It’s 2024 and the automotive industry is in a weird place. The car-buying public finds itself at a moment of uncertainty, wondering if it should buy electric cars or gas cars or plug-in hybrids or regular hybrids or…hydrogen? When people ask me what they should buy, here’s what I tell them: If you plug in at home, consider a PHEV. If you can’t, buy a regular hybrid. Here, allow me to explain.
As a car journalist, I get asked the “What Car Should I Buy?” question all the time, and what I’ve come to learn is that oftentimes someone has a car in mind already, and they should probably just buy that. My brother, for example, kept asking me for car advice, and I gave him lots of options better than a white, rental-spec 2017 Hyundai Elantra, but he chose that anyway. He liked it. He thought it looked “sporty.” I respect that; if you have a car you like, you should probably buy that.
But some people don’t have a car in mind; they think with their brains, not their hearts. And many of those people are wondering: Should I buy an EV or a gas car? The answer that I’ve been giving lately? Neither.
Why I Wouldn’t Buy A Gas Car Today
My parents just bought a BMW X3 after their 2011 Equinox lost its timing chain and burned an entire tanker full of oil. The X3 is a great car by almost all measures, and yet, I did wince a little when they told me they bought it. It wasn’t a bad call, but I’d have gone with something electrified; I’d have hedged my bets.
My parents live in Germany, where fuel prices are absurdly high and volatile. Right now, the average gasoline price in Germany is $7.22 a gallon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure climbs as the government pushes EVs into the market. Europe has been especially aggressive in pushing its transition towards electrification, and it makes sense. It’s a densely-populated continent that could see major health benefits for its citizens by moving pollution away from cities and towards rural powerplants. (Europe has been pushing solar and wind energy, too, which is great). A number of European cities have banned diesel cars and many have put tariffs on gas cars or outright banned them.
To drive a 24 MPG car like the BMW X3 for the next 13 years in Europe seems…difficult.
My parents are paying U.S. gas prices since my dad is a government employee (Uncle Sam subsidizes his gas while he lives abroad), and they will likely be moving back to the U.S. soon. Still, I’m not sure I’d want to buy a brand new 2024 car that only gets 24 MPG; maybe in certain states it’ll work out for 13 years, but fuel in California is already well over $5 a gallon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure got jacked up in a push to electrify America’s fleet.
Plus, from an environmental standpoint, driving a 24 MPG car in 2024 all the way out to 2037 seems silly. We have the technology to move you much more efficiently.
Luckily, my parents don’t drive much, so this isn’t as big of a deal, but I’d just never buy a gas guzzler as a daily driver in 2024 when there are so many better options, not just for the environment, but for my pocketbook.
Why I Wouldn’t Buy An EV Today
With that said, I often find myself unable to recommend a new EV purchase, either, especially to those who cannot charge at home. My friend Jeb lives in Washington DC. He’s a true environmentalist who thinks gas cars are dumb in 2024. And yet he drives a gas Mini Cooper. Why? Because he can’t charge at home, and plugging in his EV at a charging station when so many of them are broken is just going to be stressful.
I know this because I tried charging my i3 yesterday, and received this fun error:
If this weren’t the 9 millionth time I’ve had such BS happen at a charging station then this wouldn’t be worth sharing. But EV chargers are notoriously unreliable, and if you rely on public chargers to get to work, since you don’t have a place to charge at home, then this will drive you nuts.
The bigger reason why I can’t recommend EVs is depreciation. My partner, Elise (not her real name), has been eyeing a Lexus RZ for a while. The thing MSRP’d at $54,000, but the one she likes costs around $60 grand.
You can find these things lightly — and I mean lightly — used for just $39 grand. That’s $21,000 in depreciation over, in the case of the Carmax car below, just 5,000 miles of driving!
Could you imagine how silly you’d feel if you’d bought this car for $60 grand and paid $21,000 to drive it for only 5,000 miles?
