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Sure, the government should have done a lot of things. But we weren't talking about government, we were talking about Tesla. I don't think Tesla releasing a p

Sure, the government should have done a lot of things. But we weren't talking about government, we were talking about Tesla. I don't think Tesla releasing a plugin hybrid instead of the Model S would have led to everyone having a hybrid today, much in the same way everyone doesn't have a BEV today. I think ironically PHEVs (or more realistically, range extended BEVs) will actually gain popularity as the proportion of people with BEVs begins to cross the 50% threshold. For them to really make sense to sell there needs to be a big enough market that making the low power engines required becomes dirt cheap per unit. As it stands the difference in cost between a pure BEV and a PHEV is so low that paying that little bit more for the BEV makes sense basically every time.

jfengel 3y ago
The problem for PHEVs is that as BEVs cross 50%, there will be more electric vehicle infrastructure, and the hybrid becomes moot. Either you have access to cheap (overnight, at-home) charging, or you don't. The hybrid extends the range of batteries, but the use case is small and becomes smaller. The vast majority of people will plug in overnight. Very long trips use quick chargers. The hybrid case is reduced to places where you don't think you can plug in (which will be few when BEVs become the majority). There are corner cases: "Yes, I like to haul my enormous boat to the lake hundreds of miles every single week and so the quick chargers still require hours". But in the end I think that such corner cases will be reduced to "Fine, go buy an old ICE car, and plan your trip around the diminishing number of gas stations".
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  Yeah, which is why now the play is full EV. But 10-15 years ago there is a generation or two of ICE still to go. Making all those PHEVs would have been a massive improvement to emissions.

jfengel 3y ago

The problem for PHEVs is that as BEVs cross 50%, there will be more electric vehicle infrastructure, and the hybrid becomes moot. Either you have access to cheap (overnight, at-home) charging, or you don't. The hybrid extends the range of batteries, but the use case is small and becomes smaller. The vast majority of people will plug in overnight. Very long trips use quick chargers. The hybrid case is reduced to places where you don't think you can plug in (which will be few when BEVs become the majority). There are corner cases: "Yes, I like to haul my enormous boat to the lake hundreds of miles every single week and so the quick chargers still require hours". But in the end I think that such corner cases will be reduced to "Fine, go buy an old ICE car, and plan your trip around the diminishing number of gas stations".

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
Yeah, which is why now the play is full EV. But 10-15 years ago there is a generation or two of ICE still to go. Making all those PHEVs would have been a massive improvement to emissions.