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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 occasio

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.
    - ageitgey 4y ago
      Modern ICE have been refined for over 100 years and have improved enormously. But there is just a lot more involved in making them move than electric engines. That's not to say EVs aren't complex or hard to build. There are a lot of parts inside the battery pack. But they aren't moving parts and they don't need the same kind of regular maintenance. Electric cars don't have oil to change and they almost never need brakes replaced because of regen. They don't have O2 sensors that fail, they don't have spark plugs to change, they don't have timing belts to replace, etc. If you look at a list of the top 10 most frequent car repairs, maybe 9 of them can't happen on an electric car. It is just a simpler system of moving parts. The complexity is in a different place. The problem with PHEV is you have the different types of complexity of both systems combined just in an effort to boost range.
  - rr808 4y ago
    > are vastly more complicated and expensive to design, build, maintain than battery vehicles. True, ICE car are more complicated but its pretty clear that build and maintain is cheaper than BEV. ICE cars are half the price of EVs. Maintenance of good Japanese cars is cheap, I spend like $30/yr on oil changes.
- pornel 4y ago
  • You still have NOx emissions, no matter what fuel you burn. • PHEVs have (pretty much by definition) smaller batteries, so they discharge/cycle more of their capacity, wearing down batteries quicker. They're also less convenient, because they have to be plugged in more often and charge slower (if you don't plug them in daily, they're just overcomplicated ICE cars). • A pure electric drive train is pretty energy-efficient (80%+ Well-to-Wheel efficiency). Combustion engines are only about 35% efficient (and it won't get better: there's no room to use the heat, and you can't avoid generating heat in a combustion engine). It's already bad even if you have perfectly efficient fuel synthesis. We're not near having too much electricity to waste. • There's still an engine and a gearbox to maintain. These are mechanically much more complex and inherently more fragile than an EV power train. • Most PHEVs on the market have weaker/laggier performance than BEVs due to having a smaller battery that can't deliver high peak power, and having only one electric motor due to sharing a power train with ICE. Modern fast-charging BEVs already work great. They have effectively infinite range if you charge 20 minutes per 2-3 hours of driving. That's entirely within reason, and only about 10% slower than pee-in-a-bottle road trips.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    BEVs are about 80% efficient in Wall-to-Wheel measures. What the Well-to-Wheel measure is depends on the efficiency of the power generation and losses in distribution. If it’s powered by natural gas, that generation itself is only around 40% efficient.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Wind and solar power are taking over in a lot of states. My local power company claims to be 85% wind (but only in newspapers, when I look for evidence I can't find proof)
  - seattle_spring 4y ago
    I think it's worth pointing out that uncharged PHEVs still work like hybrids. They benefit from regen braking and can optimize when to most optimally use stored energy. I do wish more folks with PHEVs would ensure they're plugged in as much as possible, but I'm still of the position that they have a reasonable usecase while the world transitions.

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.
  - ageitgey 4y ago
    Modern ICE have been refined for over 100 years and have improved enormously. But there is just a lot more involved in making them move than electric engines. That's not to say EVs aren't complex or hard to build. There are a lot of parts inside the battery pack. But they aren't moving parts and they don't need the same kind of regular maintenance. Electric cars don't have oil to change and they almost never need brakes replaced because of regen. They don't have O2 sensors that fail, they don't have spark plugs to change, they don't have timing belts to replace, etc. If you look at a list of the top 10 most frequent car repairs, maybe 9 of them can't happen on an electric car. It is just a simpler system of moving parts. The complexity is in a different place. The problem with PHEV is you have the different types of complexity of both systems combined just in an effort to boost range.
- rr808 4y ago
  > are vastly more complicated and expensive to design, build, maintain than battery vehicles. True, ICE car are more complicated but its pretty clear that build and maintain is cheaper than BEV. ICE cars are half the price of EVs. Maintenance of good Japanese cars is cheap, I spend like $30/yr on oil changes.
pornel 4y ago
• You still have NOx emissions, no matter what fuel you burn. • PHEVs have (pretty much by definition) smaller batteries, so they discharge/cycle more of their capacity, wearing down batteries quicker. They're also less convenient, because they have to be plugged in more often and charge slower (if you don't plug them in daily, they're just overcomplicated ICE cars). • A pure electric drive train is pretty energy-efficient (80%+ Well-to-Wheel efficiency). Combustion engines are only about 35% efficient (and it won't get better: there's no room to use the heat, and you can't avoid generating heat in a combustion engine). It's already bad even if you have perfectly efficient fuel synthesis. We're not near having too much electricity to waste. • There's still an engine and a gearbox to maintain. These are mechanically much more complex and inherently more fragile than an EV power train. • Most PHEVs on the market have weaker/laggier performance than BEVs due to having a smaller battery that can't deliver high peak power, and having only one electric motor due to sharing a power train with ICE. Modern fast-charging BEVs already work great. They have effectively infinite range if you charge 20 minutes per 2-3 hours of driving. That's entirely within reason, and only about 10% slower than pee-in-a-bottle road trips.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  BEVs are about 80% efficient in Wall-to-Wheel measures. What the Well-to-Wheel measure is depends on the efficiency of the power generation and losses in distribution. If it’s powered by natural gas, that generation itself is only around 40% efficient.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Wind and solar power are taking over in a lot of states. My local power company claims to be 85% wind (but only in newspapers, when I look for evidence I can't find proof)
- seattle_spring 4y ago
  I think it's worth pointing out that uncharged PHEVs still work like hybrids. They benefit from regen braking and can optimize when to most optimally use stored energy. I do wish more folks with PHEVs would ensure they're plugged in as much as possible, but I'm still of the position that they have a reasonable usecase while the world transitions.