Last week Motor Trend wrote the article “Plug-In Hybrids? Just Say Hell No,” with a subheading that read “EVs have progressed. It’s time to ditch the training wheels.” I’m a fan of the author, Johnny Lieberman, but I have to call his “take” what it is: a steaming hot pile of manure.
I’ve already described in detail why PHEVs are valuable to American consumers and to the climate at large—these assertions are not refutable, they are simply fact. Still, Lieberman and many other journalists keep writing the same things: that EVs are so good these days that we should just get rid of PHEVs, and that not every PHEV owner plugs in all the time, anyway. Those are pretty much the main arguments against PHEVs, and they’re just ridiculous.
These authors’ “all or nothing” stances towards EVs are detrimental to our planet and they don’t help the consumer. I will not stand for it.
The Basic Premise: Getting More People Into Electric Cars Is A Net Societal Good
Let’s start with a basic premise: The best thing for the environment is to, as quickly as possible, get as many people driving electric as possible.
That’s a fair premise, right? Obviously, there are infrastructure saturation concerns, but by and large, the premise seems sound. Climate change is about cumulative emissions, so time matters. We need to get folks out of their guzzlers and zipping around on grid power ASAP. Then we gotta clean that grid up more and more (aka decarbonize the grid).
Then… Why Aren’t More People Buying EVs?
OK, so the premise is established. Now let’s take the next logical step from that premise: We have to determine why everyone can’t drive an EV immediately. Let’s, for the sake of simplicity, talk about those in the market for a new car. Why is it that over 80 percent of all vehicle sales are still traditional gas cars? For us to meet the goal established by our premise, we need to get those folks driving electric now! What’s happening? Let’s figure out the possible problems.
To simplify this, let’s just put the problems in terms of supply and demand. If every new car buyer wanted to drive an EV, and there was plenty of EV supply/variety at a good price, then our problem would be solved. And yet, less than 10 percent of new cars in the United States are EVs. So something is happening on the supply or demand side — which is it? The answer is: Both.
There are lots of reasons why not all car sales are EVs right now, including supply constraints, EV skepticism (including concerns about EV longevity/range/infrastructure/depreciation), and cost. Many of these, as the anti-PHEV article by MotorTrend correctly points out, may go away in time, with EVs dropping in cost year by year, infrastructure building up, and folks becoming better-versed on how EVs work. But, as I established earlier, climate change is a cumulative emissions issue. In 2024, we have lots of people looking to buy a new car they can drive for the next five or 10 years; they could choose an EV, but at least 90% of them do not.
The result? They keep driving gas cars, harming the environment.
This is a choice automakers have made, and it’s a choice that lots of anti-PHEV folks apparently want consumers to continue to make: “Buy an EV or keep driving gas guzzlers.” It’s the “All or Nothing” approach to electric vehicles and it’s doing significant harm to the environment.
Let’s Imagine A Customer Who Wants A Truck That Can Tow
Take example-customer Joey. Joey wants to buy a pickup truck to replace his 1997 Chevy Silverado, a V8 workhorse that has seen one too many Michigan winters and has succumbed to rust. He shops around and finds a Ford F-150 Lightning. “Oh wow, that’s a nice truck,” he says. “But damn, that’s not cheap. Worse, the thing can only tow a trailer 100 miles before needing a long recharge.
Joey passes. He looks at the Rivian R1T; it has the same issues. He checks out the Cybertruck — well, damn, it’s expensive and can’t tow far, either! Finally, he visits a Chevy dealership and sees the Silverado EV — it can tow his trailer for 200 miles! Awesome!
Except the reason it can tow a trailer 200 miles is that Chevy shoved a humongous 200+ kWh battery pack into it — a heavy, expensive, dirty-to-manufacture battery. “Yeah, that’s too expensive, I’m out,” says Joey. So Joey runs to his local Ford dealer and picks up an F-150 hybrid, which gets only 24 MPG combined. Joey continues to spew emissions into the air from his ICE pickup for the next 10 years.
Now let’s look at an alternative. Let’s say Joey waits a few months for the Ram Ramcharger to hit the market. The Ramcharger is a plug-in hybrid, though more specifically, you can call it an extended-range EV, or EREV. Joey checks it out. It can tow lots of weight, it has ridiculous range since the gasoline engine acts as a generator once the battery is depleted, it has a smaller battery that’s lighter and cleaner and cheaper to manufacture than that of an EV truck with the same range, and Joey can drive it in electric mode 95% of the miles he drives, since he really doesn’t tow that often.
So Joey turns in his gas guzzler today, and instead of driving a 24 MPG F-150 hybrid (or a 21 MPG Ram non-hybrid or his patched-up old 15 MPG Chevy V8) for the next decade, he spends 95% of his miles driving his Ramcharger in EV mode, only using the range extender when towing once every couple of years. The environment benefits. (Note: The Ram Ramcharger is expected to cost about as much as the Ram REV fully-electric truck, but per my conversation with experts at Munro & Associates, range-extended EVs can be cheaper to build than EVs since their batteries are so much smaller. The MotorTrend piece also notes that PHEVs tend to be cheaper than EVs).
Car Buying Is Not Rational
This “all or nothing” attitude is ridiculous and ignores human psychology. People are not rational actors, which is one reason why PHEVs are so important. Also, PHEVs CAN be cleaner than BEVs.
No disrespect to Motor Trend, of course. But read this:https://t.co/eDu54w0XSI https://t.co/k9qRuD5Irm
— David Tracy (@davidntracy) May 26, 2024
PHEV detractors will retort with these two non-points:
1. If this fake “Joey” person only tows once every couple of years, then he should just buy an EV and not a PHEV. He’s barely even towing!
2. What if he doesn’t charge and just uses the gas engine all the time?
These are the two main arguments against PHEVs, but they both fall flat under scrutiny.
First, when it comes to purchasing decisions, it’s really not that relevant what consumers actually do with their vehicles, it’s about what they think they can do. It’s why sports car buyers buy sports cars — not because they race them all the time, but because they could if they wanted to. It’s the same reason why people buy Jeep Wranglers — not because those customers off-road all the time, but because they could. It’s the same thing with trucks; people buy them not because they tow or haul that often, but because they could. It’s a vehicle’s capability — its potential — that creates its image, and it’s that image that consumers buy into. It’s been that way since the beginning of cars, and it’s never going to change.
To Lieberman’s credit, he acknowledges this:
Another argument is that a PHEV is perfect for running around town and then when it’s time for a road trip you have a gasoline vehicle. I absolutely get this part, especially psychologically. Lord knows, I’ve spent my fair share of time screaming into a phone about a slow/broken charger. But charging is improving.
But “charging is improving” isn’t enough of a counterpoint when less than 10% of new car sales are EVs. Are we just going to wait for infrastructure to improve as millions of Americans spew emissions from their tailpipes? Or are we going to give those Americans more options to drive electric today? Obviously, the second one is the answer, and we can make that happen by offering more PHEVs.
‘But Not Every PHEV Owner Charges’
The second point that many anti-PHEV folks make is about PHEV owners not actually charging their vehicles. ‘PHEVs are less efficient than gas counterparts when they’re not charged, and not all PHEV owners charge, so PHEVs are bad’ is the crux of the argument.
This I don’t entirely understand, either. First, if it’s inconvenient for these folks to charge, then how do we expect to sell them EVs, which require charging? More importantly, there’s not amazing data out there on what the “electric drive share” (i.e. how much of a vehicle’s driven mileage is done in electric-only mode) of a typical PHEV is today. Chevy famously said that over 65 percent of a Volt’s drive time (not miles) is done in electric mode:
And according to The Detroit Free Press, the best-selling PHEV in the U.S., the Jeep Wrangler 4Xe, is seeing plenty of charging. From the news site:
…Jeep owners are enthusiastic about EV mode. A whopping 90% of 4xe owners charge their vehicles an average of five times a week, Jeep North America boss Jim Morrison told me.
