If 2024 was the “Year of the Hybrid,” then I think it’s fair to say that the next ten years in the United States will be the “Decade of the EREV.” That’ll make some people mad, of course, because the pure-EV folks are always mad about something. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough, I say. Consumers seem to agree with us as Scout’s pre-orders for the extended range EV version are outstripping orders for the pure EV.
That doesn’t mean EVs won’t be big business, but perhaps EVs are just less interesting now than autonomous cars? NVIDIA’s CEO thinks Tesla has a big advantage when it comes to autonomous driving. Tesla is pivoting more towards being an AI company at just the right time as BYD moves to become the biggest EV-maker in the world, albeit with some big problems as it tries to expand abroad.
And, finally, it’s been a few days since I’ve made everyone mad with The Morning Dump so… let’s talk about congestion pricing!
Scout CEO ‘A Portion Of America’ Doesn’t Want EVs Yet
If your overriding concern is the future of the environment and global climate change and all the rest, then your ideal outcome is for people to consume less. To travel less. To fly and drive less and, in the name of Greta, to stay the hell off cruise ships. Today, of all days, extreme weather is at the forefront of my mind.
That’s not how this works, though. Even if everyone could be organized to do things around the greater good (the greater good), not everyone would even agree on what the greater good is. What’s always bothered me, though, as someone who cares deeply about the environment and used to work for a transit agency is that electrifying cars is such a half-measure.
If your belief is that we have such an extreme climate emergency that we have to do everything we can to get people to stop producing emissions then you should be advocating for rail, higher-density development, and as much nuclear as we can build. None of this is either-or, you can be pro-EV and pro-all of that other stuff, which is sort of where I am.
It’s the smug EV purity tests that bother me. There’s an extreme convenience to saying: Let’s just make all of our cars electric and we can ignore everything else. Changing all cars to EVs would have a positive environmental impact both at a local and global scale, of course, but it’s not the only thing that needs to get done. Given both the political realities and the necessary infrastructure, getting people to upgrade to hybrids is a huge improvement and something that can be done relatively easily in the short term. Again, if you believe this is urgent, I think you should welcome quick changes.
For instance, I would have loved to nab a cheap EV lease, but I live somewhere where it’s difficult/impossible to efficiently charge an EV (I have EVs all the time so I get to test this). By swapping my ICE Subaru for an HEV Honda I’ve used, to date, about 50% less fuel. That’s a big deal!
I mention all of this because Scout announced it would change its plans and, instead of just building EVs, would also offer a gasoline range-extended model. This is a big deal and was followed up by RAM announcing it would slow down the release of its all-EV truck so it could sell the EREV RAM Ramcharger first.
As David pointed out recently in his article “The Future Of The Auto Industry Is Electric, With A Gasoline Backup,” EREVs just make a lot of sense:
If you’re not familiar with what an EREV is, the short of it is that it’s an electric car with a small gasoline generator acting as backup. All that gasoline engine does is cut on when the main battery gets low, generating electricity to keep the battery from depleting completely. The gas engine does not actually propel the car directly (which is why I don’t consider the Chevy Volt a true EREV — its low range also disqualifies it in my mind). Thus, this gasoline range extender allows you to keep driving even after the high-voltage battery that you charged via a plug runs out of juice. It’s basically a backup to fix the whole “range anxiety” issue.
Are people into it? Yes. Consumers are into it. Scout CEO Scott Keogh was at CES this week and told Bloomberg that the last-minute EREV option is being ordered at a higher rate than the pure-EV option. Why?
He attributes that to EV resistance in “a portion of America” and worries about running out of juice in a pure-EV because there aren’t enough charging stations.
“This gives us a 50-state vehicle,” Keogh said Tuesday in a Bloomberg TV interview with Ed Ludlow at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. “The two challenges we see with electrification, charging infrastructure — and of course this takes that all off the table — and plus there’s convenience. I think with those two things, a range-extender makes a lot of sense.”
As the article points out, EREVs are popular in China, which is the biggest EV market in the world. While EREVs are a little less efficient than EVs in general due to the extra weight of the gas engine, if the theory behind EVs is that most people don’t need all that range, then most of these owners will rely primarily on the EV portion and realize this rather quickly. Perhaps they’ll buy an EV next time. Some, living in more rural areas, will probably see an EREV as a longer-term solution until our charging infrastructure catches up.
