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Friend bought a Toyota Sienna hybrid base model which gets 37mpg, he loves it. I think hybrids are a better way to go in the USA given the greater distances to

Friend bought a Toyota Sienna hybrid base model which gets 37mpg, he loves it. I think hybrids are a better way to go in the USA given the greater distances to travel.

nielsbot 3y ago
some people travel greater distances, sure. but i bet most people in america commute, shop, etc close to home. i would be interested to see some stats on it.
throwaway5959 3y ago
Still belches out nasty pollutants. When COVID hit and I saw how clean air in LA could be if we stopped driving gas cars I was sold and bought my first EV (our only car) when our previous vehicle was involved in a crash. With all the solar and wind resources CA has, there’s no reason not to go electric w/the incentives available, especially now.
voisin 3y ago
You have all the hassles of a combustion engine (wear and tear due to all the moving parts, oil changes, filters, etc etc) and a fraction of the fuel economy of a battery electric vehicle. I don’t get Hybrids for anyone that doesn’t have a massively long commute. Wouldn’t hybrids be more efficient if the gas/diesel was just generating electricity for an electric drivetrain? They do this for logging and mining trucks.
- tzs 3y ago
  > You have all the hassles of a combustion engine (wear and tear due to all the moving parts, oil changes, filters, etc etc) and a fraction of the fuel economy of a battery electric vehicle. If it is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) then for people who have a way to charge overnight it will for many of them have almost the same fuel economy as a battery electric vehicle (BEV), because PHEV electric range nowadays is more than the amount the average driver drives per day. For example for me a PHEV would almost always be operating entirely in EV mode. For those few times when I actually do take a long trip it would be more convenient than a BEV because a gas pump adds mileage faster than even the fastest EV charges. Consider a trip from the Puget Sound area to Madras, OR, and back. Using the EV trip planner that someone else recommended in another comment, abetterrouteplanner.com, I find that in a standard range Tesla Model 3 it would be 10 hours on the road, and 1 hour at chargers. With a Chevy bolt it become 2.5 hours at charges. With my 2006 Honda CR-V I'd need 3 gas stops. With pay at the pump that would be less than 15 minutes spent at gas stops. A new Honda Civic could do it in one gas stop, so under 5 minutes. A Prius Prime PHEV could do it with no gas stops, although it would be getting low when it got back to Puget Sound so I'd probably do one gas stop on the way to have a bigger safety margin. I'll probably get a BEV for my next car, but keep the 2006 CR-V instead of trading it in. That way I've got a BEV for my day to day driving but have the option of taking the CR-V for those rare longer trips where either EV charging might not be readily available or I just don't want long refueling stops. If the CR-V was not such a reliable car that likely has many more years in it without more than routine maintenance and so I would trade it in and only have one car, I'd seriously consider a PHEV.
- celeritascelery 3y ago
  > Wouldn’t hybrids be more efficient if the gas/diesel was just generating electricity for an electric drivetrain? They do this for logging and mining trucks. They might be more “efficient” from a maintenance point of view, but they will have worse gas mileage then gas/electric. Anytime you have to transform the energy to another form you loose some of power. So ICE > drivetrain will be more efficient then ICE > generator > drivetrain.

Friend bought a Toyota Sienna hybrid base model which gets 37mpg, he loves it. I think hybrids are a better way to go in the USA given the greater distances to travel.

nielsbot 3y ago

some people travel greater distances, sure. but i bet most people in america commute, shop, etc close to home. i would be interested to see some stats on it.

throwaway5959 3y ago

Still belches out nasty pollutants. When COVID hit and I saw how clean air in LA could be if we stopped driving gas cars I was sold and bought my first EV (our only car) when our previous vehicle was involved in a crash. With all the solar and wind resources CA has, there’s no reason not to go electric w/the incentives available, especially now.

voisin 3y ago

You have all the hassles of a combustion engine (wear and tear due to all the moving parts, oil changes, filters, etc etc) and a fraction of the fuel economy of a battery electric vehicle. I don’t get Hybrids for anyone that doesn’t have a massively long commute. Wouldn’t hybrids be more efficient if the gas/diesel was just generating electricity for an electric drivetrain? They do this for logging and mining trucks.

tzs 3y ago
> You have all the hassles of a combustion engine (wear and tear due to all the moving parts, oil changes, filters, etc etc) and a fraction of the fuel economy of a battery electric vehicle. If it is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) then for people who have a way to charge overnight it will for many of them have almost the same fuel economy as a battery electric vehicle (BEV), because PHEV electric range nowadays is more than the amount the average driver drives per day. For example for me a PHEV would almost always be operating entirely in EV mode. For those few times when I actually do take a long trip it would be more convenient than a BEV because a gas pump adds mileage faster than even the fastest EV charges. Consider a trip from the Puget Sound area to Madras, OR, and back. Using the EV trip planner that someone else recommended in another comment, abetterrouteplanner.com, I find that in a standard range Tesla Model 3 it would be 10 hours on the road, and 1 hour at chargers. With a Chevy bolt it become 2.5 hours at charges. With my 2006 Honda CR-V I'd need 3 gas stops. With pay at the pump that would be less than 15 minutes spent at gas stops. A new Honda Civic could do it in one gas stop, so under 5 minutes. A Prius Prime PHEV could do it with no gas stops, although it would be getting low when it got back to Puget Sound so I'd probably do one gas stop on the way to have a bigger safety margin. I'll probably get a BEV for my next car, but keep the 2006 CR-V instead of trading it in. That way I've got a BEV for my day to day driving but have the option of taking the CR-V for those rare longer trips where either EV charging might not be readily available or I just don't want long refueling stops. If the CR-V was not such a reliable car that likely has many more years in it without more than routine maintenance and so I would trade it in and only have one car, I'd seriously consider a PHEV.
celeritascelery 3y ago
> Wouldn’t hybrids be more efficient if the gas/diesel was just generating electricity for an electric drivetrain? They do this for logging and mining trucks. They might be more “efficient” from a maintenance point of view, but they will have worse gas mileage then gas/electric. Anytime you have to transform the energy to another form you loose some of power. So ICE > drivetrain will be more efficient then ICE > generator > drivetrain.