“A lot of our customers go days at a time without breaking into gasoline power,” Morrison said. “It’s something our customers want to do. They love the 4xe because it’s a really good Jeep. It’s fun to drive and quiet.”
Jeep collected data from 50,000 4xe owners who agreed to have their charging and driving behavior monitored anonymously.
The charging rate is even more impressive because the 4xe’s electric range is considerably below what the Strong Plug-in Hybrid Coalition considers necessary to encourage regular charging.
Remember that last line about electric range being too low to encourage charging, because I’ll get back to it in a second. For now, I’ll paste a bit more data from that Detroit Free Press article:
Kia sells a trio of plug-in hybrid small SUVs: the Niro, Sorento and Sportage. Assembled outside North America, they are not eligible for federal tax credits, but their charging rates are encouraging.
Owners of all three report frequently plugging in to charge daily or nightly:
◾ Niro: 70%
◾ Sorento: 80%
◾ Sportage: 62%
Obviously, that Kia study is fairly weak, and there are studies out there that say charging rates on PHEVs are too low — studies like this one from the International Council On Clean Transportation. But even that study says it could benefit from additional data.
So the data is murky, but that doesn’t matter because not every owner has to plug in all the time for PHEVs to make sense. If only a third of truck drivers plug in daily and drive 95 percent of their miles in EV mode instead of spewing emissions from a 21 MPG (or lower) truck, that’s going to be a significant win for the environment. And to be honest, I bet the figure would be above a third for pickup trucks, since driving them on gas leads to such a significant added cost for the driver.
What’s more, it’s not a given that all PHEVs have to be less efficient than equivalent gas cars when they’re not charged. A range-extended EV running on its gas engine could, in theory, be more efficient than an equivalent ICE vehicle since the engine is able to run at a steady RPM to act as a generator.
And that leads me to a significant issue with these anti-PHEV assertions: They assume that all PHEVs must be like the ones currently available. Just because modern PHEVs aren’t good enough (as I wrote in a previous story) doesn’t mean future PHEVs can’t be different.
PHEVs Can Be So Much Better Than The Current Ones Out There Now
I mentioned a few paragraphs up that you should remember that line in the Detroit Free Press article about PHEVs’ electric ranges being too low to encourage charging. Here’s more from that piece:
“Longer-range PHEVs get plugged in very, very regularly,” said coalition co-chair and Colorado State University engineering professor Tom Bradley. “Even PHEVs that are only charged at work or every other day are still effective” at reducing emissions.
There are many potential policy tools available to increase the electric drive share of PHEVs. EPA could consider the following measures:
» Adjust the regulatory charge-depleting drive share (utility factor) downwards for PHEVs to reflect current real-world performance.
» Require in-use data reporting for specific PHEV models to receive a higher utility factor reflective of said in-use data.
» Adopt minimum electric driving range requirements, similar to California’s range requirements for zero-emission vehicle crediting in its Advanced Clean Cars II regulation.
» Adopt other vehicle model-level technical requirements such as minimum all electric power, maximum fuel tank size, fast-charging capability, and minimum cold weather performance.
» Establish a higher utility factor corresponding to demonstrated purchase of PHEV by drivers with home chargers or proof of manufacturer-provided charging access assistance. Meanwhile, manufacturers could incentivize regular charging by assisting in home charger installation and by actively reporting cost of driving to users. Tax administrators can incentivize PHEV purchases by offering purchase or tax credits for PHEVs whose in-use data show high utility factor.
This all aligns with my aforementioned article about how modern PHEVs just aren’t good enough. Here’s a quote from my piece:
let’s have a look at the pure-EV range figures of some of America’s most popular plug-in hybrids:
- Jeep Wrangler 4xe: 22 miles
- Ford Escape plug-in: 37 miles
- Chrysler Pacifica PHEV: 32 miles
- Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe: 26 miles
- Hyundai Tucson PHEV: 33 miles
- Hyundai Santa Fe PHEV: 31 miles
- BMW X5 xDrive45e: 31 miles
- BMW 330e: 23 miles
- Toyota Prius Prime: 44 miles
- Lexus RX450H+: 37 miles
These numbers are pathetic.
Many of these cars don’t even have enough range to get the average American to work and back without recharging, and even if you can plug in these low-range PHEVs at work, plenty of Americans will still not be able to do a full home-work-home commute.
[…]
Seriously, if the government’s goal is what they say it is — to get folks driving electric — then we need higher-range PHEVs, ideally relatively-simple, range-extended models that are clearly EVs first, gas cars second. If we can get reasonably-priced, 70-ish-mile PHEVs out there, I bet we’d see a lot more folks driving electric sooner than we think.
Today, we have far too many low-range, half-baked PHEVs out there, and far too few high-range range-extended EVs (which count as PHEVs). Plus, we have zero plug-in hybrid pickup trucks — vehicles that, more than most, would incentivize charging given how much gas they’d use when the ICE was on. If we had a larger variety of range-extended PHEVs with decent, 70+ mile EV-only range, there’s no question that they’d get plugged in far more than the current crop of PHEVs, especially if we adopt “vehicle model-level technical requirements” that the ICCT mentions above like maximum fuel tank size and minimum electric power.
We need the PHEVs to feel like EVs first, and gas cars second. Modern PHEVs feel like the opposite.
Let’s Stop With The Anti-PHEV Slander, Because The Value Of PHEVs Is Irrefutable
What exactly has led Lieberman and so many other car journalists to write these anti-PHEV articles? I think maybe they’re getting caught up a bit in all the EV excitement, but more than anything, I think their view of PHEVs does not span beyond the current crop of offerings. Modern PHEVs kinda suck, especially relative to what they could be, and if you drive a vehicle with only a 30-mile EV range, and listen to the engine cut on before you make it home from work, you’re naturally going to think what Lieberman thought:
A charged Prius Prime is smooth and silent and torquey; it does indeed offer most of the inherent good benefits of EV driving. Until the battery runs dry. Then the weak, coarse 2.0-liter Atkinson-cycle inline-four fires up and routes its power through a continuously variable transmission. Not exactly my idea of a good time. The whole driving experience gets worse. I kept thinking, Man, why not just plop a larger battery into the Prime and turn it into a damn fine EV?
I’m going to respond to that rhetorical question at the end of that quote: Because not everyone wants an EV, and what’s more, an automaker can make two or three PHEVs using the battery resources from a single BEV. If the Prius Lieberman was driving offered a decent EV range of, say, 75 or 80 miles, he’d rarely ever hear that anemic gas motor cut on, he’d be driving a car more palatable to the masses, and he’d possibly be driving a car even better for the environment than a full-EV since the battery is much smaller (depending upon how often he uses the range extender).
Before I conclude, allow me to address a few specific quotes in the Motor Trend piece:
A dead PHEV battery means you’re needlessly dragging a heavy EV drivetrain around town with you…With a PHEV, you get added tire wear to go along with all that.
Um, with an EV, you’re carrying around 1000 pounds of extra weight every day as you commute to and from work. The weight of a gas engine and cooling system doesn’t even compare.
But let’s say you dutifully charge your PHEV before you drive it. You’re being trained to use an EV in the worst way. Fully charging a battery to 100 percent and then running it down to zero is terrible for the long-term health of any battery.
This assumes PHEVs only have just enough range for an average commute. Current ones do, so I’ll give you that. But some PHEVs, like my 2021 BMW i3S, offer 130 miles of range, so I have to recharge once every four days, and I don’t have to top it up to 100%. So that charging assumption isn’t fair, though yes, you’d have to charge it more than you’d charge an EV. (Note: I owned a small-battery PHEV that needed its battery replaced, but that was an early battery on BMW’s earliest EV; later updated models have batteries that last extremely long, rendering the point about battery degradation moot).