Also, a lot of people in the 2000s unfairly maligned the Toyota Prius and other hybrids out of some weird, knee-jerk anti-environmentalism. The Overton Window on hybrids has shifted entirely. I was in Michigan and saw a Trump sticker on an F-150 in the same driveway as a Honda CR-V Hybrid. Perhaps the move toward EVs will help shift the negative vibes some people clearly have toward them.
NVIDIA CEO: ‘Elon Has A Great Advantage’ On Autonomous Vehicles
Yesterday, I mentioned that advanced chipmaker NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang was a bit of a rockstar at CES this year, with his products being used in some of the most advanced cars.
In a sit-down interview with Bloomberg, embedded above, Huang thinks that all the data Tesla’s vehicles can pull in gives Musk a “phenomenal position” in the market.
“Elon has a great advantage because his AI factory for his cars is fantastic, it has a lot of NVIDIA gear in it. His AV algorithms are incredible. It’s the best in the world. He has a very large fleet of cars on the road that allows him to collect a lot of data.
There’s a lot of debate about whether even LIDAR-equipped vehicles can do full autonomy regularly, and Musk, so far, has resisted LIDAR, instead opting for the use of cameras and other sensors. Maybe given enough data he can?
Interestingly, this was said while it was announced that Tesla is under investigation for its Actually Smart Summon mode (get it?) that allows people to have the Tesla drive to them from a short distance. According to reports, vehicles using this system have been involved in a few crashes with parked cars and posts.
BYD Reportedly Brought Hundreds Of Workers To Brazil From China ‘Irregularly’
Chinese automakers are having mixed results when trying to sell cars outside of China, ranging from the gently permissive (Britain, Australia), to the cautious (EU), to the downright hostile (the United States). One place where Chinese firms think they’ll do better is in Latin America, which is why BYD is building its largest plant outside of China in the country.
As mentioned recently, the Chinese company contracted to build the plant (Jinjiang Group) for BYD got in trouble after Brazilian authorities allegedly found more than a hundred workers being forced to operate in terrible conditions. Exactly who these workers were is becoming a little clearer thanks to a new Reuters report:
A total of 163 of those workers, hired by BYD contractor Jinjiang, were found last month to be working in “slavery-like conditions.”
The 163 workers who were rescued by labor authorities in December are leaving or have already left Brazil, said Liane Durao, who has spearheaded the probe announced in late December.
“All of this was irregular,” said Durao, adding that BYD would be fined for each worker found in this situation, without elaborating on the total amount to be paid.
She said the firm agreed to adjust the conditions of the hundreds of workers who will remain in the country, to comply with Brazilian labor laws. About 500 Chinese workers were brought to work in the Brazilian factory, she said.
BYD announced it cut ties with Jinjiang.
NYC Finally Launches Congestion Pricing
I live outside New York City and, sometimes, drive into the city. I don’t do this regularly, but it does mean that I’m one of the few people who are somewhat impacted by the introduction of Congestion Pricing, which charges people extra money for driving into the city based on a variety of factors. Many of my friends go to the city all the time, and they’re having to grapple with what this means, but in general, it’s like $9 extra to enter the lower third of Manhattan at the busiest times of the day.
The goal of congestion pricing is to reduce the number of trips into the city, thereby improving traffic and making the city more livable. The money from the tolls will go to pay for more and better public transit. This seems like a big win but, of course, some people are freaking out about it.
I think our compatriots over at Defector have a good explanation of why some people are outraged, and a lot of it has to do with the knee-jerk anti-news media that pervades the city:
If it is easy to learn most of what you need to know about congestion pricing from one Gothamist blog—and it is unlikely that you need to know anything, as most people do not live in New York City and something like 55 percent of New Yorkers do not own cars at all—it is effectively impossible to learn anything useful about it from media like this. That coverage teases What You Need To Know across weeks and months like a threat, but is fundamentally not in the business of answering that sort of question so much as it is in the business of rephrasing it in progressively more ominous ways; all someone consuming this media would leave with is the urgent sense that there are some things that they need to know, and a suspicion that they do not know them. Eventually the question vanishes under all that dread, and then the job becomes less journalistic or propagandistic and more like landscaping—keeping the surfaces appropriately uniform, lush, and well fed.
