As car journalists and enthusiasts, we have a great wealth of knowledge. We know the Corvette never had a V6, and we know the Mustang II was one of the all-time greats. We also know all about EVs, hybrids, and the many variants thereof. However, it’s easy to forget that this knowledge isn’t universal. There are still a great many people out there with lots of misconceptions around modern electrified vehicles.
A great case in point came to me via Facebook today. A proud Jeep owner was posting about picking up a Jeep Wrangler at a rental counter, only to be astounded at what he found. “Electric Wrangler but also gas WTF!!” he exclaimed.
The whole concept was entirely new to him. He’d never heard of it. And yet, the Jeep Wrangler 4xe is the best-selling plug-in hybrid in America, with Jeep selling over 67,000 units in 2023 alone!
You might expect this gentlemen to fit a certain mold as an EV hater, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. His first experience was clearly a positive one, as he calls the PHEV Wrangler a “gem” that he “didn’t know existed.”
In fact, for this Jeep Gladiator owner, a little time with the Wrangler was enough to sell him on the concept of plug-in hybrids. “I can sign on to this kind of electric vehicle,” he says. He even questions whether the same technology was available on the Gladiator line! While it’s not yet out, a 4xe model is planned for the Jeep pickup. It’s expected to land around 2025.
It’s interesting to see how people genuinely react to these vehicles in the real world. It’s clear that using a plug-in hybrid changed things for this driver. But what it highlights most is that the message is not necessarily getting out there.
Obviously, the car media regularly reports on new models and updates to existing lineups. We cover hybrid and electric vehicles all the time, even going into great detail about the engineering involved. Heck, at The Autopian, we’ve even covered obscure hybrid hacks for more power and extended range.
The thing is—not everybody reads car blogs. Or car magazines. And even if you do, you might be deep into Hot Rod Haven, Chrome Polisher Monthly, or other outlets focused on classics. In that case, you’d be entirely in the dark as to modern hybrid and EV tech.
Instead, a lot of these people—normies, if you will—pick up ideas and opinions elsewhere. They hear a TV host or online personality grousing about how some politician wants to kill old-fashioned values with electric cars. They hear friends or family members repeat such lines to indicate their membership of an in-group that hates these new-fangled cars. They begin to internalize these concepts. In some cases, they truthfully come to believe that EVs are the devil, incapable of getting you to the grocery store without running out of battery or exploding in a giant fireball.
However, as this post shows, exposure to a real EV or hybrid can change all that. Nothing beats seeing the truth delivered by your own eyes and ears. This gentleman tried a Jeep hybrid, and loved it. Now he knows that these great vehicles are out there, and it’s already influencing his future purchasing intentions.
Automakers can do a lot to help in this regard. Advertising helps, as do educational efforts—but nothing trumps getting the vehicles out and about in the real world. Putting customers behind the wheel goes a long way to dispelling notions that EVs and PHEVs are slow, dangerous, or incapable. Or any other misguided ideas people might have picked up! Indeed, it also shows them they exist in the first place, something some people are still unaware of!
We obviously have a bias in the industry. We’re across this stuff every day, so it’s no surprise to us. Think about it like this. Few car enthusiasts would do a double-take seeing a Tesla Cybertruck in the flesh. We’ve known about these things for years now, even if they’ve just hit the market. And yet, normies seeing these things out on the road are routinely astounded by them. If I showed up in a Tesla Cybertruck to a family dinner, I promise you many of my family members would be totally surprised that I’d in a hulking truck with the aesthetic of a fancy modern fridge.
Cars have a long lifetime, and they’re expensive. When new technology hits, it takes time for it to spread around to the point where the average punter on the street is familiar with it. EVs and plug-in hybrids are finally reaching that kind of saturation point. People are learning about these vehicles from friends and family, and because they’re now a common sight in rental fleets and the like.
The lesson here is that real exposure is the best way to teach people about cars. You can say what you like on TV or on paper, and people may or may not believe you. But if you put them in the car and let them drive it around, they’ll get the real picture.
Image credits: Jeep, xkcd
I was hoping the new Tacoma hybrid would be like this but unfortunately, the hybrid system is just for added power and actually has a lower MPG than the stand alone ICE. Yes, the hybrid is faster and has more torque than the V6 it’s replacing but I was really looking for some gas savings. Guess I’ll just be going with the turbo 4.
I’m bummed for you, but at least it will probably be unfailingly reliable.
With only a 20% markup
Those days are largely over. I’m on the Taco Nation FB page and there are probably a dozen sales people on there offering Tacos at MSRP.
2 XKCD references in 2 days!
This place is awesome.
I keep banging this drum: one of the key aspects of the electric transition should be retrofitting older cars. I always imagined this as a full drivetrain swap, but in recent times I have started to think of retrofitting as an ideal way to make old ICEs hybrid, while also possibly allowing for three different drive modes: for a traditional FWD setup you could have FWD in ICE mode, RWD in electric mode, and all-wheel drive in hybrid mode. And hopefully regenerative braking. I have no problem admitting I’m unaware of the complexity of such adaptations vs. a full electric drivetrain swap, but I sure hope there are people studying the feasibility of such adaptaions. I believe there’s no better way to ease sceptics into an EV future and win them over than to allow them to transition with their own car (kinda like what happened here with a Gladiator owner realising a similar car has this awesome hybrid tech).
Now, I am not hoping for the push to come from automakers, as widespread retrofitting would ultimately cannibalise their new car sales, but I do hope companies with lots of knowledge in electric motors look into this as a way to compete with car companies, rather than going all-in on creating new EVs from scratch and failing spectacularly – looking at you, Dyson.
I would love to start a business in Mexico retrofitting old VW Beetles to electric.
They were producing new old Beetles in the Puebla factory up until 2003!
That’s certainly one of the many cases where mass retrofitting would make sense. Same with later Kombis from Brazil. Still out there in huge numbers.
Well, in France there are a few companies doing EV retrofitting, but the regulatory framework suck ass.
The car has to keep its initial power, weight and weight distribution, so you end up with a crappy range. And to enhance this crappy range, cars are limited to 60mph. Plus it costs over 10k€.