I’m aware pro-PHEV individuals will argue the local infrastructure where they live doesn’t support owning a fully electric vehicle. My counter: If you’re charging your PHEV at home, why not charge an EV at home?
I don’t get it? Why not just keep the PHEV and charge it at home? Why is charging an EV at home better than charging a PHEV at home? I’m a bit lost on this point. Especially if you only use it as a short-range commuter, why would you want a humongous battery that you never use?
Another pro-PHEV argument is that on average, they’re cheaper to buy. Also a fair point, for now. Lower-priced EVs are coming, but in the meantime, have you checked out how little used EVs cost?
Sure, but if I’m buying new, those crazy EV depreciation rates would scare me off a bit. (To be sure: PHEV depreciation is a bit lower based on what I’ve read, but it’s not great).
Why have two propulsion systems when one works just fine? It’s a dead technology, anyway, as several countries and 12 U.S. states will be banning the sale of new internal combustion vehicles in coming years.
Why have two? Because 1. You can build 2-3 PHEVs with the battery resources from one EV. 2. PHEVs are cheaper than EVs 3. PHEVs are lighter than EVs 4. PHEVs can be better for the environment than EVs 5. EV skepticism is real 6. Infrastructure concerns
And I could go on and on. (Though technically it’s not two propulsion systems, since a range-extended EV just charges the battery, which drives the car via the electric motor. Added maintenance is minimal; change the oil every couple of years, maybe swap an air filter, that’s about it). The reality is that the automaker with the biggest decrease in carbon emissions last year was Toyota, and the company did that not by offering EVs, but by offering hybrids. Additionally, the ICCT — the organization that wrote the study criticizing PHEV charging rates — states emphatically that PHEVs can be major players in reducing climate change:
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have the potential to reduce emissions from light-duty vehicles and help ease the transition to fully electric, zero tailpipe-emission vehicles. Though PHEVs store less energy in their battery packs than fully electric vehicles, PHEVs can be designed with enough energy storage to cover most daily trips in the United States. As long as such vehicles begin with a full, or nearly full charge every day, they have the capacity to significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption.
PHEVs value to the environment is irrefutable.
I’m not saying that the U.S. shouldn’t still push EVs, because people who absolutely need charging infrastructure to get around will help push that infrastructure to improve more than folks who have a gas range extender backup onboard — pain points yield growth. Nor am I saying there aren’t major issues with PHEVs. They don’t have enough range, for one, and their emissions output isn’t easily predictable.
This latter point is worth reiterating, because it should not be understated how important accountability is to overall emissions reduction, and thus climate change mitigation. And that’s a challenge right now, because automakers are awarded by the EPA when they sell clean cars, and they’re punished when they sell dirty cars. If the EPA is rewarding automakers for selling PHEVs under the assumption that those PHEVs get charged the vast majority of the time, and those cars rarely get charged, then the automaker is reaping rewards without actually benefiting the environment. This is an important challenge for us to tackle, but it’s 2024, and this can be solved easily, and things are happening on that front. The ICCT breaks it down:
The upshot is that EPA had been giving automakers too much credit for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions from the PHEVs they sold. EPA counts electric vehicles as zero-carbon in its vehicle regulations, and PHEVs as partially-zero carbon, based on their assumed electric drive share. In effect, EPA was undercounting the GHG emissions from the higher-than-expected gas guzzling of PHEVs.
EPA is addressing that problem now by lowering their assumed PHEV electric drive share. The figure below shows EPA’s previously assumed drive share in blue and their proposed revision to that curve in red. EPA’s proposed new curve is almost exactly the same as the one in our 2022 study, shown in green, which we derived from user-reported data in the Fuelly app. As a result, EPA’s estimates have moved closer to real-world usage. For example, a PHEV with a 35-mile electric range will be labeled as 45% zero-carbon instead of 57%.
The ICCT recommends the EPA drop that electric drive share further, and it even suggests in the previously-mentioned study that the EPA “Require in-use data reporting for specific PHEV models to receive a higher utility factor reflective of said in-use data.”
So yes, the GHG credits side of things still needs work, but it’s something that can be solved, and it certainly does not detract from the (once again) irrefutable fact that offering PHEVs is good for the climate. It’s not up for debate anymore. Please, stop writing articles about how EVs are so good and not all PHEV drivers plug in, so therefore PHEVs should go away. Those points are weak.
You can get more people driving EV daily by offering PHEVs, which are cheaper, lighter, more palatable to EV skeptics, not as resource-intensive to build, and immune to infrastructure issues. And as the infrastructure improves, PHEV buyers will just plug in more frequently.
Let’s move on.
Thank you for continuing to espouse logic on this point, DT. This all or nothing EV purist nonsense preached by douchebag chucklefucks (thanks Adrian) makes my blood boil.
Since when has MT been an academic white paper …
Lieberman the feckless EV monger
Lieberman the feckless EV monger
Lieberman the feckless EV monger (talkin’ ‘bout the man)
Lieberman the feckless EV monger
The infernal EV monger, still writing through the night.
Now he’s a hybrid hater and he still thinks he is right.
In Motor Trend, on Instagram, on YouTube opining absurdly,
WR Hearst heard the worst of Lieberman’s EV rant and bought it.
Most of the ICCT’s proposed changes are the exact WRONG thing to do to encourage PHEV adoption. To have PHEV adoption requires PHEVs be available. Many of those changes remove the incentive for the mfg to produce PHEVs. That means less PHEVs not more, no matter what the potential demand could be.
At one point it would have made sense for a minimum pure EV range since a lot of the early models had minimal range. In many cases it was just enough to make sure it would get the tax breaks for those significant “company car” sales. The failure in that which has led to most of the Anti PHEV propaganda is that for the vehicle operator they could fill up with the company gas card or pay for the electricity themselves. There was no requirement that for those companies to provide adequate or any charging at the work site or for them to reimburse the employee for the electricity used. So the operators of a huge swath of those early PHEVs were in fact incentivized to NOT plug in the car. Combine that with the fact that some of them had single digit real world EV ranges in cold weather meant yes the impact was minimal.
PHEVs have evolved significantly since those early models and that was not driven by regulations but by the market forces.
Imposing a minimum range at this point would be counter productive in a number of ways and reduces or negates the advantages of a PHEV that would encourage widespread adoption.
For example you could build given the same battery capacity you could make about twice as many 35 mi vehicles as 70 mi vehicles.
The larger battery will cost more and weigh more, reducing or in some cases possibly eliminate those advantages a PHEV has over an EV.
A larger battery encourages less frequent charging and that isn’t necessarily a good thing. If the norm is that you plug it in when you arrive home it becomes much harder to forget to plug it in. Some PHEVs do have the ability to set the SOC limit just like in a regular EV. Our default is charge to 80%. If we know we are going to exceed that range we will bump it as required so it hits the target when we are planning on leaving. It isn’t so much the charging higher than 80% that damages the battery as much as it is sitting unused at a high state of charge.
A smaller battery means quicker charging times, even if it can mean lower charging rates. That is important because of perception. One of the advantages of a PHEV is that you “only need a 110v outlet to charge it over night”. Requiring more than 10-12 hrs for a full charge means that people will think they need a 220v charger. While that won’t scare away everyone it will scare some people away and create a barrier via an added expense whether real or perceived.
