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Why each every one of these aren't PHEVs boggles my mind.
by greesil 3y ago
Why each every one of these aren't PHEVs boggles my mind.
- skullone 3y ago80% of my daily driving could be on a PHEV on battery only, with the motor covering the remainder. A PHEV Camry would be sublime :(
- kenhwang 3y agoIf you don't have a way of charging the battery, it's less efficient than if it were gas-only.
- hunter2_ 3y agoBraking is a way of charging it that everyone has.
- MBCook 3y agoOver time you can never get more energy from braking than you spent accelerating. A larger battery won’t do you any good if charged by regeneration unless you’re somehow always driving down a big hill. There’s a reason hybrids like the non-PHEV Prius models have tiny batteries.
- omgwtfbyobbq 3y agoIt helps a fair bit. The regen in my first Gen Insight is worse than in my second Gen Prius, which is worse than the regen in my first Gen plug-in Prius, which is worse than my Model 3. At some point, the extra weight cannot be offset by more/better Regen and better fuel efficiency on gas where applicable, but going from a few kWh hybrid to a 10-20 kWh hybrid will usually be a net positive even with additional weight, all other things being equal.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agoReally? Why? adding a plug adds a couple pounds but other than that, the plug is neutral and the battery is a win since regenerative breaking is really useful.
- kenhwang 3y agoBatteries are heavy, and even the weight for a modest sized (15-20kWh) one used for a PHEV is heavy enough (+500-700lbs) to impact the fuel economy enough where it is a net negative even accounting for regular hybrid recharging/regen braking. You're better off with a significantly smaller regular hybrid battery (1-2kWh) or none at all instead of lugging around the weight of a discharged PHEV battery that'll never reasonably be close to charged from regular driving (unless your regular driving includes ~200 miles only steep downhill braking to fully charge the PHEV battery).
- greesil 3y agoBut wouldn't aggressive regenerative braking negate the weight penalty? The hybrid Toyotas I've driven are pretty weak here, but the Chevy Bolt I drove had very strong regenerative braking. As for cost, well, that's what the subsidies are for.
- kenhwang 3y agoA Prius Prime has a 161HP/120kW electric motor and a 13.6kWh battery. Regen braking is usually able to capture 15-30% of the motor's output power. You'd have to be at full regen for about 22 minutes to fully charge that battery. That's not a realistic driving pattern for a significantly large majority of people.
- omgwtfbyobbq 3y agoPHEV batteries aren't that heavy these days. The Prius Prime has ~14kWh battery and weights ~290lbs. https://www.sae.org/news/2023/04/2023-toyota-prius-prime-drive https://www.sae.org/news/2023/04/2023-toyota-prius-prime-dri... Even with an extra 200+lbs, having a bigger battery is better for Regen and offsets the additional weight to some extent. If someone is a super conservative/disciplined driver, they can get the same mpg from a hybrid with a smaller pack, but most people don't want to hypermile their cars.
- culopatin 3y agoSo if I put the engine of a Prius connected to a manual transmission you say that over 100 miles of mixed use I’ll get better gas mileage? Why?
- timbit42 3y agoThat is false. A Prius is a HEV and can't be charged and mine uses 40% less fuel than a similarly sized gas vehicle. Additionally, a PHEV typically gets at least 30% better fuel economy than a gas vehicle.
- rahimnathwani 3y agoBigger battery reduces trunk space.
- postmodest 3y agoI drove just enough that 100% of my in-city miles would be covered by the solar charging of a 2024 Prius. But they're $50,000 and that's too goddamn much so I'll continue polluting with my twenty year old volkswagen
- nsxwolf 3y agoI rented a PHEV Chrysler Pacifica and I was disappointed that whenever it thought I was giving it too much throttle, it would kick itself out of EV mode and start the engine. There was no way to force it to use only the battery until depleted.
- tshaddox 3y agoWhy is that a bad thing? Was the transition clunky, leading to a bad driving experience? Or were you just strongly preferring to stay in battery-only mode at the time?
- nsxwolf 3y agoI was strongly preferring to stay in battery mode. The car is advertised with a strong implication that it works this way. If it's not going to work that way, it's just a hybrid with a few configuration tweaks.