I really don’t think the economics of retrofit make sense, especially on my 25 yo hatch back where everything is starting to fall apart but the drivetrain. And I’d really love for it to work for me.
Retrofitting is certianly too expensive at the moment, and regulations do not help, but with a regulatory push and scaling up of production, there would be no reason for the price not to come down significantly – other than corporate greed, but that’s why I would hope the push would come from outside the automotive industry. And sure, not all 25 year old cars make sense to retrofit, but many do. There’s still a ton of older Volvos and Mercedes out there that everyone would benefit if they got retrofitted. Lots and lots of cargo vans with sound frames and bodies but way too many miles on the drivetrain. I would certainly welcome a reasonably priced solution to retrofit my 1991 Renault 4, which I daily drive.
I miss my old Volvo station wagon, I saw a Volvo Amazon for sale a few years back that would make an incredible restomod conversion!
I love old Volvo station wagons! And a friend of mine dailies an Amazon 🙂 I lusted for 940 station wagons for years, but we ended up going for a cheap V50 recently, because my wife wanted a more modern and comfortable car. Sadly it’s proven to be a lemon and will need an engine swap. I regret so much not pushing for the 940, which I’m sure would be a very decent choice in terms of comfort… Now the most comfortable we’ll feel on the road for a while will be the NVH-rich Renault 4.
As soon as somebody builds a flywheel and emotor that drops in to replace the flex plate and torque converter, which is pretty much what ZF has done to the jeeps, I’m in. Can turn those malaise era 200hp 15mpg cars into 300hp 30mpg phevs. Vosen does it for Porsches, so the tech is out there already.
I think the 4xE is great, just not the price. My local dealer had one marked down, and with the Federal rebate and it was still $52K.
I reserved an economy car rental a couple of weeks ago, so of course I was handed the keys to a Wrangler 4xE. Score! It had no charge on it and I didn’t have any way to charge it, so I didn’t get to experience the electric goodness. I tried out the regenerative braking, found it super weird, and then just drove in normal mode the whole time. I had fun with it for a long weekend, but it’s definitely not for me.
From what I understand, regen braking in the 4XE is the same no matter what setting you are in. Changing to Max Regen just is an attempt to turn it into a more EV-like drive style, one pedal driving. If you haven’t experienced one pedal driving, it does take some time getting used to, most adapt quickly. I like that you at least have the option to adjust the level of regen, like in most EVs. The exception is Tesla, which is one pedal style only, they never figured out blended braking so they force you into one pedal driving and allow no real exceptions. Originally you could select your level of regen with Tesla. But, due to the inability to hit or even come close to the EPA numbers, they forced one pedal/max regen as the only way.
Actually, the Max regen increases the amount of power gained. They have a little screen that shows you the real-time consumption/regen in Kwh.
If you’re going about 55mph on flat ground, and you have max regen turned OFF, you let off the gas, it will show usually 10-15kwh, and that will fade out as the jeep slows.
If you have Max Regen turned ON, it’ll regen about 35-40kwh!
Good info, thanks! I would imagine this would mean that it drives like one pedal driving, or at least more like it, when in that mode. Having the ability to change modes makes sense. Although I rationalized the one pedal mode only in the Model Y and almost bought one (still might if the right deal presents itself), I prefer to have the ability to change the level. I think blended braking is the best method for regen with little to no regen when you want to be on the highway and coast vs one pedal/heavy regen in stop and go situations. Also, having the ability to disable max regen in slippery conditions is useful and the safest way to be.
They definitely executed this part of it nicely, it definitely isnt one pedal driving, but it brings you nearly to a stop, and it’s decently powerful.
I leave mine in max 24/7 because if you want to regen but not slow down, IE going down a hill but wanting to maintain speed, you can dial in a little throttle, and the Power % Tach will show you in real time whether you are using power, regenerating, or just “coasting”
You can also manually change the gears while in electric, allowing you to alter the amount you regenerate manually.
The coolest part about these for me is just how personally involved you can be while operating it. I find myself trying different methods to get the most range (playing around with the gears/regen/speeds, firing up the gas motor to take on steep hills, etc) and at the end of every drive it gives you a little summary showing miles traveled in all electric, miles in gas, and time. It’s just so much fun to nerd out with this thing.
He should hit the 4xE forums before buying one…. great idea, less than fully baked by Stellantis unfortunately. Hopefully they get the bugs out for the next gen.
Anecdotal, but when I see a tow truck hauling a non-crashed vehicle, it is either one of two things: 1) a 15+ year old car or 2) a Wrangler 4xe. It has been utterly astounding how many of them are stacked up in the service area of my local Jeep dealerships. I recently had to have my project car towed home, and the tow truck driver cracked a joke about filling in for another driver because “that guy’s too busy towing all them electric Jeeps back to the dealership”. I still like the idea of a PHEV Jeep, but…yikes.
Isn’t the hybrid Pacifica also really unreliable?
So I’ve heard, but I live in Colorado, a.k.a. the land of Jeeps. The Pacifica isn’t a big seller in these parts, though the AWD Sienna is.
They seem to have gotten much better with time, it’s rare to see one that’s down for more than a day or two, usually its just a module that’s lost communication or a fuse that wasn’t pushed in all the way. I’m on my 2nd one currently, and Ive sold a few dozen of them, and while I did have one need a full battery replacement, the jeep never had to be towed in, it would just randomly register as overheating and go into “turtle” mode.
I do think a big part of the reliability problem with these though, is they designed this thing to not be CAPABLE OF MOVING if any of the modules aren’t communicating properly. They obviously did this so people wouldnt ignore check engine lights that could lead to safety problems (which-let’s face it, Jeep people tend to do ALOT) and what happens is something as dumb as a failed airbag module can make the Jeep refuse to go into gear. I’m hoping they work that all out, because honestly, it’s a delightful vehicle.
I’m in the Grand Cherokee 4xE and I love it for the most part, great commuter, super comfortable but it just seems to have its days where nothing wants to work right, plus all the recalls. At about a year of ownership and kind of want to get rid of it and go back to something a bit less complicated.
At least I’ve only had one CEL that resulted in a month in the shop. The rest have been pretty quick resolution.
That’s a bummer. I’ve only moved a couple 4xe Grands, but no issues so far.
