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I wish PHEV were more popular. I really don't need a car with 300 mile+ range. Just like 50 miles and if I need to rarely go more I'd rather just use gas. Some

I wish PHEV were more popular. I really don't need a car with 300 mile+ range. Just like 50 miles and if I need to rarely go more I'd rather just use gas. Something like PodBike except much cheaper would also be appreciated.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mrtnmcc 4y ago
This is a hard one to trade off, as the engine does need maintenance even if it isn't used and still limits the lifespan of the PHEV. Even for commuting, having an oversized battery extends lifespan because of the reduced charge cycle per cell (and battery will generally last much longer than any engine). I do like the range boost of the engine though. Especially when exploring new areas and not having a consistent route and supercharge routine. Although going back to the pump always reminds me why pure electric is the future. (I've had both a Tesla and a Volt).
- endisneigh 4y ago
  My issue is that if you are relying solely on battery and your lifestyle and commute goes around it, a few things happen: 1. Say your 300 mile battery loses 30% in 5-10 years. So now you're down to about 200. In the winter in some areas you might lose another 30 to 50%. So now you're conservatively down to 100 miles. This still can be enough, but it's low enough where it's a hinderance. 2. The equivalent smaller battery as you've stated would drain faster, but it would also be substantially cheaper to replace to begin with. As a result the cost of the battery relative to the car is cheaper and the economics if buying a new battery makes more sense. Not to mention that only Tesla's have the super charger network, so it makes even less sense for non-Tesla EV owners. A battery range longer than the average trip distance * 2 is unnecessary. Ideally you'd have "just enough" + infrastructure to charge at said locations + gas to go further if necessary.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    > Say your 300 mile battery loses 30% in 5-10 years. But this is way, way more degradation than actually happens. > Not to mention that only Tesla's have the super charger network, so it makes even less sense for non-Tesla EV owners. This isn't true anymore in much of Europe, and in not too long it won't be true anywhere. > A battery range longer than the average trip distance * 2 is unnecessary. About half of your trips are longer than average.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      > But this is way, way more degradation than actually happens. Not really, it’s in line with the battery warranty with more or less all EV manufacturers > This isn't true anymore in much of Europe, and in not too long it won't be true anywhere. We’ll see. > About half of your trips are longer than average. Sure but I’m talking about PHEV, obviously with BEV you have to be conservative.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        10-15% degradation in 150-200k miles at a US average of 14k miles a year gives 10% degradation per 10 years, so you are off by a factor of 3. https://themotordigest.com/tesla-lifespan-how-many-miles-will-it-last/ https://themotordigest.com/tesla-lifespan-how-many-miles-wil...
        endisneigh 4y ago
        Seems to be wrong across all vehicles. https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/ https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/ Approximately 15% per 6 years, in line with my estimate and the warranty offered by all manufacturers sans Hyundai.
        adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        A few key problems with this source. 1. It says very little about how the data is collected. Just "Geotab developed the tool based on an analysis of 6,300 fleet and consumer electric vehicles." that's not a lot of transparency. 2. It appears to be based largely on commercial vehicles (although see point 1, it's hard to tell). Consumers drive way less than commercial, which makes analysis by year less than useful. 3. It has a sample size of 6000 vehicles. That might sound like a lot, but since it is broken down into 21 different types of vehicle with about 3 models per type, that's only 100 vehicles per model+year. This would be less of a problem if they disclosed how many vehicles of each type they had, but they don't. 4. They also don't disclose how they have averaged vehicles. 