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Plug-In Hybrids (PHEV) are distinct from hybrids, and usually cost thousands more than the base model hybrid, so I wouldn't expect people to purchase one if the

Plug-In Hybrids (PHEV) are distinct from hybrids, and usually cost thousands more than the base model hybrid, so I wouldn't expect people to purchase one if they don't use it (I plug in my prius every night and the EV-only range covers all my daily driving, I don't know the last time I bought gasoline, it's been months)

toast0 4y ago
I bought my PHEV to get carpool stickers and use better parking with free charging at work. The stickers expired and I don't work there anymore, but it never made sense to get rid of, so I still drive it, but rarely charge it. It's way more convenient to pump gas for a few minutes every 600-700 miles than plugging in every 20 miles. Especially since I would prefer not to charge to full; I live on a hill and pick up 1-3 miles of charge on the way out of my neighborhood, I wouldn't want to miss out on that if I filled up.
dotancohen 4y ago
But your PHEV still needs oil changes and other maintenance, and has all the same failure modes that conventional ICEs have: plugs, coil, belt-driven water pump, the belt itself, timing belt, etc. One of the really nice things about EVs is the reduced maintenance. Just out of curiosity, how much EV range does the Prius have? I drive 51 KM each way to/from work. So every day I drive 102 KM (about 60 miles), that's about 15 kilowatts-hours and costs $2.50 to recharge at home. If I sign up for day/night rates that will drop, but I don't know by how much.
- mike_d 4y ago
  I can pull into an Autozone parking lot and buy all the parts and tools to replace a water pump. Tesla's have a completely new set of failure cases that are exponentially more complicated.
  - varjag 4y ago
    I have a Nissan Leaf from 2013 now with 100k km on it, after our old petrol car went to junkyard. All the maintenance that was necessary was new brake pads (once) and a new coupe filter.
  - aae42 4y ago
    *less complicated
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    Teslas have many faults, but "complicated" is not any way that I would describe it. The drivetrain is extraordinarily straightforward, and is pretty accessible. Today I fly a desk but in the past I was a Ford technician. I wish the vehicles I was working on at the time were are accessible as my Model 3 is. Not to mention how clean the mechanical bits of the cars are, even those with over 100,000 km on them. The underbody moulding and lack of big shaky boxes of fluids vibrating is very apparent on the cleanliness of the drivetrain, at least those that I've seen as the Tesla repair shop once let me in the garage a bit. I'm sure that the gearboxes have fluids in them, but the smooth electric motors don't shake it out past the gaskets.
    - fjfjfjlwerklj 4y ago
      >The drivetrain is extraordinarily straightforward Even ignoring the battery (and all the other gizmos an EV is loaded with), the motor controller refutes this point. Efficient, high-powered motor control in a lightweight package is a relatively new solution, and requires a lot of up-to-date electronic and sofwate design techniques. Fault-finding on one of those is no easy feat. It also depends how you define "complicated". If you mean, "dependent on the cutting-edge of mass-manufacturing capability of almost all forms of currently produced technology", then EVs are necessarily absurdly complicated. It would be possible to source and manufacture (and fuel!) an ICE (of somewhat comparable quality to what most people require) domestically in many countries. Obviously this is not possible for an EV (even China has to import some of the stuff needed to make one). For me, my daily transportation being dependent on such a complex global system is not acceptable. The current "component shortage" makes my point. How can something that is "extrodinarily straightforward" currently have a lead time stretching into the years (depending on model and country)? I'm not saying personal ownership of an ICE is the solution, btw.