I mean, the thing is, it’s Jeep, so it’s more suprising to hear about a trouble free experience than the other way around.
My love-hate relationship with Stellantis in general. They build the COOLEST shit. If they could just make them reliable, they would soar to the top. But they just can’t seem to get it together.
This – one of the “good” 4xe’s is a hell of a car for 90% of the drivers IMO. Unfortunately it’s been unpredictable on what you’re going to get, parts have been super delayed, and dealers don’t seem to know enough about them yet (could be their fault, could be Stellantis lack of training).
My ‘23 JLUR 4xe died with <1k miles and after over three months of waiting for parts, they put them in and it didn’t fix the issue – had to lemon law it and say goodbye to it. I still see it for sale at a dealer a few states away for a crazy high $45k and less than a total of 3k miles – no surprise there…
They should have taken a similar approach to the diesel engines – if something emissions-related happens it doesn’t immediately stop, but you have 500 miles before it won’t restart and you get an expensive tow/repair bill. It’s stupid to strand someone for a non-critical failure.
’24s seem to have most of the bugs worked out, they’ve made some updates to the system and added the power box, which is pretty cool. I can do my 70 mile round trip commute on a gallon of gas, which is pretty amazing for a wrangler.
JEEP GLADIATOR’s Only….what??? Tell me, I gotta know! Don’t leave me hangin’ like that!!
I wonder if this contributed to Hertz’s EV failure.
I’m imagining the fleet planners driving their teslas and thinking EVs are perfectly normal and going mainstream – and they probably are wherever the planners live.
However, when Jim from somewhere else goes to the rental counter he doesn’t want to rent something he doesn’t understand/thinks is leading to the decline of the country/is the root of all evil and doesn’t want to rent it. He just doesn’t understand or want the new thing, which is fair.
This really speaks to the need of truly understanding your customers when you make an investment and to the time it takes for people to move along an adoption curve.
On the other hand, it also shows how people can move along that adoption curve slowly until “bam!” they experience something new and suddenly get it.
I guess the moral of the story is we should all be very cautious about having strong opinions about things until we try them out ourselves, and we should understand that others may have different opinions than us because they have different lived experiences…
I suspect that part of Hertz’s failure with EVs is that they took the Field Of Dreams approach (if you build it, they will come) and then tried to make up for it with price gouging. My company requires me to use Hertz, and it always blows my mind how expensive their EVs are compared to their ICE offerings. I can almost always rent a fullsize SUV (Tahoe/Yukon/Expedition) for half the daily price of a Model 3, though I don’t because my company only allows me to rent a midsize ICE sedan. They also seemed to load up airport locations with EVs, even in cities known for poor EV charging infrastructure, rather than taking a more coordinated approach to supplying their locations with vehicles.
With that said, the rest of your comment is spot on. Different people live different lives with different experiences, and that seems severely underappreciated these days of political polarization.
“My company requires me to use Hertz, and it always blows my mind how expensive their EVs are compared to their ICE offerings.”
I rented a “Premium Fullsize” car from Hertz and all they had were Teslas and Polestars – so rather than wait in line for an Altima or Malibu, I jumped into a Polestar.
It may have cost extra to reserve one, but it didn’t cost extra to get one.
I’ve never been fortunate enough to end up in that situation. Whenever I rent my required midsize sedan, I either get the midsize sedan (Sentra or Accent) or maybe a bump up to a CUV like a Rogue or Equinox.
My experience was Hertz renting EVs cheaper than the ICE equivalents. I always saw EV discounts and that got a lot of people renting them with no knowledge of how to charge and the people behind the counter also had no idea what was going on. If it was anything but a Tesla it was going to be a problem due to the charging complications and most regular people do not know that Tesla has its connector and everyone else is on another, for lots of people electric cars are Teslas and that’s it. I even interrupted when someone who was getting a Polestar asked if they just charged at a Supercharger and they person at the counter said yes. I explained the difference and gave them some more information.
I also hit Hertz many times with the EVs available having like 15% charge in them. One hertz I was at had no idea there was a charger in the parking lot behind them, block wall between the lots, nor did they know there was a Tesla Supercharger location with 20 stalls less than a mile away. They had a couple of L2 chargers on site, but the lot staff were washing cars in those spots instead of charging their EVs.
They blame the cost of repairs on Teslas and while I am sure that is some of the issue, my Tesla had to have body work and it was barely more expensive than a smaller dent in the same area on my Charger, it’s more likely it was their lack of ability to turn the cars over quickly because a L2 charge is going to take too long and charging it offsite in many areas is an onerous process. If they had DC Fast Chargers on site that would help but it’s still a massive expense.
I’m not anti-EVs, but if I were touching down someplace where I need a rental car and I have no knowledge of the local charging infrastructure, I would not be excited to get an EV. One more thing to potentially “deal with” that has no value in getting me to my hotel or meeting.
Yet the cars themselves tell you where you can charge, and are generally charged at least to 80% when you pick them up.
They all have navigation with EV charger locations enabled. They’ll tell you if the range is sufficient to reach your destination – if not, they’ll give you options on where you can stop along the way.
It’s far easier than anyone thinks.
“Plug-in hybrids! Well, what else have I missed? I better check the ol’ stock ticker. Let’s see…I stopped checking around September 1929…oh no…OH NO….”
Thank you, internet citizen, for making my morning.
This doesn’t surprise me, I bought a Hyundai Ioniq a couple of years ago, which is just a normal series hybrid like the kind that have been around this market since the early 2000s, but the first couple of months with it, I had the same conversation with at least three different coworkers at two different locations
“Is that electric?”
No, it’s a hybrid
“What’s that?”
It’s both gas and electric
“Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad, I think I could buy something like that”
Simplified, one asked more follow up questions RE whether it needs to be plugged in to charge and stuff, but, yeah, it is very surprising that a lot of people still don’t seem to know what hybrids are, let alone PHEVs.
One of my thoughts on the David Tracey appearance on Fox News was that it was probably the first time a lot of their audience heard about PHEV’s…
As illustrated in the XKCD comics, the people reading and commenting on here are probably in the top 1 or 2 percent informed people on car tech.