5. The data they have that is easy to cross check (i.e. vs Tesla) shows that their numbers are way different from other sources https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/ https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat... and https://www.evchargerreviews.net/should-you-worry-about-ev-battery-degradation/ https://www.evchargerreviews.net/should-you-worry-about-ev-b... that are much more transparent about their data. All in all, it's very unclear with that source where the data is coming from, how it is analyzed, and it's conclusions differ dramatically from much better analysis.
- causality0 4y ago
  and battery will generally last much longer than any engine What? Have you been driving GMC cars or something? Change the oil on schedule and engines last for decades.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    Any engine, a Chevy LS, Ford Modular and successors, and 3rd Gen Hemi, are all good for a minimum of 200k. If not 4-500k, the transmission will invariably fail before the engine.
    - causality0 4y ago
      My Yaris currently has 240K and the '79 Toyota pickup I got from my grandfather is at 486K.
    - dzhiurgis 4y ago
      The core engine yes, but belts, chains, pulleys, tensioners, plugs, starter, generator, turbo, filters, exhaust and tons of other items will eventually fail, esp in bad climate or unmaintained.
      - causality0 4y ago
        For which there are endless third-party replacements. How many major components of a Tesla drivetrain can be swapped out for generic replacements?
        dzhiurgis 4y ago
        Why would anyone make major Tesla component when market size is in single 100s? Most of that is replaced via scraped cars and I'm not sure what Tesla has to do with this - sure they DRM'd their cars, but so do many other do (friend had to "reprogram" his Porsche just after 12v battery change).
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The engine on my 33 year old truck is finally going in for a rebuild. Not because it wore out, but because it developed so many gasket leaks (water and oil) it became a nuisance. The secret to having the machinery last on a car is (as you said) oil changes, and I'll add suspension lube, too.
ageitgey 4y ago
PHEV sounds like a great idea, but you end up driving around in a car with the cost, weight and complexity of two cars worth of engines just in case you occasionally need the second engine. Also, the design of the car is limited by having to accommodate the needs of the combustion engine so you lose out on a lot of your interior space. One of the nicest parts of EVs is that you can reclaim a lot of internal space for passengers since the engine is a lot simpler. As electric cars keep getting cheaper and the ubiquity of rapid charging keeps improving, I think for a lot of people the PHEV concept won't work out as well as it sounds. It will be just as easy to rapid charge a mid-range EV for long trips and you get the benefit of all your day-to-day driving being nicer as well.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  A PHEV isn’t as complicated as ICE and BEV together nor is it as heavy or as expensive. If anything once we can make carbon neutral synthetic fuel out of renewables what would be the purpose of BEV environmentally?
  - ctime 4y ago
    Exactly. I’m sure people made the same misguided argument about diesel electric train engines.
  - rnk 4y ago
    For one thing, fuel burning vehicles make exhaust that is unnecessary. But the main reason is they are vastly more complicated and expensive to design, build, maintain than battery vehicles. bev have something like 90% fewer parts.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      > For one thing, fuel burning vehicles make exhaust that is unnecessary. But the main reason is they are vastly more complicated and expensive to design, build, maintain than battery vehicles. bev have something like 90% fewer parts. People keep saying this but is this true? Modern ICE is pretty well understood. We’re not taking about a Honda beater from the 80s. Not to mention in the context of a PHEV you still wouldn't have exhaust for most trips anyway.