We have an Escape PHEV and Tue I found myself using it for a trip that exceeds its rated range. The trip there was just at 35 mi while the trip home was 33 mi since going I took the longer route which was quicker due to traffic patterns. It was a planned trip at a planned time so I did bump the charge to 100% for a estimated range of 39mi when I turned on the vehicle. When I arrived at my destination it said I had 3 mi left. I did get a bit more than 3mi out of it on the way home due to the path. I did the final 30 mi home at ~40 mpg. Had I taken my Hybrid I would have used slightly more than twice as much fuel. A 50% reduction on those somewhat longer trips is still very significant and that is against another Hybrid. If someone swapped their 30 mpg SUV the reduction would be even larger.
Our lifetime “mpg” currently sits at just under 80 about twice the hybrid mpg so 1/2 the fuel use.
Which brings up another point where the hit piece was wrong. PHEVs don’t get significantly worse MPG when operating in Hybrid mode. Escape PHEV 38 mpg combined, Escape HEV 37 mpg. Prius Prime 53 mpg, Prius Eco 53 mpg. Rav4 Prime 36 mpg, Rav4 Hybrid 38 mpg. So in one case the PHEV does better, one is a tie, and the 3rd the PHEV does do worse. Even if it is worse taking a 100 mi trip with 60 of it at 36 mpg will still use significantly less fuel that driving 100 miles at 38 mpg. A trip of 1000 miles means only an extra ~1.5 gal used, vs potentially saving a gallon a day the rest of the year.
Finally the vehicle should be a HEV primarily not a REXed up EV. For a REX to be efficient requires driver input and knowledge or a significant increase in the minimum SOC requiring an even larger battery to achieve that 70mi range. People want an auto mode where the car just does the car things asked of without having to consider the trip’s distance and when to engage the REX for most efficient operation.
OK one more thing wrong about the hit piece, a PHEV never fully discharges its battery. On ours the actual battery SOC when the infotainment reports 0% battery is 27% as read by Forscan, I haven’t seen it go under 15%.
Forgot to mention that the i3s is the poster child for just saying no to EV biased REX style PHEVs. 2021 i3s 93 MPGe 31 MPG. vs same year Hybrid biased PHEVs, 2021 Escape PHEV 93 MPGe 38 MPG, 2021 Prius Prime 121 MPGe 53 MPG, 2021 Niro PHEV 99 MPGe 44 MPG, 2014 Accord PHEV 105 MPGe 46 MPG. Yeah there are less efficient PHEVs like the much larger 2021 Outlander PHEV 71 MPGe 26 MPG. The Rex is simply less efficient at hybrid operation and despite all the tech of the i3 is also fails to match the EV efficiency of PHEVs based on the standard hybrid tech.
You make many of the same points that I wanted to make.
DT wrote:
What are the arguments for shorter-range PHEVs over longer-range PHEVs? Because 1. You can build 5−6 shorter-range PHEVs with the same battery resources as one EV. You can build 3 shorter-range PHEVs with the same battery resources as one longer-range PHEV. The shorter-range PHEV Prius Prime battery is only 13.6kwh vs. DT’s new BMW i3 Rex which has a 42.2kwh battery 2. Short-range PHEVs are cheaper than long-range PHEVs. 3. Short range PHEVs are lighter than long-range PHEVs. 5. Shorter-range PHEVs can be better for the environment than longer-range PHEVs. What do you think is better for carbon emissions? Three people driving Prius Primes or one person driving an i3-rex?
I also agree with you that people driving PHEVs shouldn’t stress about doing every last mile of their commute in EV only like DT is doing. The math shows a huge reduction in gas usage. A good way to think about it is gallons of gas per year. For 12k mile per year, a 25mpg ICE car uses 480 gallons, a 50mpg hybrid 240 gallons, a shorter-range PHEV that doesn’t quite cover your commute maybe only 100 gallons (at 20 miles per day on gas 5 days a week) more per year than a longer-range PHEV. The extra battery resources to save that little bit extra in gasoline would better serve global carbon reductions going to a 20−30 more 1kwh regular-ass Prius hybrids that save 240 gallons a year each. Plus, at least in the Prius Prime, you need to use that ICE to get the acceleration performance you paid for.
That’s also my (and Toyota’s) argument for building more hybrids than PHEVs for reducing carbon emissions faster. . . Ten regular Prius hybrids do more for the earth than one PHEV Prius Prime.
Agree 100%.
Gallons per year, that’s the stat that counts. Percentages and MPGs are misleading, because as efficiency rises, the savings fall. On a 100-mile trip, saving 50% over a 40MPG car would only save you less than one gallon. Saving 50% over a 20MPG car saves 2 1/2 gallons.
While it is true that a PHEV saves less gas vs a Hybrid than vs an ICE only I fail to see your point that somehow that makes a PHEV bad.
I don’t mean to say that at all. Read my half-dozen other posts in this thread.
I think a battery range around 40-50 miles is the goal, from the butt accelerometer school of guesstimating. Anything under 35 miles is mid effort, and more than 50, you are thinking more of a REX EV than a PHEV, with the associated larger battery penalty.
So I would suggest the PHEV be built around a certain range goal, then let the other parts fall into place due to engineering constraints.
One of the things that I think is going on here is, a lot of the European experience with PHEVs, which AFAIK is a lot of the basis for the ICCT report, has been based on company cars, where a lot of German platforms got hastily-designed hybrid systems that had the minimum R&D investment to get 50 km NEDC all electric range, left a lot of efficiency on the table, that operated through conventional drivelines (reducing the efficiency of the hybrid system), and these PHEVs replaced non-hybrid diesel cars (which do have better real-world CO2 performance than many non-hybrid gasoline cars).
So, in that European scenario, a BMW 318d or 320d 2.0TD would get replaced with a much heavier BMW 330e 2.0T PHEV, the company leasing it would get incentives for doing so, and then would proceed to use their normal model of handing out fuel cards along with the cars as perks for employees and wouldn’t install workplace charging. Then, why would an employee that gets free fuel install home charging and use their own electricity at their expense?
Charge even one of these horrible incentive-harvesting PHEVs, and you’ll beat the ICEs for CO2 emissions, but use them like that, and the poor hybrid system and the added weight meant that they got worse real-world CO2 emissions than a non-hybrid diesel.
Every PHEV you list in your comment instead uses a power split device, which does a much better job of maximizing the ICE efficiency than the P2 hybrid systems combined with ZF 8-speed automatics that these things use, and battery power doesn’t have to go through the transmission in them (and transmission mechanical losses are quite low anyway), as MG2 (in Toyota terminology) is connected to the wheels after the power split device. That also means that a never-plugged Toyota (or other power split, like the Escape, former C-Max and Fusion, Gen 2 Chevy Volt, and Chrysler Pacifica) PHEV actually does fine when just used as a HEV.
I drive a 2019 Volt (own my 3rd, after a 2013 and 2016 on leases). I’d like more creature comforts and safety tech, so I look at new pure EVs, a lot. And every time, I realize that my Volt is the answer. My everyday driving is electric. But when I drive to my in-laws’ (160 miles one-way) or my company’s home office (250 one-way), both in Midwest semi-rural areas with little to no charging infrastructure, I use the 1.5L gas motor, and don’t worry about having to find somewhere to charge – especially in the winter. It just makes so much f’ing sense, at least until the infrastructure is in place.
“PHEVs- The Half-Assed Solution for Half-Assed Times!”
Since Americans have such gargantuan asses, half an ass is enough for me.
I stopped reading Motor Tend after the PT Cruiser came out and they bought into the marketing bs hook, line, and sinker when they were talking about how it was a class defying vehicle and questioned if it was a van, wagon, SUV, etc.
I would agree that the Plymouth PT Cruiser was a class defying vehicle. It had no class at all. That’s defiance!
Well said. MT, (like most magazines) has been a joke for years now.
It sucks that the industry is dying.