My big curiosity, though, is if this would work. People in the area have a lot of money and the rules are, in typical New York fashion, unnecessarily complex.
Thankfully, someone posted an extremely useful tracker that shows the difference between commute times pre- and post-congestion Pricing. In places where people are typically commuting, like the Queensboro Bridge, commute times seem to be 50% below peak levels. In places where it’s mostly cabs operating, like Tribeca to the Lower East Side, it’s having less of an impact. Given that cabs and rideshare pay a lower rate, this sort of makes sense.
When I go to the city I usually take the train, which is way cheaper overall and much much easier (also there’s a place in Grand Central that has an amazing array of beers you can enjoy while you take the train). I love cars and I love driving and, under certain conditions (like at 7 am on a Sunday morning) it is fun to drive in Manhattan. Most of the time it’s terrible. Being pro-car, I want less congestion and more open roads. Sometimes to get what I want I have to pay for it. This only seems fair to me.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Hope Sandoval is a gift to this world, and on Massive Attack’s “Paradise Circus” that couldn’t be more obvious. It’s a shame that most people know this song from House, and are therefore deprived of a little Hope.
The Big Question
Would you buy an EREV version of your current DD?
I have a mild hybrid eTorque Ram 1500 right now and I’d love to have that Ramcharger. I just don’t trust it to be any good or affordable. When I was looking for a new truck I wanted the Ford F150 Powerboost but then I saw the horrendous quality issues on top of the outrageous pricing. So I went with the Ram(which are now overpriced with worse quality too). I plan to keep this truck 6-7 more years though.
Would you buy an EREV version of your current DD?
Already got one. I pedal to extend the range of the ebike.
Would you buy an EREV version of your current DD?
If it wouldn’t be significantly more expensive, probably.
Daily is a V8 gas SUV. Short trips are definitely a waste of gas, so technically it would make a lot of sense.
But financially i’m not really certain.
The problem I keep coming back to is how much do I have to drive until the investment is paid off.
Even with my terrible 14-15 MPG it takes a long time and lots of miles to break even, when gas is $3 and electricity is 25-30 cents per kWh.
Additionally, if the EREV variant is 10s of thousands of dollars more expensive, it won’t ever hit the breakeven point.
Exact situation with my Hemi Ram. I don’t put enough miles on it to justify spending even more to spend less in gas. However, I do need it, and more often than renting a truck (I have a large boat.)
I do have a PHEV Escape I drive at work.
Would I buy an EREV Miata? Probably not. I think the idea of a simulated manual is dumb, and have no interest in one. I also have no interest in an EREV Miata, unless by some miracle it could be under 2500 lbs. Now if there was an EREV Toyota minivan to replace my wife’s Sienna, that I would be very interested in!
TBQ: Seeing as how I put down the deposit on a Scout EREV, absolutely. I’ve looked at PHEVs, but they always have too little range for me to really see a benefit (I commute 100 miles round trip) and at least the ones I’ve talked to people about are clearly making compromises in EV mode (loss of power etc.). I’d like to go full EV, but we regularly enough do 300+ mile drives where, at best, we’re going to be able to find L1 plugs at the endpoint.
EREV is the nice butter zone where I can do all my daily driving on electric, but if I need to go further than usual that day, or need to roadtrip I can just toss some gas in it and not worry and not suddenly be driving a different car.
How long has Scout been planning on hybrid models? I don’t remember that announcement. Thought they were supposed to be all EV.
Also, eh to TBQ. I’d rather just have an EV for my DD or just keep to my current gas AWD.
They announced it at the launch at least. It was even given a silly name, the “Harvester” engine, in honor of the Scout heritage.
Oof. Guess I just skimmed through that. Neat though!
Looks like it will be harvesting money, too.
Isn’t Teardrop the House theme song? But yes most people are used to hearing that song without the vocal, due to the intro cutting the vocal.