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Before gas prices shot up, I was tempted to find a cheap Nissan Leaf with a half-shot battery because even with only 50 miles of range, that would cover the majority of my trips. I hate using my truck, which I do need for a significant minority of my trips, for going to the grocery store, the park, or even for visiting nearby friends. But the local supply of used EVs has shrunk over the past couple of months and prices have gone up. I've noticed many listings aren't mentioning battery health, which is something they used to almost always do, leading me to believe that people making kneejerk purchases of used EVs might not fully understand the battery issues with them. Hope that's not the case but it really is glaring how quickly battery health disappeared from EV listings. Hate to see a bunch of people get turned off of EVs due to a bad first experience.
natch 4y ago
The top of the range is slower to charge. So for your 50 miles of range you would be suffering very long charge times. Whereas with a high range you can charge up to 50 miles very quickly (e.g. in a contrived case where your battery was down to 2 miles, you could charge up to 50 miles in 3 minutes at a fast charger). On the other hand, if you truly only need 50 miles, you don't want to be lugging around the extra battery weight. On the other-other hand, you don't seem concerned about lugging around the polluting gas engine when batteries would do the job just as well if not better. Charging time at the top of the range is one factor that many advocates of low-range vehicles are not aware of. What ends up happening with PHEVs is the gas engine gets used way more than you expect. Also, PHEVs stink, so there is that. And before you mention long tailpipe, it is a fallacy, as has been explained.
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  when paired with high voltage chargers meant for 300 mile batteries, you can reach 40mi (80%) in no time I plug my prius PHEV into a 110v socket at night and it serves my 25mi daily driving just fine.
  - natch 4y ago
    Yeah if you have overnight available, life is good! We lived exclusively with only one 110 outlet in reach, with two high-range EVs, and never had an issue keeping both of them charged. Granted our commute was similar to yours, but the point is, a lot of people don't realize that 110 will do the trick in many cases, if you are charging overnight.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    > when paired with high voltage chargers meant for 300 mile batteries, you can reach 40mi (80%) in no time Charging speed is directly proportional to the size of the battery. But yes with high voltage DC chargers on a small battery you'll reach 80% at the same rate as a larger battery, but the 80% is much smaller, so the mile gain rate is also much smaller.
- magicalhippo 4y ago
tkinom 4y ago
Got Honda Clarity PHEV since 2018. Loving it so far. It is 48 miles E range. I need ~36 for round trip daily commute. Charging at work is free. I remember only fuel up only 3 times in 2019 with the 7 gallon gas tank. Normal fuel up is 5-6 gallon only as it has a very small tank. But the Hybrid range is supposed to be 350 miles. I also just installed solar at home. I expect the next family car would also be PHEV suv to replace the 16 years old minivan. Other than long trip, I don't expect to use gas much, maybe just once a week to oil up the engine for a few minutes.
pengaru 4y ago
I'd much rather just have BEVs with a standardized external range extender interface similar to how trailer light/brake connectors work, accompanying a trailer hitch. When I need to do a long trip I'll just have the power pack thrown on the back at the neighborhood depot next to the propane tanks at the gas station. It can have a fossil fuel powered generator, or just be batteries, I don't care. What I do care about is not having to cart around an ICE 100% of the time for the sake of trips I do <=10% of the time. Maintaining ICE garbage is not something I see in my future, and I'm an experienced graybeard grease monkey.
torginus 4y ago
The question here is an economical one - does 250 miles worth of battery cost less than a gasoline drivetrain? I'm pretty sure the answer is increasing yes.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mrtnmcc 4y ago