Now that we have a plugin Rav4, I finally set up the charge timer to charge every night at 10pm. We can go several days without having to charge we drive so little, so if we forget to plug it in, not a big deal. We are now getting 47 miles in the EV mode. When we drive to visit the kids, it’s a 700+ mile drive, so a hybrid is the perfect vehicle for us now. That 700 miles is a one-day drive taking about 14 hours, and the xtra time spent charging an EV would make it just longer enough to be very difficult in one day.
If we’re going all or nothing, we’re going all or nothing! Why buy a resource intensive EV or PHEV? When you can break out the Lycra and hit up Craigslist for a used road bike! You want an excuse to shave your legs, you got it. With a bicycle you’ll be weirdly tan by May, in a Northern climate. Traffic? It’s a peloton now. It’s Le Tour de Everywhere. Towing a boat? Not anymore. Being in a boat on water is triathlon adjacent. You’re a self-respecting god darn Cyclist now, you’re not about to ruin a perfectly good bike ride with a swim before hand and a run after.
Pfft, I don’t need no excuses! Though I admit the last time I shaved my legs was for tattoos. I never had that much to gain by being a little less hirsute.
My only experience with a modern hybrid is the Corolla and the external speaker noise generator on EV mode was far more annoying than the engine cutting on (so much so that I would purposely put it in “B”, which seemed to run it on the ICE so I didn’t have to listen to the ’50s sci-fi/worn out brake noise. Legal or not, I’d rip that the f out first day if I owned one). I would imagine the better Prius is even better at mitigating the engine “harshness”.
Another potential advantage of the PHEV is the potential for an efficient sports car. Currently, EVs are far too heavy to be a sports car (that is, a vehicle built more for enjoyment of driving and engagement at any speed rather than numbers like a performance car or most EVs, which I personally DGAF about and even see as a negative). Not that I actually expect anyone would build one, but let’s say the GRZ went hybrid. If they could keep the manual and it only added a couple hundred pounds, I’d buy it (I currently have a ’22). Not sure how they’d package it, but that’s a theoretical example. Anyway, a simple car with good dynamics, engagement, looks, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 mpg and anywhere around 50 miles on EV? Hell yes. And I suppose, in lieu of a manual option from someone else, I’d probably still buy it without one.
Toyota’s “EV mode” sound effect is indeed awful. “Worn out brake noise” describes it perfectly. It’s like fingers on a chalkboard to me. Obviously the owners don’t seem to mind, since there are millions of Toyota HEV & PHEV vehicles out there. But I think Toyota could garner some goodwill if they just made that sound a little more pleasant.
Excellent rant, David. A lot of readers here seem to be pro PHEV so I have a feeling you are preaching to the choir, but keep preaching anyway.
I’m genuinely surprised an automotive journalist would have a hard time seeing the limitations of EVs and fail to see how PHEVs solve those problems. My co-daily drivers are an F250 and a Tesla. I really like the Tesla, but road trips are far easier with my F250, so I end up driving that quite a lot. I may be unique that I keep both vehicles for myself, but I know several two car households that keep one EV and one ICE vehicle. The ICE vehicle is invariably used for long trips. As a result, these households end up using using a lot more fuel than they realize and could use less fuel by driving two PHEVs instead (or ideally, one EV and one PHEV, but a limiting factor there could be charging time for the EV’s larger battery).
I was bored a few months ago so I calculated the effective MPG of all of my driving (all miles driven between both vehicles / gallons of fuel burned). It was around 40 mpg. I could do better if my ICE vehicle was something like a Honda Civic, but it still would be no higher than 60 mpg. If I replaced both vehicles with a PHEV that could drive 30 miles as an EV and then got 30 mpg, my MPG would go up to around 80. If I bought a PHEV with 100 miles of EV range, my effective MPG went up to over 200 MPG. If you look at the numbers, two car households could save a lot of gas by owning PHEVs vs owning an EV and an ICE vehicle. I suspect a lot of people are unaware a PHEV might use less fuel overall when you consider sometimes you will have to use an ICE vehicle for tasks EVs are less suited to.
A lot of people view PHEVs as a short term solution while EV technology develops, but I’m starting to think PHEVs might be the better long-term solution than trying to get all drivers to switch to EVs. I just wish the PHEV vehicles available didn’t suck.
I think it’s likely that most households, if they have easy access to charging, could use EVs for their daily drivers and keep an ICE or hybrid vehicle for those situations when EVs are not suitable. In our case, we have an EV that we use for probably 90% of our driving, and an ICE minivan for when we need it (e.g. road trips, hauling large items, towing the utility trailer, moving more than 4 people). Our plan is to get rid of the minivan when the charging infrastructure allows us to take road trips without worrying about finding charging.
Agree with David overall. We really need to stop using towing as an example for everything though.
It doesn’t really pull its weight as an argument, does it?
Yep. Stop hitching EV range and towing together.
Sorry, totally disagree. Towing is very important to a not insubstantial share of vehicle owners. Was looking at hybrids to replace our current large (towing) vehicle, but finding one that would tow the 4000 lbs I need has been a frustrating task. I’ve given up. We’ll get a hybrid when we replace the small car.
You just indicated you’re concerned about the weight that can be towed, not the range it can be towed? They’re separate measures.
You know why consumers shouldn’t buy PHEVs? Because the extreme hypermajority of the time, electricity to run a poorly optimized electric only system costs more per mile than gas from the hybrid operation mode would. The non-phev hybrid is better for most people most of the time, and is cheaper and lighter than the phev. Now ofc sometimes this isn’t true, and a phev is certainly a better investment than a new non-hybrid
Example: non-bottom trim prius hybrid gets 52 mpg (1.9 gallons per 100 miles). Prius prime averages to 29 kWh per 100 miles (and 2.1 gallons per 100 miles). Here in Pittsburgh, gas costs 3.90 and electricity (Inc distribution) costs 27c/kwh. By gas a normal prius costs 7.20 to travel that 100 miles. By ele the prime costs 7.80 to travel the 100 miles, not including charging losses and 8 dollars by gas.
PHEVs generally are worse hybrids and unless your ele is way way cheaper than gas, most PHEVs have such absolutely abysmal efficiency (the prime is by far the most efficient phev in the US market btw) that it just doesn’t make sense, even if they cost the same, which they don’t.
— and btw I drive an electric car, and would literally never go back to a non-hybrid ICE car, but PHEVs just don’t actually make sense a good fraction of the time compared to properly done normal hybrids.
It must also be noted that the EPA ratings for EVs are known to still be rather generous, especially in the cold and HWY, so these deltas shift more and more towards HEVs in the real world where net benefits are often much smaller than purported. The midwest has moderately expensive gas and relatively cheap ele (though including distribution and charging losses, it is still quite a bit more than the claimed averages nationwide, which does not include those factors), so they would be the most obvious applications for PHEVs, especially as home ownership is easiest there, but travel lengths in the interior are also quite a bit longer than the coasts, so then you get back into a point where normal HEVs would be better.
Motor Trend is based on Southern California, and that colors J. Lieberman’s perspective. EVs certainly do look more appealing there than in the Midwest. SoCal has more charging stations, no winters and less peer/political pressure against EVs. Given that set of facts on the ground, we should offer those flyover buyers what they want, not what JL thinks they need.
It certainly does depend on the electricity and fuel rates in your personal area. In mine it cost less than half to drive my PHEV on home electrons than it does at current gasoline prices plus at least by the combined ratings uses less fuel in Hybrid mode than the Hybrid model does. In my case it is true the PHEV did not cost the same as the HEV version it cost less, thanks to the tax credits it was eligible for.
I don’t know much about electricity rates (couldn’t even tell you what my own rate is), but electricchoice.net lists PA’s average price per kwh at only 14 cents, which seems pretty typical for the US. Where does
your 27 cents number come from?