The Pacifica already exists as a PHEV, and that would be fine by me if someday they figure out some of the reliability issues. I don’t really get EREVs. I’d prefer a smaller battery with less weight, taking less space, and taking up less resources. Give me something that can do 50ish miles on battery power, and I’d be pretty pleased by that.
“Have you ever….owned an ICE vehicle whilst hoping it was a Plug In?”
My DD is an EREV heh. Good ol’ GM, always 15 years ahead, while also being 20 years behind. As for my other rigs, I wouldn’t hate a bit of EV range for my pickup, that big block gets mighty thirsty in town.
I recently rented a brand new TRD Tacoma, or turd taco. Aside from the stupid big touchscreen (with annoying menus) and the absolutely *anemic* drivetrain, it was great! So yeah.. make an EREV Toyota Tacoma with less touchscreen, that actually scoots, and I’d likely buy one.
I’ll go a step further and state unequivocally that if they came out with a hybrid Colorado at a price that was reasonable compared to ICE I would buy it immediately. It’s what I wanted when I bought my truck and it’s still what I want.
I love the smoothness and instant torque of electric driving and one pedal for surface streets. It’s so much more comfortable and less effort. I love the convenience of plugging in for the 90% of my daily driving. But I do need to be able to haul and tow 100 miles regularly so I need that sweet ICE backup.
Here’s hoping.
The greater good.
The greater good.
“Before you could say ‘gypsy scum’ we were knee-deep in dog muck, thieving kids and crusty jugglers.”
Crusty Jugglers…
Narp.
I’d buy a EREV/PHEV for both of my cars, no problem. I love the concept on paper, but I am also not going to spend $10k extra to get 30 miles of battery range before the gas kicks in. The math needs to make sense. Even if gas was $7/gal, it’d take a lot of gas to pay that off.
It is worth noting that an EV is not even a consideration for one of my cars – it is a road tripper that goes into the middle of nowhere where there is barely any charging infrastructure. For my other car, I’d entertain a EV but at the right price. I’m not paying $50k+ for a “commuter”. Used Bolt for $15k? Maybe.
The used PHEV credit was what did it for me. My hybrid was totaled last month. I was going to replace it with another hybrid. Then I looked into the PHEV, and was able to get a newer PHEV with less miles for the same price (and actually a bit less because the newer car with less miles got me a better interest rate.)
So much this. About the only thing that both the Right and the Left in this country and around the world agree on is that they all hate Nuclear when in reality I feel most of them just don’t understand nuclear. Sure, it has to be built, maintained, and regulated responsibly but it produces GIGAWATTS of baseline energy with zero carbon emissions. It’s not something we should dismiss so easily.
The Internet is a series of tubes – it’s not like a truck that you can just dump stuff on
…
They’re never going to understand responsible nuclear infrastructure
There’s still that niggling little problem of where to dispose of radioactive waste, although I think Texas would be perfect. Could be that’s one of the reasons the president-elect wants Greenland. That, and a place to dump deportees. Oh, to have an Australia at our convenience, again.
Exactly the problem – zero carbon, potentially lots of radioactivity. And there is no entity on the planet I trust to be 100% safe with it. Big business, ha! Governments, double ha!
That is my one reservation. I’ve worked in refineries and offshore and I’ve seen every corner that can be cut. I’ve seen refineries near my home have blowups and I was actually offshore (on a different platform) when the Deepwater Horizon had its unscheduled rapid disassembly and submersion event. I have no doubt that those events happened because corners were cut and the stakes are even higher with nukes that’s why I stressed regulation in my original comment. Like you I also doubt big businesses and goverment’s ability to provide oversight without proper incentives but the payoff of transitioning to carbon free energy makes it worth spending time on. There are more modern designs that don’t have the same meltdown dangers as the plants built in the 60s the problem is they can’t get any funding or political backing.
Okay, how about coal power, which emits gigatons (literally) of carbon, and also way more radioactive waste than nuclear? Nothing humanity uses or produces will ever be 100% safe, everything is just a discussion of risk levels. (Trying to avoid this fact by huddling on your bed at home with the blinds shut and never going anywhere turns out to be one of the most dangerous things you can do.