This reminds me of the multiple people who have complimented me on my Mustang or been surprised at how quick it is for a V6.
Note: I drive a 2005 GTO.
I was at bar trivia and there was a question about a green movie Mustang (Bullitt). A teammate guessed Gran Torino. At least her guess was the same make. Have you debadged your GTO? Not that it would likely matter, but I want to give people any available benefit of the doubt when I can.
Nope. It even says “6.0” on the back, which apparently some people mistake for the number of cylinders. Not sure why you’d need to go to the decimal for cylinder count, but I digress.
My favorite was an older gentleman in a PT Cruiser I encountered in a parts store parking lot. He asked how fast it was, and I told him others have topped out 5th gear which puts it around 165-167. He chuckled and said “not with a V6 you’re not!”, and climbed in his car and left.
“This car has a FULL 6 cylinders, unlike the base model with the 5.7 cylinders!”
And that older gentleman probably also thinks that classic muscle was faster than current vehicles. I’d be curious how fast he thought his PT Cruiser could go.
They must be getting it confused with the famous 5.0 cylinder Mustang that Vanilla Ice rapped about.
Pretty sure that’s a Lambo, dude
One thing I take away from this story is that creating PHEVs from already popular vehicles is the most effective means to get people to consider them.
The subject vehicle here is a Jeep Wrangler 4xe; Wranglers being extremely popular, this approach makes sense. Think about the possibilities if every carmaker offered a PHEV of their most popular products AND made that version the lead star in their media and advertising campaigns.
However, the other thing I take away is that, aside from the enthusiast directed media, PHEV versions of cars are not put forward as the desirable model. It’s been more of an “oh, yes, we’ve also got a PHEV version for the oddballs among you.” ICE (and some BEV) models dominate mainstream advertising and reporting. PHEVs aren’t perfect, but no platform is.
What we’ve got today is a Three Bears situation.
ICE vehicles, and the supporting industries for them, are part of a larger environmental crisis, but are still – in terms of price, ease of use and performance – the best bang for your transportation buck.
BEVs, in regard to operation, are cleaner and great performers also, but face the challenges of an inefficient, unreliable national support infrastructure, very high prices, and evolving/maturing tech whose long-term impacts on environment and resources are not clear.
PHEVs (and other hybrids) offer advantages from both the ICE and electric worlds that reduce or eliminate many of the concerns of ICE and BEV only cars: reduced pollution through smaller ICE components; lower usage of exotic battery materials (lower weight and cost); elimination of range anxiety issues; enhanced performance and economy in the same package; lower prices than pure BEV (though not cheap). They are more complex because of the dual drive systems which come with their own cost issues in terms of use and maintenance. It does seem, though, that hybrids fit better into the “just tight” category for now than the alternatives.
All of this argues that production and sales strategies should be more hybrid forward than any other approach. This is an argument that is well represented here and in other auto-centric media, but much less so in general media and in the boardrooms of carmakers. It’s slowly getting better, but strike while the iron is hot should be the philosophy of the day. Make more hybrids, buy more hybrids, drive more hybrids.
I’d love to sit down with some beers and have a conversation about this. I’ve been saying for a while that we’re in a transition phase from ICE to BEV (no revelation here). My parents just bought a BEV, and it’s been on my mind for a while. As I recall, CA just mandated the equivalent of OBD for BEVs, and that’s just the very beginning. We’re not yet to OBDII, and if right to repair legislation ever gains traction, more in-depth protocol(s). If you look back at the history of ICEs from our perspective, it feels like the point of “maturity” came at about the dawn of/at least early in the hot rod era (50s). Cars were ubiquitous enough and well understood enough that your average Joe could do interesting things with them. BEVs are not there. As an enthusiast, I’d like to know, but am still almost completely in the dark over the various battery and motor technologies. Part of that is lack of time for research, if I’m being honest, but a big part is that it’s all so new and proprietary, and just not out there. For my part, I don’t think I could go out and buy a BEV today with any real confidence in it as a “future classic” sort of thing like I can with ICEs. (I almost always make money on my cars, so this is a thing I pay attention to.) PHEVs are a transitional tech, but they’re likely the most appropriate tech for the moment. BEVs are currently for the tail end of the early adopters, and ICEs are for the luddites. Unfortunately, PHEVs, as stated in the article with pretty much the sole exception of the Wrangler, just aren’t sexy. There’s really nothing to recommend them as anything more than a technological placeholder.
I tend to agree with your points, especially the transitional nature of PHEVs, I just think that transition period is going to be much longer than predicted and hybrids are both a practical and economical mid phase. Think of them like the newish “healthy” sodas. Slightly better for you in terms of sugar uptake, calories, and added nutrients, but more expensive. And maybe not to everyone’s taste.
“Few car enthusiasts would do a double-take seeing a Tesla Cybertruck in the flesh.”
No, but they might throw up in their mouth a little.
I’ve seen two of them out in the wild and they are hideous. This is coming from a person who actually still likes the Aztec.
I drive BEV now and I’m planning a fall vacation that will require a rental. When I priced out rental cars I was stunned to find that an EV will run $925 for a week while a comfortable ICE will be $330 for same time and place. That’s very discouraging when you are otherwise telling friends/family/coworkers how inexpensive it is to operate an EV. The rental agencies didn’t even offer PHEV options. How did this guy stumble into a PHEV?
I think rental jeeps might all be PHEV. Was at Hertz recently and overheard a guy picking up a Wrangler freaking out that they gave him an electric car and that he won’t have enough range etc and he asked for a normal Wrangler to which they responded they only have PHEV ones and that range won’t be an issue and eventually talked him off the ledge. He accepted but then came back 5 minutes later to complain that there’s gum on the fender. The moral of the story is both Hertz and that guy sucked.
Seems to be the case (which explains how they sold 67k last year). I usually rent with National and their Wranglers are typically all the hybrid version.
I rented minivans from National for the past couple family trips, and got PHEV Pacificas both times. I liked them.
That’s crazy because I see EV discounts for rentals in my area as well as parts of Florida and Southern California. My las EV rental was almost half the cost of the equivalent ICE car.
Many prefer emotions/feelings over boring facts/data.