- tshaddox 3y agoI’m not at all a car guy, but it’s possible that I follow EV-related tech more than the average car buyer. I thought it was fairly common knowledge that PHEVs will often engage the combustion engine, particularly at high speeds or under high acceleration (or even to prevent the gas in the tank from getting too old). I’ve never owned a PHEV but I always conceptualized it as an exaggerated version of the auto stop/start that most modern gas cars have, where you don’t really have direct control over the gas engine usage.
- gnicholas 3y agoI have a Ford PHEV, and it never kicks on simply due to speed. If you accelerate very sharply it will turn on, but that almost never happens in my experience. And there is nothing that I'm aware of that causes it to use gasoline in order to prevent it from going stale. It is not remotely like an exaggerated version of auto stop/start. You have control over EV-now, EV-later, and automatic settings. Some PHEVs are stingier on the EV-limited top speed, but in my Ford I can go with the flow of traffic on 280 without triggering the ICE.
- tshaddox 3y agoPresumably the primary reason is that PHEVs have much larger batteries and additional charging hardware and thus cost significantly more. And I suspect car manufacturers have found that car buyers don’t understand the tradeoffs and advantages of PHEVs. If I’m right about that, it really is a shame, because PHEVs really should be an excellent way to fit the vast majority of people’s driving needs and also squeeze out the most electrification per unit of global battery production.
- thatfrenchguy 3y agoPHEV tend to have very small batteries though, 30-40 EPA miles is rarely enough to go to work and back in the US.
- earthscienceman 3y agoSounds like an infrastructure problem if you need to go further than that just for work. But given you're French, vous êtes, selon toute probabilité, complètement d'acc.
- MBCook 3y agoA ton of people don’t have access to charging at home due to apartments or condos. Plus if they do it would likely be level 1, which is not exactly speedy. I wouldn’t spring for a level 2 install for a 10-15 kWh battery. I’m not sure PHEVs are the panacea many people seem to think they are. In theory most tris are short and could be covered by the battery. In practice do average owners do that?
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agoLevel 1 is perfectly fine for a hybrid. It will take ~5 hours to charge, but that's plenty for overnight/at work charging. You don't need 15 minute charging times when you have a 400 mile gas range.
- el_benhameen 3y ago
- justapassenger 3y agoMy daily driver is PHEV and I love it. I’ll likely drive it till it disintegrates. But. Very little people would care to charge PHEV on any regular schedule. So you end up getting more expensive car, with bigger battery, that’s driven just as a hybrid. You can see that with current sales - they often are bought purely because of subsides, and used as normal hybrid.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- theK 3y agoWhat is the benefit of PHEVs compared to BEVs again? Aren't they just as overcomplicated as normal hybrids?
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agoThe advantage is you can plug them in and run them as EVs ~80% of the time.
- theK 3y agoThat is a nice theory but study after study finds out that people just aren't "plugging in" https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-ph... As an anecdote, I know a handfull of people that exchanged their pricy SUVs for the equivalent PHEV version and where laughing at the fact they where getting roughly 10k of gov kickbacks for doing it, even though they didn't even have anywhere to plug in.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agosure, but even if that's true when they sell their PHEV in a few years the next buyer will be able to plug it in and save a bunch of gas (and money). The cars we are making now will be around for another 20 years, so making vehicles that can plug in will mean that 10 years from now (as charging proliferates) they will use less and less gasoline.
- Bud 3y agoPoint of order: normal hybrids are not overcomplicated and they're a very mature technology that works great.
- theK 3y agoCome on, any ICE drivetrain is magnitudes more complex than an electric one...
- el_benhameen 3y ago
- yread 3y agoAnnoying thing is that since PHEVs have a smaller battery they don't have fast charging. So you have to have a place to charge them overnight or at work. If you don't can't do that HEVs give you 30% reduction in gas usage vs ICE and save 3-4k over PHEVs
- bryanlarsen 3y agoHybrids and PHEV's aren't competitors. If you can charge at home or at work, then BEV's and PHEV's are great choices. If you can't charge at home or at work (which is a lot of people) then a PHEV is added expense for no added benefit.
- timbit42 3y agoIf you won't charge at home or work then a PHEV is added expense for no added benefit, relative to a HEV.