Those ‘rates’ don’t include distribution, which for the Pittsburgh area is currently 0.09 / KWh. Don’t even get me started about the utter bullshit that is ‘price to compare’ which also doesn’t include distribution, even though distribution costs are anywhere from 30-50% of the bill in the state of PA.
The Average Electricity Rate in the U.S. is 16.68 c/kwh.
See above, but those ‘rates’ don’t include distribution, which for the Pittsburgh area is currently 0.09 / KWh.
I wouldn’t waste time with so many calculations. There are too many unknowns to allow for. Electric rates (when did it become “ele?”) vary by location. During my eight years of PHEV ownership, gas prices have ranged around $3-4 per gallon, with an unexpected plunge to $1 during the worst of COVID. Your numbers also don’t include $200 worth of oil changes I’ve been able to skip because the gas engine ran less than half the time. And as I’ve said before, “Your mileage may vary” is especially true with PHEVs, because actual fuel economy is determined by how many long trips you take beyond EV range. Math doesn’t lie, but there’s a fib or fallacy behind all your numbers.
I wouldn’t say there is a fallacy in the numbers, just that those are the numbers that are applicable in one particular case for someone living in Pittsburgh. In Maryland I pay about 10 cents less per kwh and rarely need to use one of our cars for more than 10 miles a day. PHEV for me when it needs a replacement. That will probably be many years down the road so who knows what the landscape will look like then.
To be fair, modern PHEVs are not range extended EVs/serial EVs. The i3 REX, Volt, Ram Charger, and Via Vtrux are the only implementations of what I consider to be the IDEAL powertrain for 99.9% of people. I’ve disliked every “PHEV” I’ve ever driven.
To be less fair, Lieberman is a bad take generator and a clickbait artist.
Exactly. Range extended EVs can make sense, but most phevs are awful bastards of vehicles that are actually worse than the normal HEV versions of the car. Including the prius prime, rav4 (all the old midsize sedan examples ie fusion etc), jeep x4e etc.
Outlander PHEV is a serial hybrid design, so while it’s debatable whether it strictly qualifies as a “range-extended EV”, it’s not the same architecture as most PHEVs.
Furthermore, every review I’ve read has called the Outlander’s hybrid mode (when the gas engine is running full-time to power the motor-generator) as “disappointing” or “not what it could be”; however, they fail to mention that it’s still superior to the mileage attained in the 4-cyl ICE version of that same vehicle. So I wonder where the “PHEVs are less efficient than ICE” argument even comes from?! Can anyone think of any examples where a PHEV gets worse gas mileage than an ICE version of the same vehicle?
It’s, AFAIK, based on European experience, where a poorly-optimized parallel hybrid carrying around a PHEV-sized is less efficient/higher CO2 emissions in the real-world than the low-trim non-hybrid diesels they’re replacing. So, think something like a BMW 318d/320d with a 2.0 turbodiesel replaced by a 330e with a 2.0T gasoline engine and a half-assed hybrid system.
I don’t care how other people use their PHEV’s. I use mine as an electric car for 90 percent of my driving. I charge at home (using 110 on the cars portable charger mind you), and I have the option of charging at work. I don’t need to! My round trip commute is roughly 40 miles, 30 of that on the highway at 65-70 mph, 10 in the city, and my Volt will easily do that on a single charge. The only time I need to use the gasser is when I go on a longer drive, and even then I’m getting about 40-45 mpg on the highway. Whats not to like? My work offers charging (at a cost) so I just pop on over to the safeway across the street and use their free chargers.
Not only am I needlessly burning fuel, and even if I exclusively charged at home, it costs me around a DOLLAR to charge my completely dead battery. That’s 50 miles of travel, for a DOLLAR.
*Not needlessly
Yeah ours is almost 100% EV use from day to day with a few trips mixed in that would have been difficult or impossible in most EVs. So yeah the best of both worlds.
Aren’t logical fallacies fun?
I’m just tired of smart journalists writing dumb things about PHEVs.
Hearing Johnny Lieberman melt down on the Smoking Tire was all I needed to not consider him a “smart journalist”
the main point that the motortrend article misses is the assumption with PHEVs that you are either using gas or you are using electricity never both. the Reality is that even when a PHEV is out of “ev range” it is still a fully functioning hybrid vehicle. Lastly, almost every PHEV has the option to go into an intelligent hybrid mode that will smartly switch between gas , EV, and combined to get 100+mpg on short to medium trips. You could then switch to EV only mode on your return trip to use the remainder of your charge to maximize your savings if you wish.
PHEV is not the “worst of both worlds” it’s everything that’s great about hybrid cars but turned up to 11 because you have a larger traction battery and a more powerful electric motor for more power/thrust.
Very true
Correct! I didn’t know these things until i got a hybrid, then a PHEV, of my own. But I’m not a paid and pampered autowriter. It’s his business to know.
As a Tesla owner, and previously, an Ford Focus Electric owner (70 miles range), I’ve been a vocal proponent of all electric vehicles. But, David, I cannot find fault with your arguments. I’ve always said that I could never own an electric car if I couldn’t charge it in my garage or on my driveway; having to rely on public charging just isn’t worth it, even using the superior Tesla Supercharger network of chargers. My typical commute is 52 miles a day. That is overnight rechargeable on a 110V plug, which a 300+ mile battery is not (requires at least a Level 2 charger). So, a PHEV would work for the vast majority of my driving, and make those infrequent long range trips much more palatable (no waiting for a charge).
Thanks for writing this. Definitely the best read I’ve had today. But, I think you left out one major negative of a Plug In Hybrid vs a full electric; maintenance costs. A full electric requires no oil changes, filters, or any other maintenance. My Tesla has almost 60,000 miles. So far, maintenance has been one set of wiper blades, a replacement 12V battery, and tires. Nothing else. If I had a PHEV, I’d have paid for at least 5 oil changes (assume one per year, even if I’m rarely using the engine), and as the car ages, there are more things to go wrong that the BEV doesn’t have. I’m surprised you didn’t include that in your article.
Thank you!
I mentioned it in my previous piece, but good point: worth reiterating.
That said, a range extender doesn’t need much maintenance, especially if you rarely use it. Change the oil once every two years, and you’re good.
Doesn’t your Tesla have a cabin air filter? Those need periodic replacement. Collision insurance premiums on Teslas are more costly, I hear, because they’re expensive to repair. And how are residual values doing on used Teslas these days? It’s not fair comparing ownership costs unless you count ALL the costs, because they all come out of the same pocket.
Yes, you are absolutely correct….I forgot those costs. For the record, I replace my own cabin air filters, same as I do on my wife’s ICE car, so a wash there. Yep, my insurance is a bit higher than a Corolla, but less than the car the Tesla replaced (a 2008 BMW 550i). But, it is higher nonetheless. Resale, not an issue until I sell, and I typically keep my cars until resale isn’t really an issue; it’s typically nearly worthless by the time I’m ready to sell. But, you’re right, all costs need to be considered.
The next good thing written by Lieberman will be his first. Absolute clown.
Of course he doesn’t need to rely on an EV to actually do anything; he has a different press loaner every week and/or a paid tropical vacation to shill for the manufacturer who fluffed him or his employer most recently.
So you’ve seen the expensive watches on his wrist and the succession of supercars in his Burbank driveway which he uses to go hang out w/ his wealthy friends at Malibu Cars and Coffee too?
Yeah – Total Poseur.
https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/about-this-jonny-lieberman-stupidity
Accurate.
No wonder Camissa left R&T.
If you get a chance, just listen to any The Smoking Tire episode where Lieberman is the guest versus the episode where Camissa and Farah discuss his Hagerty feature on the Cybertruck. It really just highlights what a blowhard Jonny is.