Imagine how pumped he would be if the hybrid part of 4xe actually worked!
Sadly it seems that the 4xe Wrangler is a massive POS reliability wise, and the BEV range is very lackluster. Which IMHO will hinder PHEV adoption more than it’ll help for first time PHEV buyers.
What Jeep really needs to do is produce their original Wrangler Magneto BEV concept and have an optional ICE Range extender (I suggest adapting the twinair).
One of the big car journalists, maybe Dan Neil, excoriated the 4XE as a cynical greenwashing turd of an effort.
The most offensive part of 4xe is the horrible MPG when plug-in power has run out.
People dont know how to operate them. When they are in “E-save” there are two settings: Battery save and Battery Charge. Under battery charge, it will create drag to regen the battery while driving, and on flat ground going 70 you are going to get 16-17mpg. Going 55 is much better, you’ll get close to 20.
But if you run it out of battery and leave it in “hybrid” mode, it will not prioritize charging the battery, and will do 22-23 with no issue.
I just ran mine to pittsburgh last week, about 80 miles round trip in all gas and it got 25.
As the article alludes to, there is a lot of media out there dedicated to misinforming people about plug-in vehicles. Somehow Republicans have become the anti-efficiency party and their captive media goes along with it.
I heard Joe Biden this morning say “Government should stay out of our lives.” That used to be the Republican mantra. Oh how times change.
Sure, but he’s also an old man. They always say that, then turn around and say “the government should really do something about those ____”
The same guy that (regardless of your stance on it) changed Title IX no more than 7 days ago? Uh huh.
Yeah, I’m just sayin… they’ll say whatever it takes. All of em. They’re used car salesmen but the stakes are higher.
“I heard Joe Biden this morning say “Government should stay out of our lives.””
Was that related to the abortion issue?
It was
Your take is that there is a coalition of media companies whose directives specifically have anti-phev propaganda as a bullet point in their mission statements?
That’s a new one, lol.
They said “plug-in vehicles” which I would interpret to mean EVs in general. And there is absolutely plenty of anti-EV propaganda out there. Industry coalitions tied to fossil fuels and Republican PACs (yay, election year!) being two major sources that I have seen.
Not to mention we have like 7 media companies left in this country, so a coalition isn’t even necessary at this point.
Without turning this into a whole thing, are you saying that mining/drilling companies somehow are not participating in expanding their operations by digging up more stuff, and are standing firm as oil/coal only companies?
As far as media goes, there have only been a few conglomerates since the Telecom Act of 1996. It’s not new, other than Bezos, Zuck, and Google. It’s been Disney, Time-Warrner, Murdoch, Moonves, and Comcast, for quite a long time now.
… no. Honestly I don’t even know how you pulled that “are you saying” out of my comment. Regarding your second paragraph, I didn’t mention any recent changes in media ownership, so I’m not sure why you are bringing that up either.
It really doesn’t seem like you’re trying to have a good faith discussion here, and I’m not interested in engaging with trolls, so have a nice day.
lol. I’m really not one to troll. It’s what you pretty strongly imply when you say:
“Industry coalitions tied to fossil fuels and Republican PACs (yay, election year!) being two major sources that I have seen.”
and:
we have like 7 media companies left in this country, so a coalition isn’t even necessary at this point.
That’s how. Either way, you have a nice day as well 🙂
My take is that there is a party and an associated media ecosystem that advocates against renewable energy, energy-efficient vehicles and appliances, and anti-pollution measures. I don’t even think that’s controversial to say.
You’re right, it’s not controversial. What we are dealing with, in the biggest of pictures, is profit margins when you boil it all down. People don’t like change, and companies like change even less when it means their products are more expensive/complicated/time intensive to produce, especially when they are forced to do it.
Things are starting to soften on that front a bit as these energy companies (see DT’s article on his $1000 rebate) are learning how to game the imaginary, and what now must be considered as one massive citizen-funded tax loophole, carbon credit graft.
What are you calling imaginary? That CO2 causes global warming, or that global warming is a crisis that requires policy action to address?
Anyways, I’m not advocating for green policies to be immune from criticism, but for that criticism to be free of made-up horseshit. Right now there’s no useful criticism because half-truths or lies from the party-media ecosystem mentioned above flood the zone.
No. Carbon Credits are imaginary. They are about as substantive as a NFT. They don’t actually do anything other than shuffle paperwork and adjust accounting practices.
Not all of them, but definitely lots of them are nonsensical greenwashing, we can agree on that.
I’m not sure how it relates to the rest of your post, though.
I’m about done, but, Ok. It’s about profit, not political agendas. Basically, what I already wrote 🙂
Some people see politics, or nefarious actions, when they really aren’t there.
It’d be like someone saying that Madden purposely rated Emmitt Smith higher than Barry because Jerry Jones demanded that they had to, in order to sell more Cowboys jerseys, all due to Jerry holding more influence over the NFL than the Ford family.
It’s a bit bat-shit to me.
I’m talking about energy efficiency and you segued into carbon credits. It’s more like if you suddenly started talking about George Bush owning the Texas Rangers in the middle of the football conversation.
Because carbon credits are the system used to measure energy efficiency as dictated by instituted policy actions that have been created to address climate issues. Just like you suggest needs to happen.
Vehicle efficiency standards, appliance efficiency standards, etc don’t have a direct interchange with carbon credits that I have ever seen. We have seen all sorts of explanations on this very site of efficiency standards that don’t mention carbon credits. Do you have a non-RWNJ media link that says otherwise?
I don’t know what RWNJ stands for, but this might be a start…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leannekemp/2022/05/29/crypto-carbon-credits-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine-in-the-race-to-net-zero/?sh=f2156d66049e
That doesn’t back up what you’re saying in any way.
What a steaming mound of horseshit.
There are fucking decades of extremely accurate and biting criticism of how the US runs it’s energy and environmental policies, written by people with advanced degrees in science and engineering that you can just look up for free. Or if you want a pay to get the same data with a little less effort just buy a goddamn Doomberg subscription and start reading.
If you are whining about that evil Fox News making some meanie criticisms of PEVs and BEVs may be off base in your everyday experience but are perhaps valid for their target audience (little hint: that’s not you) as the biggest obstacle to an actually good environmental policy, then congratulations you have been hoodwinked and snookered right proper.