The Lexus RZ is a bit of an extreme case of New EV Depreciation, but it’s happening across brands and models. From Polestars to Hyundai Ioniq 5s to Volkswagen ID.4s — EVs are depreciating at alarming rates. To buy one new seems like a bad move right now.
You should, however, look into leasing one. I hate the idea of leasing, as you’re just borrowing a car and not building equity in it. But if you value newness, paying a little to borrow a car for two years isn’t bad, as you could just buy a severely-depreciated version of that car after those two years are over; you might end up paying less than if you bought the car outright. A lease should cost enough to cover that crazy depreciation, but there are deals to be had out there.
Why I Wouldn’t Buy A Plug-In Hybrid Today (If You Can’t Charge At Home)
As many of you likely know, I love plug-in hybrids, but recently I bought a second BMW i3S, booting my daily-driven regular-i3 from the garage (as you can see above, the two don’t fit back-to-back) where I used to charge it. Now I have no at-home charging for my daily-driven PHEV.
So you know what I do instead? I drive it on gasoline power only unless I can find charging at work. How do I feel when I’m driving this PHEV on gas power? Like a chump. Particularly because I’d be getting better fuel economy if I just bought…
… A Regular Hybrid
Seriously, the only smart new car purchase in 2024 if you don’t have at-home charging (if you have at-home charging, a plug-in hybrid is a good option, too) is a regular hybrid. My D.C.-based friend, Jeb, who has no at-home charging should buy a hybrid. If I didn’t plan to use my new BMW i3S as my daily commuter, I myself would be smart to replace my now-gas-propelled i3 with a regular hybrid.
You don’t have to worry about bullshit infrastructure issues like the bad EVgo charger I showed earlier or the malfunctioning Chargie app that left me in a bind yesterday (see above). You just park wherever you normally park, you get 40-50 MPG, and you don’t have to worry about serious depreciation. Heck, in some cases, your car might actually appreciate over the next year or so, as demand for certain hybrids has been through the roof.
Did I ever think that I’d only be able to recommend hybrids to people asking for car advice? Nope. But again, it’s a weird time in the auto industry.
Maybe your parents didn’t ask your opinion when they got the X3 because you told them the Equinox would be reliable because it had a timing chain.
(You had to know somebody would bring that up, and you shouldn’t be surprised that I’m the asshole that would do it.)
lol! I didn’t recommend the Equinox. What’s funny is that the old EcoTec 2.2 ALSO had timing chain issues. Come on, GM!
Still prefer a good chain design to a belt 🙂
I think good chain designs ended when they stopped going around 2 gears – one on the crank, one on the camshaft, with no intervening pulleys or guides.
If you change the 2.2 between 140-160k you’re good
I’ve been preaching and practicing the Hybrid mantra since I bought our first over a decade ago. HEVs or PHEVs are all that I’ve purchased for daily drivers since then. Trucks and toys are a different matter, ICE ICE Baby.
In fact I was just talking with someone I work with at the non-profit and she said she was done with her current shit box after it broke down again. I told her Hybrid all the way since she doesn’t have a big budget, low cost of operation and practicality are priorities, and has no place to charge at her in-city apartment.
My wife had the standard hybrid and PHEV version of the same car and they are still in the family having been handed down to my MIL and Daughter. Both were used as the wife’s daily driver and for a couple of road trips of different lengths. In the real world there was little to no difference in MPG when operating the PHEV in gas only mode. However it was designed around transaxle designed to work of either w/o sacrificing efficiency for either.
My wife’s current PHEV is usually only charged to 80% to maximize battery life with only the occasional bump to 100% when we know we are likely to exceed the pure EV range. The last time I drove it the current trip meter was at 980 miles with 920 EV miles.
Admittedly, I don’t commute, so our one family car only gets driven about 12k kms per year, but even then, at current gas prices (which, yes, are bound to rise), I’d be looking at about 5 years before I broke even if I bought a RAV4 Hybrid instead, and as minor as it is, they lock the good colours to the XLE and up, at which point my breakeven is almost 8 years, and if that’s if I went to the hassle of begging a dealer to allocate me one. I do wonder about the Niro PHEV as a decent alternative, but ultimately I’m content with my choice for now, and hope that there’s just way more hybrid abundance whenever I eventually replace the current DD.