Brownell catching a stray there, lol
Baruth has very little good to say about other auto writers and the feeling seems to be mutual.
Apparently! I’ve never heard of him before. Not a lot of filter on that one.
He seems to have a very short list of writers he doesn’t have an issue with. I appear to be one of them. Then again, I don’t see the value in social media hot takes so there’s that.
If I may presume to speak for him (as a long time reader), my sense is that the fact you honestly love driving, owning and working on cars, and aren’t in this business to leech off manufacturers are major points in your favor.
Or it might just be the Brownell story lol.
Jack’s an outlier, for sure. Candid, frank, often eloquent and a bit unhinged. A Brock Yates for our time.
Oh shit that’s one of the funniest things I’ve read recently
Daaaaaaamn. This is the kind of angry screed that takes me back to a younger, more personal vitriolic internet.
I am nourished.
Exactly my thoughts about him as I was reading the article.
So our boy Joey, who has been driving a beat-to-shit 27 yr old Chevy, is gonna go out and buy (not even lease), BUY a brand spanking ass new truck? With these interest rates? And, with whose money?
Sorry, DT. Your heart is in the right place, you do mean well, and I am obviously a fan of your work, but this ain’t it.
The only people (other than a few certifiable die-hard car people such as yourself) buying these things are people with money. You know who has money? For the most part, people with the educational background to at least grasp the fundamentals of somewhat more advanced electricity/science and the financial acuity to break down the cost pro v. cons. Educated people tend to also have the patience to research and grasp any of the various concepts that they don’t previously understand. That’s typically how most people end up with money like that. (Influencers and status chasing celebrities don’t count, as they are an infinitesimal group.)
The largest problem of all with regard to this tech adoption is not infrastructure, range anxiety, etc. It’s disposable income. You know who doesn’t have disposable income? Well, typically that would be those with little education.
So, it’s educated v.non-educated in this context. Take a wild guess which group outnumbers the other by magnitudes…
EV, PHEV, Pez Dispenser, it doesn’t really matter. Wide scale adoption is gonna take a loooong time.
eta: Nice work starting a cat fight with MotorTrend, lol. Fuck those punks! 🙂
you can get a last gen prius prime with low miles for well under 20k. 2018 chevy volt/ honda clarity phevs with low miles are only 12k right now. you can’t really argue “poor people can’t afford phevs”
Those examples also come at the cost of extremely limited use cases/utility.
a hatchback and a full size sedan. I agree that there should be more larger PHEVs the only one that comes to mind in the “affordable” price range is the mitsubishi outlander.
I will take the pro PHEV argument a couple of points further:
1) Because PHEVs can be life saving mobile power and heat generators during an extended emergency. Like during Texas winter bomb cyclones and extended PG&E blackouts when there is no power but there is gas.
2) Because sometimes you want heat and power in the wilderness and you can bring more as gasoline than joules.
3) Because ICEs can run ad infinitum in generator mode on natural gas and propane as well as gasoline if designed to do helping points 1 and 2.
4) Because the ICE can be used to better ensure the battery doesn’t reach charging or temperature extremes thus shortening its lifetime.
5) Because the ICE also provides waste heat it takes that load off the battery as well.
6) Because its nice to be able to choose the cheaper energy.
7) Because we haven’t reached the limits of ICE efficiency yet.
I’m sure there’s more.
All good points.
I’d love to own a PHEV, but it would need to be a Range extended BEV drivetrain.
For example: The Wrangler 4xE is a hot mess that noone should buy, yet I’m drawn to the idea of a BEV Wrangler
Motor Trend has been shilling for EVs for years. They only give their end of year awards to BEVs at this point and every article they write about them is so glowing it might as well have come from the manufacturer’s marketing department…even when the car is a dysfunctional mess like the Blazer.
I won’t claim to know where and how the money is changing hands but it’s happening somewhere and I’m not even mildly surprised they’re shitting all over PHEVs. They don’t fit their agenda. It’s a bit of shame how much of a rag they’ve become but what can you do…
“I won’t claim to know where and how the money is changing hands…”
Hearst publications is clearly getting their cut.
I’ve found that, in most every debate, the ‘we have to do all or nothing!’ voices are usually aligned pretty strongly with the ‘nothing’ camp once the details are examined.
Perfectionism is the enemy of progress; the perfect is the enemy of the good.
I actually hope there’s some grift going on at MotorTrend because the alternative that they actually believe what they’re putting out is far less palatable
I mean they did give the Blazer EV their 2024 car of the year, back before the general embargo and press circuit was still tight lipped, and the car was months from intended sale, and the stop-sale pushed that back weeks further. That and they have their “InEVitable” podcast which I imagine is exactly what it sounds like.
MTs writing teams quality seems to have regressed significantly, and there is a clear agenda being pushed and what seems like a lack of objectivity you would expect. To add to that point, I was reading a review of a car on MT, and two whole paragraphs were spent moaning about how it was confusing and hard to get the wipers out of service position when the author accidentally triggered it. It was like 20% of the long term updated. I’m fairly certain most new cars have this, and while all marginally different, a 3 second google search gets it done, and this “automotive journalist” seemed astonished such a feature existed. It was sad, and this Anti-PHEV article was even more pathetic in it’s shortsightedness.
Unfortunately the quality of all the more or less classic car magazines and their websites has been abysmal for years now. Print media is dying and a lot of the most talented automotive journalists have struck out on their own at this point, whether it’s YouTube, podcasts, other social media, or this wonderful site.
I still like Car and Driver a bit because I find their website to be super intuitive and their fact sheet at the end of every car article to give me exactly the information I want…but even their articles are filled with typos and get information wrong all the time. Plus their 0-60 runs are ridiculously optimistic because they omit 5 feet of rollout. I love my Kona N but it definitely doesn’t hit 60 in 4.8 seconds lol.
Anyway, the EV fascination/ensuing propaganda at Motor Trend really pisses me off. I don’t hate EVs at all. I think they’re the future and by the time I need a new car next I’ll definitely check a few out. But the way Motor Trend deifies them and shits on everything else that’s electrified is ridiculous and misleading…and unfortunately many people still take them seriously.
A lot of what they recommend isn’t a great choice for the average consumer. How many people got fucked over by the Blazer EV roll out catastrophe because they saw it won COTY and ran to go get one? Probably more than you’d think. I also just don’t believe that the best car every single year is a BEV.
They just need to rebrand as an EV publication already and be done with it…but what they’re currently doing is disingenuous, misleading, and a disservice to the automotive community. And like I said…I’d love to see their books, because someone is absolutely bankrolling them to shit on everything other than EVs and quadruple down on them as not only the only solution to decarbonization but the only valid cars.
When went all-in on BEVs, they really lost any journalistic integrity on the matter. I’m pro-EV, but their “THE FUTURE IS NOW” mentality is myopic, short sighted, and naive.The whole conceit of The Inevitable podcast is basically to give Jonny and Ed 90 minutes to let whatever corporate stooge shows up why his BEV/Hydrogen/”Software Defined Vehicle” is somehow gamechaning without offerings any substance.
If everybody in the USA went out tomorrow and switched to an EV the power grid would collapse
If everybody in the USA went out tomorrow and switched to a PHEV we’d be fine
And to add to that, there isn’t enough available lithium to make all cars sold EVs, and if I’m not mistaken, not even enough for PHEVs. That is globally of course, but supply chains simply cannot handle the full and immediate transition to EVs, with a finite amount of resources, globally we need to be looking at the biggest benefit in emissions per unit of resources, and HEVs and PHEVs have a much much greater reduction in CO2 and other gasses per kilo of Lithium and other metals used in battery packs. Toyota was exactly right with their Hybrid approach, you can build so so many more Hybrids and Plug-ins with what we have, and they’re the cars people actually want to buy anyways.