Let’s just cut to the top- the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions are those associated with energy generation. In the US it’s something like ~30% direct energy generation emissions, but with a large chunk of the ~25% of emissions coming from industrial activity also falling under energy generation, you can SWAG it that 40-50% of US emissions come from energy generation. Globally it’s between 60-70%. Everything else pales in comparison to these data, and goal #1 of any rational climate policy is to reduce this number to the greatest extent possible. Arguing about consumer level transportation instead of focusing on energy generation is either missing the point very, very hard, or an admission you don’t actually care about the environment and are just in it for the social control aspects (this accurately describes most US policy).
So, any discussion on energy that doesn’t start with “how do we build way more hydro and nuclear plants” is bad policy and a waste of time. In recent history, the most pro-nuclear administration we had was the one prior to the current one. In recent history the administration removing the most hydroelectric dams and the most hydroelectric capacity is the current one. Basic math, and looking at the biggest sources of emissions tells us that this is a no-good-very-bad thing. Are the NYT, NPR, CNN, MSNBC writing breathless articles about how this will lead to increased emissions and (probably) social injustice? No? Funny that- almost like they don’t know, don’t care, and are misleading you just as badly.
Well, you might be wrong, but at least you’re angry and wrong!
Nah, pretty chill this morning. I have most of the above post saved for copy-pasta. The only thing I added is the first and last two sentences.
Current version of the NPC OS is programmed to bring up Fox News in any environmental debate for some reason, so pointing out the basic math and total lack of response from the NPC media server is enough to induce logical short circuit.
You have completely lost touch with how to communicate with normal people.
k
Look just spamming “hydro” and “nuke” is just a different flavor of “NPC OS” that also lets the speaker detach from deeper thought.
There are very real reasons people discuss energy policy without devoting time and energy into hydro and solar and they start and end with Dollar Signs.
Hydro has massive ecological impacts regardless of its efficiency and carbon footprint. It is such a small portion of the overall generation mix in this country, and the folks responsible for paying for them/maintaining them have determined it isn’t cost effective to continue down that path. Why? Because wind and solar are just so radically cheaper than they used to be that once the ecological externalities and other risks are priced into both, it is now cheaper to replace hydro with other renewables than to renovate/build new.
Nuclear is in the same boat. Adding new nuclear capacity is an extraordinarily expensive way to generate a ton of power very cleanly. As a nation we can spend insane amounts of money getting better at building nuclear capacity that gets it somewhat cost competitive with adding new NG/Solar/Wind capacity…. or we could just build more Solar/Wind capacity. So we just build more Solar and Wind. Everybody loves the idea of nukes, but we stopped building them. We lost all of our know-how in this country on how to do it. The DOE has noted they think next-gen nuclear should cost around $6,200 per kWh of capacity, but current nuclear projects are over $10,000 per kWh of capacity and plagued by additional overruns and delays. It thinks that if we were to start building next-gen reactors in earnest right now, it would take 10-20 completed projects to get the costs to something reasonable, $3,600 per kWh of capacity.
The DOE also estimated that in 2021, wind cost $1,500 per installed kWh of capacity and solar runs about $1,060. Those numbers have continued to fall in the time since.
So if i am a grid-scale operator and i have a coal plant reaching end of life or a hydro dam reaching the age it’s needing significant work done, am I going to take a massive risk and spend (extremely optimistically) 5x the money to produce nuclear but risk it actually being 10+x more, or am i going to tap into the huge industrial base that has grown up over the last decade and do wind or solar?
The question is rhetorical, any rational capitalistic actor will do the latter.
If you want nuclear, the public at large needs to decide it is a good they want to collectively pay for and you need absolutely massive public investment to drive the cost down. Private entities would never shoot themselves in the foot to make it happen because even if it went flawlessly, they still could have made more money doing the other thing.
We the public already did this- our tax dollars have been paying for it for 70 years. The cost of a nuclear reactor is in fact quite low, we just have an idiotic regulatory regime that means each and every civilian plant is a one-off custom design that requires years of certification. The actual material costs of a civil reactor are only like 25% of the total bill. When we build reactors to a standard plan in a factory and install in standard fittings, it makes solar look expensive. Hogwash you say! Preposterous! Unsupported by any data! Wait… why is the Federal Government shuffling it’s feet and looking really guilty over in the corner? Whaddya mean they already fucking do this?!?
Oh damn. Turns out the US Navy, has quietly amassed the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world, operated them without incident for 70 years, and pays on a per-kW basis less than 1/10th of what a civilian reactor costs.
Let’s look at the latest and greatest- the Gerald Ford carriers. They have 2 A1B reactors, made by Bechtel, which put out about 700 MWth, ~380 MW useable power. Exact numbers are not available thanks to classification rules, but in broad strokes the Navy pays $1.2ish billion per reactor on the Fords, which results in…. about $2500 per kW of installed capacity. For a military grade reactor designed to survive shit like direct hits with anti-shipping missiles, uses far more expensive and dangerous weapons grade fuel, is subject to all of the same military-grade cost disease that tacks on an extra zero to anything in the defense budget, is very clearly optimized for things like “drive a giant ship fast enough to launch planes off of” instead of “make energy for cheap”, and yet it is still 10x cheaper than the best civilian reactors and competitive with solar. Oh, and that reactor will go 50 years without refueling, your solar panel will last at best half of that.
Done properly, nuclear power is cheap on a per-kW basis, our not-at-all-economically-optimized military reactors already match or exceed the cheapest solar. The learning curve is just as applicable for them as it is for PV cells and wind turbines, and the fundamental physics favor nuclear power. After all, wind and solar power are really just nuclear power with extra entropy-inducing steps.
If I have to convince you that tiny reactors using uranium enriched to 90+% fissile isotopes (typical commercial reactors have uranium enriched <= 10%) where the designs are regarded as national security secrets are different from grid scale installations… well… I’m just not going to convince you. (Also there are no naval reactors designed to go 50 years between refueling but that’s just a nit.)