All good points for many people! I do think it’s worth considering an EV if:
For the majority of *commuters* the only EV charging station you need is a 120V outlet.
I get David’s points…but I feel buying anything other than an EV makes little sense for the majority of commuters. Of course not EVERY person… but the majority.
That really depends on how much you’re paying for electricity. Here in PG&E land it very much depends on avoiding peak hours as that can go from being slightly under price equity with a gallon of regular to nearly double that same gallon of regular.
The “standard” gasoline in Germany has an octane count of 93. “Super” is typically 95, and “Super Plus” is 98. Engines are tuned to tighter ignition timing in Europe to avoid knocking, and to more completely burn the fuel. When accounting for the price difference of 10-15 cents/gallon for the step-ups from 87 octanes to a hypothetical 95 or 98, California would pay just about as much as Germans for the same fuel grade.
European octane is probably RON, while US is AKI. That “super plus” 98 RON in Europe is equivalent to premium 93 AKI in the US.
It’s definitely RON in Germany.
Totally agree. I recently bought a Corolla Cross XSE Hybrid after my Honda Fit meet its end in an unfortunate accident. I get about 40 MPG combined. That’s 5 more than my Fit for a bigger car with more power, AWD, and zero change in driving habits. A PHEV would be even better, but the Cross met my option and price requirements.
I think Toyota got the drop on everyone when they made the Camry all hybrid. I’m retired and don’t commute anymore but if I did I certainly would buy a hybrid.
We’ve got a Prius wagon and a Bolt EV, and it’s been a really solid setup. The Bolt is like the default car my wife or I drive around town every day – super cheap to drive and there’s basically nothing to break down or maintain except for rotating the tires. I’ve road tripped with it a little, but the Prius is better because David’s right, the charging infrastructure suuuuuucks right now. We basically only fill the tank up before a road trip, and now it gets like 90% highway miles.
This is the way! Pacifica PHEV + Mini EV for us. We only burn gas on road trips (where it’s currently cheaper than charging anyway!) and never have to rely on public chargers. And BEV simplicity is the greatest thing ever for working families that are tired of finding time for oil/filter changes on top of everything else. And nothing is better/more fun for an urban/suburban commute than a small EV!
About that EVgo error. If you have not done it yet, you should try holding and pushing the connector in until the charging session fully starts.
I used to have the same problem with my ’14 i3 until an EVgo technician told me this. It seems that the cable is so heavy that, in some older EVs, gravity can unseat the pins that do the handshake with the car.
At first I thought that the guy was full of it but… it worked for me!
So what happens after the handshake? You can let it go, the connectors drop out of connection, and you don’t need to keep shaking hands anymore? It’s only HV connectors involved from then on?
It seems to be something like that. Once the charging session is fully started, you can let go of the handle and it keeps going.
My 2020 Bolt has a little solenoid-driven latch that grabs onto a DC fast charge connector once handshake is complete. It keeps the big connectors snugly together while high voltage power is flowing, and I assume would also keep the smaller handshake pins in contact. Latch releases upon charging session completion.
I imagine something similar is a common feature for all EVs with DC fast charging capability. It seems like a good idea to keep the user from unplugging while high voltage is present. While I’m sure charger electronics will detect disconnection and cut power, it’s nice to have multiple layers for safety.
The latch is absent from Bolt without DC fast charge capability.
When I’m charging on 120V I could freely unplug in the middle of a charging session if I run out of patience and need to get going.
Yes, the i3 does the same. It might have to do with tolerances. Early CCS ports (I believe the i3 was the first car equipped with it?) might not connect as tightly as later ones, enough to disrupt the handshake even for a split second, and to upset some DC chargers.
Where do diesel sedans and cars fit into this? A buddy of mine just picked up a very nice 2016 BMW 535D to be his daily driver so his manual FJ Cruiser can retire to weekend and camping duties.