The US navy has operated the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world for three quarters of a century, and has had zero radiation accidents while doing so. Is their record perfect? No, but it’s frigging close, and compared to the alternatives a hell of a lot better for everyone involved.
The waste is more of an administrative problem than a physics problem. The reason being that you can reuse spent fuel but that’s currently illegal in the US because that route can also be used for making bombs. Despite the click-baity title this video has lots of good info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzQ3gFRj0Bc
It’s not just waste, it’s what happens if something goes wrong at the facility (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima.)
There are more modern reactor designs that wouldn’t have the same meltdown consequences that those older plants had.
The point is there are people involved, and people screw up.
Three Mile Island- absolute nothing burger, blown so spectacularly out of proportion by the media as to be worthy of criminal charges. The actual release of radioactive material resulted in exposure to people surrounding the plant of 1 millirem, which is 1/6th of a chest x-ray and 1/25th of the variation in annual background radiation exposure, and an increase of 1% of exposure compared to the annual background radiation. This is an amount so small as to be medically and statistically without meaning or distinction in all applicable contexts. The class-action lawsuit filed for harms due to the incident was dismissed due to lack of any actual harms being shown.
Chernobyl- grossly incompetent operators running an grossly idiotic design, with grossly negligent oversight. A textbook example of what not to do and how not to build reactors. No modern design can have a Chernobyl incident thanks to lessons learned. Easily the worst nuclear disaster ever seen. Still killed many times less people than pollution (including radiactive waste!) from coal power is estimated to kill every year.
Fukushima- pretty much repeat for Chernobyl, but less bad. Other reactors of similar designs that were hit by worse waves didn’t have issues, because their management actually listened to engineers and build walls high enough to protect the emergency generators from the tsunami that hit. Another textbook example of what not to do.
There really isn’t. There simply isn’t that much of it- all of the spent nuclear fuel the US has produced in reactors in the three quarters of a century we’ve been operating nuclear plants could fit on a football field stacked 10 feet high. And 90+% of that waste can be fully reprocessed into new fuel in breeder reactors, which means your actual nasty stuff is a stack only 6 inches. And all of that nasty stuff is only dangerous because it emits gamma radiation at levels incompatible with human safety. But wait 600 years, and you could handle it with your bare hands safely, just don’t eat it.
Concerns over nuclear waste are a complete canard. Anyone pushing them is either A) grossly ignorant about physics, or B) being paid (like in Germany, where their Green party are actual sponsored-by-the-Kremlin Russian shills trying to sell natural gas).
TBQ: Yes, would love to be able to commute electrically and pay just pennies thanks to cheapo hydro power.
RE: Congestion pricing- I am very, very much in favor of this type of local solution to local issues. Blanket mandates across something as big and varied as say, New York State are a hamfisted and idiotic “solution” that will create at least as many problems as it solves. Scale up to a national level and it just gets worse. But a local municipality deciding it has a problem and implementing a local solution that only affects people who travel in that municipality is politics working as they should. Johnny Apple Farmer who owns a ’69 Chevy Pickup to take his produce to the farmer’s market in a small town outside of Buffalo and will never drive into Manhattan should not have to pay more taxes, or be unduely hindered by poorly thought out mandates just because Joey Stockbroker is stuck in the morning rush driving in from Long Island. Joey can pay his own way- if he wants the benefits of living or working in the Big City, he can pay for them. Maybe with enough Joeys you can give Johnny a tax cut.
Johnny apple farmer already gets a tax cut just by being rural. Rural areas are heavily subsidized by urban areas already. If you think about it for a second, most of the economic activity and tax base is in urban areas.
I am so sick of this take. I have though about it for much more than a second, and professionally do work that involves thinking about it and coming up with ways to improve it. Urban areas can only exist because of the supply chain of natural resources that must be transported into said urban areas from non-urban areas to allow people not directly engaged in subsistence activities to remain alive, and it is only in the past century that our resource extraction techniques and supply chain logistics have gotten efficient enough that the majority of the population can now live in urban areas. For the vast majority of human history, the vast majority of the population lived in rural areas- 95%+ in antiquity and the middle ages, with only Imperial Rome and China and their most urbanized heights driving urban populations marginally above 10% of total.