There are reasons each install right now is a one-off, they are not regulated to be one-offs. Historical reasons, technological reasons, some regulatory reasons, sure, like such unreasonable questions like “Do you have an approved place where are you going to place all the spent fuel this plant will produce? How are you going to not pollute this water source in the event of a containment breach?” Small questions like that. But the non regulatory reasons are far more important. Hence the DOE report saying it will take many installs to drive the costs down. The industrial base would grow, like any industry.
Westinghouse makes the reactors for the current new nuclear hotness in Georgia. Imagine how much easier it would have been for them and how much money they would stand to make to just be like “Oh that aircraft carrier reactor we build already? What if we just took our CAD models and scaled them up 400%.” It simply does not work like that. France, a famously nuclear loving grid, doesn’t use their naval designs to power their populace. Nobody is. Because it is not practical to do so, and it is not in anyone’s national security interests to give utilities and the civilians associated with them access to weapons-grade uranium.
The main point is the market will never choose nuclear at the scale it would need to to actually make a dent in future capacity discussions. The government is the only actor capable of getting it there. If the cost was driven down to where the DOE thinks it could go, nuclear, while still far more expensive than solar or wind, would be far more attractive to replace coal and large chunks of the other green options and utilities would choose it but the path to get there is filled with private company bankruptcy. Even with nukes, there would still be a need for some of the more traditional renewables as they can be very responsive to load fluctuations and nuclear is not, but that’s an ideal power generation world to begin with.
I have no clue what this snotty non sequitur is supposed to do. Like, no shit Sherlock, they are different? Point out where I said they were the same thing. Also, pick that nit back up, because it’s wrong.
Again, wrong. The NRC approved the very first (kinda shit) modular reactor design…. last year. Not only that, but the first reactors of any kind that were actually designed, built, and certified entirely under NRC “supervision” entered service… last year as well. The NRC was established in 1975.
Hilariously, you have picked two questions at the very opposite ends on the difficulty and reasonableness spectrum of regulations. Spent fuel is easy- pools, then dry casks. Hollywood loves to make an issue out of spent nuclear fuel. It is not an issue.
Define pollute, water source, event, and containment breach. Because the scenarios range from “a valve tripped when it wasn’t supposed to, and a small amount of radioactivity escaped into cooling water sources- the amount is not actually enough to raise any environmental radiation reading taken anywhere outside of the reactor (with it’s extremely precise sensors) to any level detectable by any commercially available sensor, but we are legally obligated to report it so CNN can run three days of breathless dipshittery interviewing talking heads who have zero clue what they are talking about” to “North Korea blew up our plant with an ICBM, and we are legally obligated to report the containment failure despite everyone within 30 miles being vaporized, so here you go.”
Wrong, again. Westinghouse made the A4W for the Nimitz class carriers, and that’s a 1970s design. Bechtel makes the new A1B for the Ford’s. No one is suggesting simply scaling up a naval design (but again, wouldn’t be a scaling up, naval reactors are high-power).
LOL, oopsie- they actually kinda do. The French naval reactor is the K15- which is a low-enrichment PWR made by Technicatome, which (skipping the tedious corporate chain that devolves to the French government majority stake in private businesses) also makes the EPR and EPR2 civilian reactors, low-enrichment PWRs that share many design similarities, built by the same people, at the same time. Being low-enrichment designs, there is no weapons-grade fissiles involved.
So the source of 20% of US power, or 60-70% of French power is not worth discussing?
I reiterate- the government has it there. Naval reactors are cheaper than wind or solar on a per-kW basis. You keep handwaving at existing designs based on existing regulations from the 70’s as if this is the situation we should have continue forever.
And once again, the 1970’s called and want their reactors back. Nuclear is only considered “inflexible” by the uneducated because old designs were meant to run at near 100% capacity all of the time, and there was no economic reason to run at less than that. Modern reactors load-follow, and load follow quite a bit better than wind and solar which are intermittent sources.
That’s…..not a new one. Fox News, OAN, etc. have been railing against anything EV-related for years.
You know what I really dislike. Articles about online content that doesn’t have a link to the original content. Shitbox showdown for example doesn’t link to the cars listings.
Shitbox does link to the listings. Click on the car name (year make model) at the top of each section. It’s not colored like a hyperlink so it’s not an obvious link but it’s there.
beat me to it as I was typing the same thing. It should be a little more obvious
Agreed. I didn’t realize it was there for the first month or so.
With you there.
I’m hoping they’ll do an accessibility review of the site someday soon. It stands to benefit everyone – I’ve already asked after the virtually indistinguishable upvoted vs. not upvoted, and I usually don’t even realize there are body text links unless I’m on a computer and can mouseover interesting text.
edit: hell, I’ll do it if they ask
Not to mention it’s nearly impossible to upvote on iOS. Damn smilies are hard to pin down.
Hello! I am aware that the site is an accessibility mess. My wife is colorblind which makes a number of this site’s functions nearly impossible to use. Our hyperlinks are red, which means plain text and links look the same to her. Of course, putting links into the headers of SBSD means many people will miss them, too. That’s why I put MMM links into the text.
I’ve been told some of these problems are core issues that would have to be fixed by our developer, if they can fix them. Until then, I will underline links as a way to make things a bit more visible.
Cool. Thanks. I realize it may have looked like a snipe, but that was not my intention; it’s literally my day job, except I don’t have a day job, I do feel strongly about accessibility, and I want Autopian to be the best it can be.
Well, I learned a new thing today. Thanks!
It does, just click on the car titles. I agree that it is unclear though in the case of SBS, and annoying in general.
Shitbox showdown does link, but it’s a little hidden. The link is the heading for each car
It does, though! Click on the large bold title for each car in the Showdown!
(The More You Know ********)
Yes, I hear this. We generally do, but with a private FB group it’s a little harder to do so.
I appreciate the tone of this article. It is the antithesis of my least favorite phrase in the history of assholery: “You DO know [insert obscure fact here], right?”
Also, yes, most of us should be driving PHEVs.
PHEVs are the sweet spot and you’re right, most of us should be driving them. But there’s the problem that automakers just don’t (or at least, hadn’t until very recently) make very many.
For example, I’d be driving a 1st gen Pacifica PHEV right now if they had made more of the darn things and there were more than two available nationwide last summer when I was in the market. And if I didn’t work from home, I’d probably be commuting in a Volt even though I’m not really a fan of how they look.