The MPG boost he’s getting and the current parity between regular gas and diesel prices make it seem like a very tempting option.
Having owned two diesels (sedan and wagon) I can say they are great options, but are getting as rare as unicorns these days. Especially in decent condition. My local market has many TDI vehicles with 325k miles available, but none that are lower mileage, good condition.
Where’s my goddam PHEV truck, Bruce?!
The only current/ upcoming option is the Ram 1500 REV, unless they put the 4xe drivetrain in the gladiator next
4xe is confirmed for Gladiator for 2025 already
Actually the 1500 REV will be electric only. The 1500 Ramcharger will be PHEV.
The idea of the Ram 1500 REV (execution is still TBD) is a rare instance where I’ll praise Stellantis. I never quite understood the idea of trucks attempting to jump straight to EV with current battery/charging constraints when existing PHEV or HEV tech could give massive fuel economy boosts with little if any cost in performance or range. Generally speaking, trucks only need their power capability for getting a load moving or up a hill; both applications electric motors are exceptional at. The rest of the time they are barely stressed and could easily be recharging a battery (in the case of PHEV). This isn’t even taking regenerative braking into consideration, or the option of MGU’s in connected trailer axles to aid in regen while providing trailer braking.
I’m REALLY hoping it works well. It’s pretty much exactly what I want in a truck. I’d even take a mid size cause my towing needs can be met with anything that’ll tug 6500lbs.
Or you could just buy a used car where the difference in fuel economy makes it a moot point. Like yeah, my 30 year old BMW gets 24-25mpg at best, but it cost $1300 to buy and I don’t have a car payment, so I don’t care about spending money on gas.
Yep yep. My parents just purchased their third e38 7 series. It doesn’t matter that they average about 20 mpg because they drive it just a few thousand miles a year. It was a $12k car and they will drive it easily for the next 10 years.
If you are trying to justify buying a vehicle on fuel cost, then just buy a cheaper vehicle and you will be way ahead. My twin brother had a 100 mile commute, every time we do the math to buy a more fuel efficient car, it never adds up because the purchase price of the car far exceeds the value of the fuel savings compared to just driving the not as fuel efficient vehicles we already own. A BMW E36 M3 gets mid 20s on the highway without even trying, buying a replacement that gets mid 30s mpg might save us $500 per year.
It depends. With our driving and gas prices here in Europe, burning 5-10k for fuel is not that hard. So fuel efficient car/EV stacks up quite fast if one drives a lot. Wife had 150km daily commute before maternity leave. With home charging it makes about 1-2€/100km, vs with our diesel it was about 10€/100km. And that was very frugal. And anyho we had to change car as it was getting rather beaten.
Just wondering David – when people ask you ‘What car should I buy?’, do they know what you own and drive?
Do as I say not as I do
I don’t recommend any vehicle that doesn’t have dipsticks for the transmission fluid and engine oil. Looking at you Stellantis!
Market research showed most of their customers never used those items anyway.
Makes it really frustrating for us people who work on them for a living though. Having to lift a vehicle and remove a bunch of splash shields just to check your tranny fluid with our face and hands right next to the 900° cat is beyond ridiculous. And besides which, anyone who isn’t checking their fluids doesn’t deserve a driveable vehicle. To the shitty public transit with them.
But we are Autopians! That has to count for something. 🙂
And BMW for engine and transmission and Ford for the transmission.
I agree for most people your approach makes sense. But “but fuel in California is already well over $5 a gallon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure got jacked up in a push to electrify America’s fleet.” ??? So the guberment is gonna make us drive electric vehicles by raising the price for gas? Sounding very MAGA-ish, David. So the guberment will raise taxes on gasoline to force us to drive what “they” want? Or do you envision another way that figure will get “jacked up”? Funny enough I read the following info from several sources today
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/IEA-Sees-Massive-Oil-Supply-Glut-at-the-End-of-This-Decade.html
which would imply that oil may not rise in price as much as inflation. Remember just a few years ago when it cost more to store the oil than it was worth? And then the stock market had it two biggest consecutive down days? I do. Saw it coming and made some cash shorting the market. But I digress…
As long as ‘Merica is producing oil at a prodigious rate I will continue to be a good citizen and drive ICE. It’s for the economy. Ah, but the Newsom problem. Why invest in charging structure when you can build a bullet train…eventually..