This is a hard one to trade off, as the engine does need maintenance even if it isn't used and still limits the lifespan of the PHEV. Even for commuting, having an oversized battery extends lifespan because of the reduced charge cycle per cell (and battery will generally last much longer than any engine). I do like the range boost of the engine though. Especially when exploring new areas and not having a consistent route and supercharge routine. Although going back to the pump always reminds me why pure electric is the future. (I've had both a Tesla and a Volt).

endisneigh 4y ago
My issue is that if you are relying solely on battery and your lifestyle and commute goes around it, a few things happen: 1. Say your 300 mile battery loses 30% in 5-10 years. So now you're down to about 200. In the winter in some areas you might lose another 30 to 50%. So now you're conservatively down to 100 miles. This still can be enough, but it's low enough where it's a hinderance. 2. The equivalent smaller battery as you've stated would drain faster, but it would also be substantially cheaper to replace to begin with. As a result the cost of the battery relative to the car is cheaper and the economics if buying a new battery makes more sense. Not to mention that only Tesla's have the super charger network, so it makes even less sense for non-Tesla EV owners. A battery range longer than the average trip distance * 2 is unnecessary. Ideally you'd have "just enough" + infrastructure to charge at said locations + gas to go further if necessary.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > Say your 300 mile battery loses 30% in 5-10 years. But this is way, way more degradation than actually happens. > Not to mention that only Tesla's have the super charger network, so it makes even less sense for non-Tesla EV owners. This isn't true anymore in much of Europe, and in not too long it won't be true anywhere. > A battery range longer than the average trip distance * 2 is unnecessary. About half of your trips are longer than average.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    > But this is way, way more degradation than actually happens. Not really, it’s in line with the battery warranty with more or less all EV manufacturers > This isn't true anymore in much of Europe, and in not too long it won't be true anywhere. We’ll see. > About half of your trips are longer than average. Sure but I’m talking about PHEV, obviously with BEV you have to be conservative.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      10-15% degradation in 150-200k miles at a US average of 14k miles a year gives 10% degradation per 10 years, so you are off by a factor of 3. https://themotordigest.com/tesla-lifespan-how-many-miles-will-it-last/ https://themotordigest.com/tesla-lifespan-how-many-miles-wil...
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        Seems to be wrong across all vehicles. https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/ https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/ Approximately 15% per 6 years, in line with my estimate and the warranty offered by all manufacturers sans Hyundai.
        adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        A few key problems with this source. 1. It says very little about how the data is collected. Just "Geotab developed the tool based on an analysis of 6,300 fleet and consumer electric vehicles." that's not a lot of transparency. 2. It appears to be based largely on commercial vehicles (although see point 1, it's hard to tell). Consumers drive way less than commercial, which makes analysis by year less than useful. 3. It has a sample size of 6000 vehicles. That might sound like a lot, but since it is broken down into 21 different types of vehicle with about 3 models per type, that's only 100 vehicles per model+year. This would be less of a problem if they disclosed how many vehicles of each type they had, but they don't. 4. They also don't disclose how they have averaged vehicles. 5. The data they have that is easy to cross check (i.e. vs Tesla) shows that their numbers are way different from other sources https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/ https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat... and https://www.evchargerreviews.net/should-you-worry-about-ev-battery-degradation/ https://www.evchargerreviews.net/should-you-worry-about-ev-b... that are much more transparent about their data. All in all, it's very unclear with that source where the data is coming from, how it is analyzed, and it's conclusions differ dramatically from much better analysis.
causality0 4y ago
and battery will generally last much longer than any engine What? Have you been driving GMC cars or something? Change the oil on schedule and engines last for decades.
- Aloha 4y ago
  Any engine, a Chevy LS, Ford Modular and successors, and 3rd Gen Hemi, are all good for a minimum of 200k. If not 4-500k, the transmission will invariably fail before the engine.
  - causality0 4y ago
    My Yaris currently has 240K and the '79 Toyota pickup I got from my grandfather is at 486K.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    The core engine yes, but belts, chains, pulleys, tensioners, plugs, starter, generator, turbo, filters, exhaust and tons of other items will eventually fail, esp in bad climate or unmaintained.
    - causality0 4y ago
      For which there are endless third-party replacements. How many major components of a Tesla drivetrain can be swapped out for generic replacements?
      - dzhiurgis 4y ago
        Why would anyone make major Tesla component when market size is in single 100s? Most of that is replaced via scraped cars and I'm not sure what Tesla has to do with this - sure they DRM'd their cars, but so do many other do (friend had to "reprogram" his Porsche just after 12v battery change).
- WalterBright 4y ago
  The engine on my 33 year old truck is finally going in for a rebuild. Not because it wore out, but because it developed so many gasket leaks (water and oil) it became a nuisance. The secret to having the machinery last on a car is (as you said) oil changes, and I'll add suspension lube, too.

ageitgey 4y ago

PHEV sounds like a great idea, but you end up driving around in a car with the cost, weight and complexity of two cars worth of engines just in case you occasionally need the second engine. Also, the design of the car is limited by having to accommodate the needs of the combustion engine so you lose out on a lot of your interior space. One of the nicest parts of EVs is that you can reclaim a lot of internal space for passengers since the engine is a lot simpler. As electric cars keep getting cheaper and the ubiquity of rapid charging keeps improving, I think for a lot of people the PHEV concept won't work out as well as it sounds. It will be just as easy to rapid charge a mid-range EV for long trips and you get the benefit of all your day-to-day driving being nicer as well.