- jonathantf2 4y ago
  My 2014 Prius plug-in can do about 7 miles on battery, the quoted range is 12 I believe? I get one way to work on that but it's great for just popping out to the supermarket and back.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > But your PHEV still needs oil changes and other maintenance, and has all the same failure modes that conventional ICEs have: plugs, coil, belt-driven water pump, the belt itself, timing belt, etc. One of the really nice things about EVs is the reduced maintenance. They're used much less, what kills cars are cold starts and short commutes/city driving. The average driver drives something like 40km per day, which is doable in full electric mode with a lot of plug in hybrid and won't strain the IC engine. Full electric in the city and gas on the highway is what we should have strived for since the 2000s, best energy efficiency, less pollution/noise where people live (better for health), least amount of maintenance, least amount of change needed, no grid problem, no need to completely reshape the entire infrastructure, &c. Full electric is nice but carrying a 1 tonne battery everywhere when most people could do with 100kg is an aberration. Most people, especially in Europe, don't need more than 100km range with the exception of occasional vacation trips.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    > Full electric is nice but carrying a 1 tonne battery everywhere when most people could do with 100kg is an aberration. Though I agree with this, I do like having the extra range available if something comes up - and that does happen about once a month. And the Model 3 regens really well. I touch the brake pedal less than once per week, and half the time I realize that I didn't even need to. Nobody was really concerned about carrying 40 liters of petrol when 10 liters would have met their daily needs.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      > Nobody was really concerned about carrying 40 liters of petrol when 10 liters would have met their daily needs.` The thing is you can fill only 10L if you want and gain the weight. An empty battery weights the same as a full one, and they're heavy as fuck to begin with. In any major city in Europe I can rent a gas car for 60 euros a day, for this once a month event this is more than fine. It depends if you think in term of personal comfort or in term of global optimisation/pollution. Everyone would love top have a v10 maybach, but the world would be a better place with 200km range e fiat 500. Replacing the 1.4B ICE vehicles we have on this planet with tesla like cars is far from optimal if people use 10% of the range/perf
donkeyd 4y ago
Maybe it's changed, but in the Netherlands PHEVS were mostly bought because of lower taxation when driving them as a company car. Because the companies paid gas, people used them as regular cars and ended up polluting more due to the weight of the batteries. We've had some changes in the taxation scheme though, so this may no longer be relevant.
coryrc 4y ago
Sometimes the purchaser is not the user. I've seen plug-in Prius bought with grant money... and never plugged in.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
PHEVs are pointless. All the disadvantages of an ICE vehicle with no benefit over a regular hybrid; they get worse gas mileage, the added cost (~4000-5000 dollars) is probably never paid back by the first owner in electricity vs gas, and they have less cargo room.
GRBLDeveloped 4y ago
Just a heads up, gasoline can go bad on you https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-long-can-gas-sit-in-a-car-before-it-goes-bad https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-long-can-ga...