It’s a long way off. But, as more cars built and on the road are electric, there will be less gas required and less gas refined, fewer gas stations.less supply, less choice and competition will result in higher prices. Those higher prices will result in more people moving to electric and less gas required, refined etc etc.
Maybe something changes to prevent the shift or slow it down. It’s a long way off either way. But it will absolutely result in higher gas prices if it happens. Basic economics of supply and demand.
it should be a long way off. unless taxes are increased to discourage use. and refineries are not replaced/shutdown. I think the tax scheme is what they do in Europe? So it will be up to the yes guberment (taxes and EPA approval of refineries) to decide.
“Basic economics of supply and demand.” Did you read the link about the coming glut? so based on your remarks more supply should result in lower prices, if someone wants ignore everything else that matters.
“At the same time, rising production capacity, led by the U.S. and other producers in North and South America, is expected to outstrip global oil demand growth between now and 2030.
“Total supply capacity is forecast to rise to nearly 114 million barrels a day by 2030 – a staggering 8 million barrels per day above projected global demand, the report finds,” said the IEA.”
so it should get really cheap, if all you look at is supply and demand.
Massive caveat, if you’re after a commuter car this makes sense, but if you’re after a sports car or something unique and fun this does not apply. Just today I spent an hour convincing a coworker to go for a Lexus UX hybrid instead of a Q3, and that made sense for her. I’m in the market for something fun, and there’s not a hybrid on the list because I want a Miata and really nothing else, possibly a classic mini but that’s about the only other car I’m looking at. I also do not like having an automatic for a daily, so while a hybrid would be the smarter choice, and I do typically recommend them to people, it doesn’t fit what I want out of my car.
Completely agree!
Which is why it’s “your car”. Enjoy without guilt.
I honestly don’t think this is an infrastructure problem, it’s a damn tech problem.
If you can plug a charging cable into a 120v or 240v outlet in your house and your car takes a charge, then it sure ain’t a hardware problem. 99% of all the public charging problems I’ve seen have been tech related, whether it be payment not going through, the charger not recognizing the car via it’s stupid handshake, or the machine needing a reset (which can only be done remotely for every one I’ve seen), all of them are tech problems, not infrastructure problems.
If the damn chargers were limited to L2 speeds, took quarters, and had a manual reset switch, we wouldn’t have any damn charging problems besides their slow charging speeds.
We should offer tax incentives to businesses that install 240v outlets so that people can bring their own charging cables and charge there. It would be a lot simpler, cheaper, more reliable, etc. than L2 charging stations that’s for sure.
This is why I think PHEVs make the most sense, in particular range extended BEVs. Small Battery that has plenty of range when a BEV makes the most sense, slow speed travel, regenerative braking for stop and go and a “engine braking” function on steep hills, the simplicity/reliability/durability of an electric motor and single speed “transmission”, and an ICE generator that should last longer than any ICE engine powered car engine since it’s running at a fixed RPM.
Traditional PHEVs are the worst of both worlds sadly, and some of them are particularly awful (Wrangler 4xe for example), many of us want the capabilities of a PHEV but we want them in a reliable package.
I agree so much with the range extenders. I don’t want a gasser with some electric range, I want an electric with a gas generator. Beyond the durability factor, it also reduces the weird handoffs that can occur between powertrains.
Yup, also most every traditional PHEV I’ve seen starts out as an ICE car with a PHEV system hodge-podged into it, so usually the battery pack is too big for where they want to put it, so it increases the trunk floor height, yet somehow the range is still awful even though the battery is big enough to intrude into the interior.