So why doesn’t everyone understand this? Because we’re self-centered, and we buy cars one at a time. We don’t think about the pig picture, but “What car do I want now. What does it say about me?” So passionate environmentalists (like me) might be tempted to trade a Prius for an EV, even if we don’t drive many miles per year. Owning an EV doesn’t save the planet, but driving a PHEV instead of an ICE would help a little.
Exactly, people get too caught up in consumerism and and to an extent virtue signaling via the vehicles they drive, hence why the Prius was one of the most popular cars amongst Hollywood some 15 years ago. I’m all for every single thing we can do to save the planet, and just like with renewable energy sources, cars have no One-Size-Fits-All solution right now.
It’s far too easy to say “just grow the EV market” but resources are limited, battery recycling is nowhere near what it needs to be, infrastructure is garbage, and the US power grid (and certainly the standalone Texas grid) couldn’t handle the load anyways. Roads will deteriorate without the gas taxes to account for maintenance and increased wear, shops and insurance companies don’t want to touch most EVs with a 10-foot pole, meaning perfectly drivable cars are getting scrapped out of blind fear, and reparability is a big concern. I’m all for EVs, and I’m very interested in where they will go, and would like to own one as soon as they meet my needs, but there’s hurdles.
Add to that the reality that modern ICE vehicles emit a massively reduced amount of CO2 over even just 15 year old vehicles, because international emissions regulations are working. I was watching a Hagerty video on the soon to be released Bentley Continental with the TTV8-Hybrid setup, and they’re quoting a 90% reduction in CO2 over the outgoing W12 with just the V8 alone.
But that newly efficient Bentley hybrid isn’t “a modern ICE vehicle.” It’s a hybrid. Anyway, looking at the big picture, I’d rather see those battery materials go into heavy transport vehicles like trucks and locomotives or even stationary storage. Electrify the most inefficient vehicles first! They’re the real gas-guzzlers, and they’re typically operated for long hours, every day.
I lost him at “charging is improving”. Big ol’ “citation needed” there.
It’s not even clear charging isn’t getting worse with the proliferation of crappy apps and poor reliability. Tesla is slowing their charger expansion. Charging speeds aren’t improving much either which will lead to huge lines as more EVs are sold.
I’ve had a PHEV for 7 years and I’d argue charging is getting worse, very little charging has been built since then and a lot of it has degraded
Not true if you are a Tesla owner…..the Supercharger network has gotten significantly better in the 5+ years I’ve owned a Tesla. In the past, waits (particularly in SoCal) to charge were normal. I haven’t had to wait for a charger in about two years now.
Good point, I’ve noticed a lot of new tesla charger growth. Wonder how that will proceed what with the layoffs. Good motivation to make sure my next EV has NACS
“Let’s start with a basic premise: The best thing for the environment is to, as quickly as possible, get as many people driving electric as possible.”
Well, unfortunately, as in most things in life, the reality is not quite as simple as that. In terms of the benefit to the environment (assuming that means reducing fossil-sourced CO2 released into the atmosphere) it really depends on where you live and how much you are going to drive your fancy new electric car. If you live in the pacific northwest, where the electric grid is basically 100% clean due to hydroelectric dams and hydrothermal plants, then yes. If you live in a place like Texas where an awful lot of the grid power is wind and natural gas, then probably. If you live in a place like Wyoming or West Virginia where it is still mostly produced by burning coal, then no. Also, you have to drive your EV enough miles before replacement to offset the embedded emissions having to do with the production of the energy-intensive thing, which are a lot higher than non-EV cars. By (potentially faulty) memory, if you live in a state with average grid carbon intensity, you have to drive your EV ~100,000 miles before replacement to break even with conventional cars on a net CO2 basis.
PHEV’s can fare much better on the mitigated CO2 before replacement metric with all that taken into account.
If you could fuel your existing car with low net-carbon fuel like renewable diesel or renewable gasoline, or even better yet a deeply negative net-carbon fuel like renewable natural gas, you could avoid the embedded production carbon and dramatically reduce the net operating emissions, and we’d all be in a much better place much more quickly than by trying to force everyone into EV’s. But the regulation framework is set up around tailpipe CO2 numbers, not lifecycle CO2 numbers, and it would be too much work for the poor regulators to change that, so here we are…
I’m not so sure that fossil fuel power plants is that great of an argument against EV cars. two reasons, most power plants have excess energy generated so if you are going to burn the coal anyway might as well get that energy into a battery to be used for something.
The second argument for evs even if the power plant uses fossil fuels is that Combustion engines are only 14-35 percent efficient. Most of the energy used from burning gasoline is lost to heat and exhaust/steam. A power plant is going to be several multiples more efficient than an ICE engine.
Atkinson cycle engines for hybrids are now over 40% thermal efficiency, and conventional are now approaching 40%. There is a single coal plant in the US that can exceed this, but most are so old that they are only 35% or so. It is possible to build a brand new coal power plant that can hit 50%, but no one is doing that outside of China and India.
Exactly! Economies of scale apply to power production, too. The massive power generation at a power plant will be more efficient overall than thousands of separate ICE engines ever could be.
The “what if you are powered by coal” argument is fairly spurious for a couple reasons.
1) Coal plants, while not good, are still more efficient than a gas engine to get the same distance – though actually comparing output of both requires some fairly infuriating math.
2) Inevitably, the coal plants will be replaced.
So even if your Wyoming-based EV is relatively carbon intensive now, you’re still going to generate fewer emissions and that number will decrease over the life of the car (and if you move.)
You can also do other things – install solar panels, for example – that further reduce energy usage.
” If you live in a place like Wyoming or West Virginia where it is still mostly produced by burning coal, then no.”
St. Lewis and southern Illinois have a higher percentage of coal, as well as a newer coal plant that will not shut down over the life of the car.
Correction, my remembered numbers were off when it comes to miles-to-co2-parity for an EV vs. an ICE vehicle; this is the danger of going from memory and not re-checking sources (I was in a hurry when I wrote this). An EV will hit CO2 parity with an ICE vehicle at around 27,000 miles based on the average US grid carbon intensity, not 100k. The point about local grid carbon intensity still stands; in areas where coal is still heavily used for generation, that number goes up to 87,000 miles. Source: https://www.transportationenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/FI_Report_Lifecycle_FINAL.pdf
The point about hybrids having better lifecycle CO2 reduction stands; the same report above shows that a hybrid has lower lifecycle CO2 than a BEV even all the way out at 200,000 miles.
The point about alternative fuel also still stands; e85 has carbon intensity of 44-52% less than gasoline (Source: https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/articles/ethanol-vs-petroleum-based-fuel-carbon-emissions ) so the same reference ICE in the first report I cited would have better lifecycle CO2 at 200,000 miles than an EV – an e85 fueled hybrid would do (slightly) better yet. Renewable diesel is even better than that: 75+% carbon intensity reduction vs. fossil diesel. And then of course renewable natural gas is actually CO2 negative – i.e. it is better to burn the methane as a motor fuel than to let it out into the air as methane, e.g. released from manure from a dairy or pig farm, or from a landfill. And that’s not getting into e-fuels from renewables like methanol that would have a carbon intensity of ~0.
So: while EV’s are a good tool in the toolbox to reduce the carbon emissions from transportation, they certainly aren’t the only way, or even for some applications the best way. Which is why I continue to take exception to the reductive reasoning behind the statement in the article that “The best thing for the environment is to, as quickly as possible, get as many people driving electric as possible.”
Jonny Lieberman is a self-absorbed idiot.
It’s no surprise he wrote that mess.
OH it’s HIM that wrote that no wonder it reads like a 6th grader wrote it.