toast0 4y ago

I bought my PHEV to get carpool stickers and use better parking with free charging at work. The stickers expired and I don't work there anymore, but it never made sense to get rid of, so I still drive it, but rarely charge it. It's way more convenient to pump gas for a few minutes every 600-700 miles than plugging in every 20 miles. Especially since I would prefer not to charge to full; I live on a hill and pick up 1-3 miles of charge on the way out of my neighborhood, I wouldn't want to miss out on that if I filled up.

dotancohen 4y ago

But your PHEV still needs oil changes and other maintenance, and has all the same failure modes that conventional ICEs have: plugs, coil, belt-driven water pump, the belt itself, timing belt, etc. One of the really nice things about EVs is the reduced maintenance. Just out of curiosity, how much EV range does the Prius have? I drive 51 KM each way to/from work. So every day I drive 102 KM (about 60 miles), that's about 15 kilowatts-hours and costs $2.50 to recharge at home. If I sign up for day/night rates that will drop, but I don't know by how much.

mike_d 4y ago
I can pull into an Autozone parking lot and buy all the parts and tools to replace a water pump. Tesla's have a completely new set of failure cases that are exponentially more complicated.
- varjag 4y ago
  I have a Nissan Leaf from 2013 now with 100k km on it, after our old petrol car went to junkyard. All the maintenance that was necessary was new brake pads (once) and a new coupe filter.
- aae42 4y ago
  *less complicated
- dotancohen 4y ago
  Teslas have many faults, but "complicated" is not any way that I would describe it. The drivetrain is extraordinarily straightforward, and is pretty accessible. Today I fly a desk but in the past I was a Ford technician. I wish the vehicles I was working on at the time were are accessible as my Model 3 is. Not to mention how clean the mechanical bits of the cars are, even those with over 100,000 km on them. The underbody moulding and lack of big shaky boxes of fluids vibrating is very apparent on the cleanliness of the drivetrain, at least those that I've seen as the Tesla repair shop once let me in the garage a bit. I'm sure that the gearboxes have fluids in them, but the smooth electric motors don't shake it out past the gaskets.
  - fjfjfjlwerklj 4y ago
    >The drivetrain is extraordinarily straightforward Even ignoring the battery (and all the other gizmos an EV is loaded with), the motor controller refutes this point. Efficient, high-powered motor control in a lightweight package is a relatively new solution, and requires a lot of up-to-date electronic and sofwate design techniques. Fault-finding on one of those is no easy feat. It also depends how you define "complicated". If you mean, "dependent on the cutting-edge of mass-manufacturing capability of almost all forms of currently produced technology", then EVs are necessarily absurdly complicated. It would be possible to source and manufacture (and fuel!) an ICE (of somewhat comparable quality to what most people require) domestically in many countries. Obviously this is not possible for an EV (even China has to import some of the stuff needed to make one). For me, my daily transportation being dependent on such a complex global system is not acceptable. The current "component shortage" makes my point. How can something that is "extrodinarily straightforward" currently have a lead time stretching into the years (depending on model and country)? I'm not saying personal ownership of an ICE is the solution, btw.
jonathantf2 4y ago
My 2014 Prius plug-in can do about 7 miles on battery, the quoted range is 12 I believe? I get one way to work on that but it's great for just popping out to the supermarket and back.
lm28469 4y ago
> But your PHEV still needs oil changes and other maintenance, and has all the same failure modes that conventional ICEs have: plugs, coil, belt-driven water pump, the belt itself, timing belt, etc. One of the really nice things about EVs is the reduced maintenance. They're used much less, what kills cars are cold starts and short commutes/city driving. The average driver drives something like 40km per day, which is doable in full electric mode with a lot of plug in hybrid and won't strain the IC engine. Full electric in the city and gas on the highway is what we should have strived for since the 2000s, best energy efficiency, less pollution/noise where people live (better for health), least amount of maintenance, least amount of change needed, no grid problem, no need to completely reshape the entire infrastructure, &c. Full electric is nice but carrying a 1 tonne battery everywhere when most people could do with 100kg is an aberration. Most people, especially in Europe, don't need more than 100km range with the exception of occasional vacation trips.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  > Full electric is nice but carrying a 1 tonne battery everywhere when most people could do with 100kg is an aberration. Though I agree with this, I do like having the extra range available if something comes up - and that does happen about once a month. And the Model 3 regens really well. I touch the brake pedal less than once per week, and half the time I realize that I didn't even need to. Nobody was really concerned about carrying 40 liters of petrol when 10 liters would have met their daily needs.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > Nobody was really concerned about carrying 40 liters of petrol when 10 liters would have met their daily needs.` The thing is you can fill only 10L if you want and gain the weight. An empty battery weights the same as a full one, and they're heavy as fuck to begin with. In any major city in Europe I can rent a gas car for 60 euros a day, for this once a month event this is more than fine. It depends if you think in term of personal comfort or in term of global optimisation/pollution. Everyone would love top have a v10 maybach, but the world would be a better place with 200km range e fiat 500. Replacing the 1.4B ICE vehicles we have on this planet with tesla like cars is far from optimal if people use 10% of the range/perf

donkeyd 4y ago

Maybe it's changed, but in the Netherlands PHEVS were mostly bought because of lower taxation when driving them as a company car. Because the companies paid gas, people used them as regular cars and ended up polluting more due to the weight of the batteries. We've had some changes in the taxation scheme though, so this may no longer be relevant.

coryrc 4y ago

Sometimes the purchaser is not the user. I've seen plug-in Prius bought with grant money... and never plugged in.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

PHEVs are pointless. All the disadvantages of an ICE vehicle with no benefit over a regular hybrid; they get worse gas mileage, the added cost (~4000-5000 dollars) is probably never paid back by the first owner in electricity vs gas, and they have less cargo room.

GRBLDeveloped 4y ago

Just a heads up, gasoline can go bad on you https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-long-can-gas-sit-in-a-car-before-it-goes-bad https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-long-can-ga...