endisneigh 4y ago
A PHEV isn’t as complicated as ICE and BEV together nor is it as heavy or as expensive. If anything once we can make carbon neutral synthetic fuel out of renewables what would be the purpose of BEV environmentally?
- ctime 4y ago
  Exactly. I’m sure people made the same misguided argument about diesel electric train engines.
- rnk 4y ago
  For one thing, fuel burning vehicles make exhaust that is unnecessary. But the main reason is they are vastly more complicated and expensive to design, build, maintain than battery vehicles. bev have something like 90% fewer parts.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    > For one thing, fuel burning vehicles make exhaust that is unnecessary. But the main reason is they are vastly more complicated and expensive to design, build, maintain than battery vehicles. bev have something like 90% fewer parts. People keep saying this but is this true? Modern ICE is pretty well understood. We’re not taking about a Honda beater from the 80s. Not to mention in the context of a PHEV you still wouldn't have exhaust for most trips anyway.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Before gas prices shot up, I was tempted to find a cheap Nissan Leaf with a half-shot battery because even with only 50 miles of range, that would cover the majority of my trips. I hate using my truck, which I do need for a significant minority of my trips, for going to the grocery store, the park, or even for visiting nearby friends. But the local supply of used EVs has shrunk over the past couple of months and prices have gone up. I've noticed many listings aren't mentioning battery health, which is something they used to almost always do, leading me to believe that people making kneejerk purchases of used EVs might not fully understand the battery issues with them. Hope that's not the case but it really is glaring how quickly battery health disappeared from EV listings. Hate to see a bunch of people get turned off of EVs due to a bad first experience.

natch 4y ago

The top of the range is slower to charge. So for your 50 miles of range you would be suffering very long charge times. Whereas with a high range you can charge up to 50 miles very quickly (e.g. in a contrived case where your battery was down to 2 miles, you could charge up to 50 miles in 3 minutes at a fast charger). On the other hand, if you truly only need 50 miles, you don't want to be lugging around the extra battery weight. On the other-other hand, you don't seem concerned about lugging around the polluting gas engine when batteries would do the job just as well if not better. Charging time at the top of the range is one factor that many advocates of low-range vehicles are not aware of. What ends up happening with PHEVs is the gas engine gets used way more than you expect. Also, PHEVs stink, so there is that. And before you mention long tailpipe, it is a fallacy, as has been explained.

jazzyjackson 4y ago
when paired with high voltage chargers meant for 300 mile batteries, you can reach 40mi (80%) in no time I plug my prius PHEV into a 110v socket at night and it serves my 25mi daily driving just fine.
- natch 4y ago
  Yeah if you have overnight available, life is good! We lived exclusively with only one 110 outlet in reach, with two high-range EVs, and never had an issue keeping both of them charged. Granted our commute was similar to yours, but the point is, a lot of people don't realize that 110 will do the trick in many cases, if you are charging overnight.
- mlindner 4y ago
  > when paired with high voltage chargers meant for 300 mile batteries, you can reach 40mi (80%) in no time Charging speed is directly proportional to the size of the battery. But yes with high voltage DC chargers on a small battery you'll reach 80% at the same rate as a larger battery, but the 80% is much smaller, so the mile gain rate is also much smaller.
magicalhippo 4y ago

tkinom 4y ago

Got Honda Clarity PHEV since 2018. Loving it so far. It is 48 miles E range. I need ~36 for round trip daily commute. Charging at work is free. I remember only fuel up only 3 times in 2019 with the 7 gallon gas tank. Normal fuel up is 5-6 gallon only as it has a very small tank. But the Hybrid range is supposed to be 350 miles. I also just installed solar at home. I expect the next family car would also be PHEV suv to replace the 16 years old minivan. Other than long trip, I don't expect to use gas much, maybe just once a week to oil up the engine for a few minutes.

pengaru 4y ago

I'd much rather just have BEVs with a standardized external range extender interface similar to how trailer light/brake connectors work, accompanying a trailer hitch. When I need to do a long trip I'll just have the power pack thrown on the back at the neighborhood depot next to the propane tanks at the gas station. It can have a fossil fuel powered generator, or just be batteries, I don't care. What I do care about is not having to cart around an ICE 100% of the time for the sake of trips I do <=10% of the time. Maintaining ICE garbage is not something I see in my future, and I'm an experienced graybeard grease monkey.

torginus 4y ago

The question here is an economical one - does 250 miles worth of battery cost less than a gasoline drivetrain? I'm pretty sure the answer is increasing yes.