ICE-driven kind.
To my understanding the increase in efficiency is marginal at best, highway efficiency is completely dominated by wind resistance in either case. It would never come anywhere near paying for the increased cost or complexity of implementing the transmission. It may not be quite as complex as a five or six speed ICE transmission, but my bet is that it is much closer to that end of the scale than it is to a single speed reduction gearbox.
Depends on how you use it. Some never plug in. Some always do. I save a ton of money without worrying about range since there is always gas when I make a roadtrip
Not really. The petrol drivetrain takes up so much room there's no space for a large battery, so the much smaller battery will only take you a short distance if you used it alone, plus now it's much less efficient because you're carrying around a heavy engine with you.