Hybrids are very reliable, especially plug-ins like the Volt that essentially have redundancy and will operate with one of the engines completely disabled. Gene

Hybrids are very reliable, especially plug-ins like the Volt that essentially have redundancy and will operate with one of the engines completely disabled. Generally speaking it’s far less wear and tear to drive an electric motor with a generator than it is to have a crankshaft / belts / pulleys / transmission / air driven throttle / complex cooling loops / etc, even with the additional parts.