Functionally none of the concrete, steel, wood, glass, asphalt, oil, plastic, aluminum, silicon, food, water, power, and whatever other necessary components of modern existence are extracted in urban areas. As real estate prices rise, increasingly fewer are even processed in urban areas, and basically all of the necessities are trucked/trained/floated in by some vital transportation conduit that 99.999% of people never realize exists but who’s disruption would completely overturn their life in about two days if it were disrupted. If a house is built in a city, of materials 100% extracted, refined, and processed outside of that city (which is functionally all houses in all cities today) then claiming the economic activity from the sale of that house is 100% due to that city is just bad accounting. Speaking of bad accounting, whinging about “rural subsidies” is pretty bad accounting- you do realize that the more efficient the rural supply chain is (in our example, the less taxed Johnny Applefarmer is and thus the more apples he is incentivized to grow) the less you pay, right? This is the arc of urban development- the more efficiently you can extract resources from the hinterlands and transport them to the cities, the bigger, better, cheaper, and nicer cities can get. The urban dweller spiting rural areas is like a tree cursing the ground it grows from.
It’s not a take, it’s math. It’s not about where the resources come from, or where people have historically lived, or whatever. It’s that the majority of U.S. tax revenue is currently generated in a city and that subsidizes rural areas. It’s not a bad thing, it is just the way it is.
It’s not math- it’s accounting shorthand at best, or a complete delusion at worst. When you say the “taxable revenue is generated” what you are saying is “the proceeds from this financial transaction are required by law to be booked at some physical location for taxation purposes, and since we are here, we shall book it here.” But the actual commodity underlying the entire transaction is based on does not need to share any physical proximity to the location revenue is booked, and as a result looking at where revenue is booked will give you a completely fictional view of where value comes from.
Take corn futures for example. They get traded on mercantile exchanges in big cities like New York and Chicago. The revenue from the sale of those futures is booked by firms located and taxed in New York and Chicago, and so it looks like all of these millions of dollars of revenue from corn futures is being generated in Chicago and New York and then some of the tax gets generously redistributed to the countryside. Problem is, exactly zero percent of the value of the contract, from sowing seeds, to watering and fertilizing fields, to harvesting the crops, to actual delivery of the contract occurs in those cities- it’s all a fiction because it’s a lot easier to slap a tax bill on one single transaction at one single bank or investment firm than to try and track all the steps of the process and tax them individually.
So no, cities do not “subsidize the countryside”, they pay for the privilege of not having to live in a mud shack and engage in subsistence farming with the constant risk of starvation hanging over their heads, which is the condition of most of humanity for most of history. Our lovely modern world is very good at abstracting this truth out of our everyday lives, so much so that occasionally you get some total dumbass in charge of a country who decides it’s not important at all and we should just get with the times and do away with that unsophisticated rural farming thing, and whoopsie you just killed more people than anyone else in history. If you are a city dweller, you should be very much in favor of “subsidizing” the rural supply chain- the more efficient it gets the cheaper everything gets for you, the cost of life in general drops and opportunities expand.
This seems like a good time as any to shill for my dream car:
60-100+ Miles BEV range, at least 110 MPGe, 60+ MPG.
A hyper efficient, ultra low NVH REX that can run perfectly on gas, natural gas, propane, pure alcohol, almost anything that can be put into the cylinder(s). How many cylinders is TBD.
Full V2X capability with a NG/propane port to run it as a camping or emergency generator
Hot water ports on the coolant system and exhaust heat capture, enough to keep a 1500 sqft house cozy warm during a bomb cyclone.
Sliding doors
Plenty of room for 5 and stuff
Parkable in a standard garage and “compact” parking spaces
All for under $30k.
Good news! You can buy this if you move to China (no propane port but otherwise… yes)
Really? Whatcha got?
I absolutely would buy an EREV version of my DD. I do large 3+hour road trips at least once a month but mostly drive less than 100 miles a day. An EREV is perfect for my needs.
Would you buy an EREV version of your current DD?
I would consider it. I think a lot of people actually wanted that. I have a 5th gen 4Runner, and anecdotally speaking, many people seem to be disappointed with the 6TH gen hybrid because it is electrified more for power than economy. Unfortunately it barely gets better mileage than the ICE model, and there are reports of the Land Cruiser 250 struggling to get 20mpg with the same drivetrain.