Traditional PHEVs are also dependent on having a working engine, even if the car will allow you to drive without the engine working (which many won’t) your battery only range is awful when brand new, let alone after a ton of cycles, and you have to carry that massive boat anchor of a dead engine with you, and if your big battery ends up losing what little usable range it had then you’re stuck with an overweight hybrid with less interior space hauling around a boat anchor of a dead battery pack around.
Range extended BEVs make the most of small battery packs, and the most of small engines.
Some smart builder is going to start building US homes with no 120V outlets. Europe does just fine with 240V and they have all the same stuff that we have here.
Have you touched both? There’s a good reason the little things we plug and unplug every day use 120 and the big things we don’t use 240.
I won’t say no if Cadillac puts a useful battery in the Blackwing, but like, that may be the last of its kind and would be the first capital-N New car I’d ever have bought. I mostly DD a bike at this point anyway.
I agree. With exception of enthusiast cars, in most categories you should get the hybrid. The price increase is marginal but the savings can pay for itself in a few years with such fewer consumables over the life of the car.
Subsidizes his fuel! I had no idea. Is this in the form of fueling rights at a fuel site in the embassy, or a cash rebate for retail purchases? My BIL works for the US government in Malawi and they drive a NA diesel land cruiser that isn’t a guzzler but isn’t a sipper either, and normal fuel prices there are around $5/gallon if I remember correctly from when I visited. They can get fuel at the embassy at US prices, anytning else is local market.
My mother just bought a year-old Outback and I was surprised she didn’t get a hybrid something, too.
If you get gas on the base they give you a card to scan that basically cuts the price in half. I was in Germany recently and filled up on base, it showed $50, but I didn’t have the card for them to scan so they took off the subsidy and the price jumped to $90.
When I was in the military overseas, we could buy fuel coupons through the base exchanges and a few other locations. These coupons could be redeemed at any local fuel station and represented a considerable discount from gas prices in the local economy.
I was looking at PHEVs on Carvana this morning and there were several BMW 3 series with 30k miles for only $20,000. I didn’t know BMW even made PHEVs and I’m scared at how cheap they were!
They’re not bad, just not popular here in the states. I’ve been thinking of one myself because the EV range is exactly my commute but it’s hard to justify BMW maintenance for not the full BMW experience.
*looks at ‘INITIALIZING’ pic*
May I recommend a range-extender for your phone? 🙂
People are quick to (rightly) credit Toyota for choosing hybrids when everyone was giving them crap for it, but they still haven’t ramped up production enough to justify their position yet. Its still damn near impossible to get a RAV4 prime.
I lucked into one almost four years ago. With the tax credit gone so is the value compared to the hybrid.
I just test drove one, but I couldn’t go for a boring gray one without ventilated seats. They’re offering $6500 on a lease, so it can be worth it again, if you can find the spec you want. But that’s a big if.
YUP! Not making enough of their hybrids (in particular their PHEVs), blowing money into the black hole that is Hydrogen fueled vehicles, making piss poor automatic transmission having turbocharged hybrids that get a negligible MPG improvement for a massive increase in cost and complexity (Tundra, Tacoma, 4Runner, US Land Cruiser, etc.), and making their craptastic alphabet numeric soup that is their BEV are all big mistakes they have made and continue to make that take a ton away from the big thing they got right.
They’re recently much more available. I just got one for my wife, and had my choice of 3. It is deeply, profoundly okay. The availability might only be on the west coast, though. A few months ago when I asked after one, the Toyota dealer all but scoffed and asked how much I was going to pay to skip the line.
I’m sure she overpaid for it, but my daughter bought a Honda Accord Hybrid to commute to work. She has a Jeep Wrangler with about 175k miles on it that was getting about 16mpg. She figures the gas savings at California prices will make the car payment. I think she is getting 35-40 mpg on the Accord. She didn’t want to have a car she had to plug in, so a PHEV wasn’t on her radar.
Yes! I can plug in at home for 15 cents a Kwh. At least for now and probably forever commercial charging rates are obscene and usually yield no savings over petrol.
It’s especially bad here, as I pay 7 cents a kwh to charge at home, and the chargers at my work are 40 cents a kwh. I aint payin’ that!