I’d be driving a Toyota Prius Prime right now if they were available AND the ones that are weren’t being market adjusted beyond MSRP. As it stands, I have been considering a Kia Niro PHEV, now. I just feel a little dirty considering a crossover. Rest assured if I do move forward, it will be in an actual color, though!
I know 2 people with PHEV Niros and they absolutely love them. In the flesh it has more hatch vibes than crossover vibes.
With the Niro go full BEV. I had the old model x2 it was great, the new model is even better – it’s not a good road trip car though past it’s range as it charges slow, but you should see 200 + freeway miles from it.
The PHEV Niro was a gutless slow car, the BEV was waaaay better.
Best to go with a leased new EV6 or 1 year old used purchase as they depreciate hard.
I honestly want to buy a PHEV to replace our minivan but I run in to 2 crampers:
First, only the shitty Pacifica is a PHEV, so no van.
Second, all of the remaining PHEVs are ~$10K more than their gas counterparts.
I was the only person at my office of about 100 engineers to drive a PHEV for many years, starting in 2017. Now there are a handful in the parking lot, and most are 4xE’s. I still think the marketing for PHEV’s stinks, but I think the Jeep community is helping with the education and adoption of these vehicles.
I do agree that real exposure is the key to teaching people about these cars. I rode in both a Volt and an ELR prior to buying a Volt. I’ve certainly taken people for a drive and demonstrated the modes before. One more than a few occasions I’ve let people drive my PHEV too with me in the passenger seat. I’m never out there to try and convince people that they have to buy a PHEV… I just think everyone should be aware of the choice and see if it’s right for their lifestyle. It’s not right for everyone, but it’s right for a lot of people.
Unfortunately a lot of those 4xEs don’t get plugged in. So they have a pretty big battery in them but are getting like 23 MPG. Worst of both worlds.
I’m not anti-PHEV – I’ve owned 3 and my Pacifica PHEV is perfect for my family – but many people don’t know how they work, and I don’t believe they should get tax credits if they get under 30 MPG in gas-only operation.
I have a co-worker with a 4xe Wrangler. He seems pretty happy with it. He started out with level 1 charging at home and moved on to a level 2 charger. We also have 10 EV chargers at work; he’s the only one using them. We had a manager who drove a Chevy Bolt, but he retired.
I’m always happy when I see a 4xe plugged in. There’s one that parks up the street that maybe hopefully charges at work?
Of course the worst is seeing a PHEV taking up a charge spot while not plugged in.
1 of the 3 people I’ve met with PHEVs actually plugged theirs in.
I understand this opinion on the tax credits, but at the same time if used, the battery in a 4xe has the potential to offset more gas use than a vehicle that gets over 30mpg IF the person was set on buying a Jeep anyway. I have a truck to tow my camper. I bought the hybrid version because it got 2mpg better fuel economy. It still only gets around 18 mpg combined, but if I drive 15,000 miles a year, it’s still about 100 gallons of gas savings per year. It works the same for EV’s.
If I drive a 4xe for 15,000 miles a year, but half are electric, at 20mpg combined, I’ve saved 375 gallons of gas and I’m using 375 gallons of gas per year. That’s the same amount of gas as an ICE car getting 40 mpg per year.
The challenge is understanding that a person who buys a 4xe Wrangler isn’t cross shopping a small efficient car. Maybe they should be, but they probably aren’t going to be. It’s all perspective.
I have a truck because I need a truck, and we have a PHEV car because it’s used for commuting and all the little errands. I probably would have bought a PHEV truck if it was available, but I personally won’t buy an EV truck for pulling a camper until there’s much better charging infrastructure out there.
I could also work with making the person pay back the tax credit if they don’t charge the vehicle at least 50 times a year.
Of course the easiest solution to all this is making gas much more expensive and letting the market sort out the best way to work things out under those conditions, but people don’t like policies that make anything more expensive, so we have all of these wacky subsidy programs instead.
“Chrome Polisher Monthly”
Yeah…you probably shouldn’t google that on a work computer.
I read it for the articles!
Don’t forget to fold the cover for the secret image. One month they had the Land o’ Lakes lady logo…eh, nevermind.
Last job, I would post a lot in the #diy channel. I did this whole sequence of pictures restoring a brass doorknob, and not one person made a joke about polishing knobs. Some people, I tell ya…
It did come out gorgeous though, and got back to a bright, lustrous finish and actually feels like cold clean metal again. It was actually a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll polish some more knobs this week; they’re all over the house.
If you’re going to polish your knob all over the house, just remember to clean up after yourself.
A lot of people think PHEVs are your regular Prius type of car. When someone at the grocery store the other day saw me plugging the car to a Level 2 charger, they asked me how many miles I get? I said around 50 miles (Chevy Volt), and I saw their face and quickly added but it has a gas engine that gives me another 300 miles. They looked confused, I went inside.
Most people will do fine with a PHEV having a plug outside for a Level 1 charging situation. Either two things happen, they want more electric miles and go for a full electric car as next purchase or never bother charging it.
Or, they do keep it charged and use it as intended. We installed a L2 charger in the garage. Current tank on our PHEV: 90mpg. 7 gallons of gas over 650 miles.
Now that you mention it, I’d wager that if I told everyone in my extended family that there were cars out there that could be plugged in and driven electric long enough to get to work and back, plus had a gas engine, not a single one would have any idea they existed. PHEV’s should not be a secret.
Made me smile, but it’s actually a good point. Your average person doesn’t even know why car changes gears, not to mention understanding what’s under the hood. Blinker fluid is no joke.
Your average person doesn’t understand the difference between plural and possessive noun’s.
Your not wrong.
Its not there fault their not educated.
you win!
I see what you did they’re.
Two bad they’re are to many people who cant string too words two gather with out making sum miss steaks.
Mmmmm I miss me some rib-eyes
This entire thread made my brain hurt.
Their they’re, yule bee awl write.
I wish there was a yule bee. I always end up spending Christmas with my ants.
You have an Ant Bea?
Comedy gold right here.
What we’ve got hear is failure too communicate.