Honestly, I think ford did a better job of this with the Powerboost hybrid trucks, they make insane power AND are pretty efficient for what they are.
As far as the Scout article, 100% agree. Something that rubs me the wrong way about calls for less pollution is that while private jets, cruise ships, and mega yachts still exist, it’s us “poors” that are asked to make the sacrifice, often by people flying around in those private jets and mega yachts.
Bezos’s mega yacht will use more fuel in a few days than my 4R will in a year, but I’M the one who needs to drive a Prius.
Bezo’s company Amazon also bought all those Rivan EV delivery vans and is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable power so there’s that.
Yeah, well….. whatever.
An EREV version of my DD (2004 Impala cop car) would be a sad thing. Takes away the only thing going for it, the legendary 3.8L engine.
An EREV Volvo 850 or V70 wagon is something I would definitely like.
Still listen to Mazzy Star for my Hope S.
The New York Times interviewed a bunch of people on congestion pricing who were all like “Wait I got charged? I thought there was zero traffic and a spot right where I needed it because I was just lucky today”
One of my dailies is an FJ cruiser seeing the Scout is similar and I am interested in them I would drive the hell out if Toyota had an EREV of an FJ.
Onto the question. I’d consider an EREV of my current daily, but actually am already considering the PHEV version. I have a 958 Porsche Cayenne Diesel. They did make a PHEV of this car and specs are similar to the CD, so maybe. I’m getting power installed in my garage right now actually – at least to have the option to plug in. Thing is, I bet the diesel is better on most fronts except for its complicated emissions system and I’d probably be better of getting a lightly used full EV for daily driving. Those Audi Etrons sure look enticing now that they are under $30k.
I would love to get a EREV, just one major problem. I can’t charge at home and I can’t charge at work (a guy tried to charge his i3, and they told him to stop), so it wouldn’t be worth it for me to spend the extra money for one and then have to rely on public charging.
Same. I live in a condo with no chargers and I’m retired. Plus my car is ten years old, in great shape, and gets 35mpg average.
I got my Bolt EV in September. Since then, the only time our ICE runs is the two days my wife has to work in-office. So, 120 miles a week, total driving.
My daily commute is 66.5 miles. I have L2 charging at home.
I am thinking about replacing all the ICE’s with EV now. Once my wife was “convinced”, I lost all reason to keep driving ICE’s on a regular basis (for fun is another discussion, but commuting is not fun, IMHO).
Would I buy an EREV? No. We rarely travel out of state. When we do, the EV is enough to get us there and back. If we occasionally needed a longer ride, I would plan a food stop along the route, and accommodate.
At this point in my life, if I plan a long road trip, I’m renting an ICE vehicle. This might happen once or twice a year. The primary benefit is that if the vehicle breaks down, they will just bring me a new one, and we are on our way.
This paradigm suits my lifestyle perfectly. My lifestyle is different than your lifestyle, and I am fine with you choosing the best solution for you and your family. But, eventually, we will all be driving EV’s. You really don’t know what you are missing until you know what you are missing, range be damned. Trust me.
I would say the only problem with the ‘I’ll rent one’ is there isn’t enough rental cars (or charger spaces) for the Christmas and 4th of July travel seasons.
Extremely valid arguments. Note, I would not rent an EV for a long trip, as I stated. So, charger spaces would be gas station spots. I generally don’t travel long distances during those, or other peak times. If I were to, though, I would plan that rental long in advance. I am not one to go on vacation spontaneously.
I was just saying that as an example of long trip problems when everyone is doing the same thing – like I-95 the days before or after Christmas. If you couldn’t get a rental, you might try the EV – only to discover long lines at the chargers, too.
I’ll throw in that car rental companies aren’t know for the ability keep reservations, no matter how long in advance you make them.
I wouldn’t buy an EREV of my DD, because I love shifting the gears in my Fit. I would totally replace my beater Suburban with an EREV. Ideally, it would be an EREV truck or cargo van
EREV Fit would also be a shame, due to likely losing the magic seats because of battery storage.