Confused about PHEV, Hybrids, etc...

[gnuarm]

Why are you being so petty?  I was simply trying to make a point with sarcasm.  So many people from the UK have such a defeatist attitude about BEVs.  It makes me wonder how the UK ever got anything done.  There has to be someone in the UK that can figure it out.  I guess it will take a while to find that one person.

I think you're being a little unfair to the UK, frankly.   I would argue the US is more opposed to electric vehicles with their obsession over massive trucks/SUVs, driving to places that most people walk/cycle to and insistence that a vehicle is impractical unless it can drive 1,000 miles in a day non stop.

   

I hear you.  As I tried to explain, I am trying to be sarcastic, really.  I have much respect for the nation that fought Hitler in WWII, built the first real computer, and has made so many contributions to mankind.  I'm trying to point out how opposite to the true UK nature this defeatist attitude is.

PR is a small territory, you can easily cross from one side to another on a single charge with almost every EV made today, so your view of how accepted electric vehicles are may be influenced by that. 

I could drive from anywhere on the island to anywhere on the island and back on a single charge... but that doesn't make BEVs practical in Puerto Rico.  There are almost no places to charge other than at home and there are very few BEVs.  I do see a few Teslas from time to time. 

The UK has a well-developed charging network, a large number of charging companies based in the UK which have expanded into Europe, and equipment manufacturers and suppliers.  We have a factory that is supposed to be building new EV batteries (we'll see if it takes off), Nissan makes the Leaf for Europe & UK here, the plug-in hybrid-electric London taxi (100km all electric range) is made in Birmingham, UK and we've got a few EV startups too (ARRIVAL is the big one having recently won a contract to supply Royal Mail with custom built EV vans.)

100 km is pretty lame range, even for a city car.  I don't know how many miles a day a taxi drives, well, km then, but 100 km is only 60 miles and that's not much for any sort of working vehicle, even if you charge at lunch.  We'll see if it is successful. 

Engineers in general, which is predominantly the membership base of this forum, seem to have a very luddite-like view of the world and seem to be very opposed to change.

 

Not this one.  I did think cell phones were a bit pointless (ok, one wrong) and even thought smart phones were not important until I got my Tesla and the Tesla app was important (ok, two wrong).  But I have always wanted an electric car since day one!  I watched Tesla for a couple of years and finally bought an X about the time the 3 was getting into production.  It was sort of my retirement present for myself.  Now I just need to retire. 

This is not just in relation to EVs, it's things like smartphones, "the cloud", heck I've even seen an argument here where a chap was insistent that his Ni-Cad drill was better than a new Li-Ion one because he can leave the battery at 0% for a year and it'll still work.  Never mind the fact it can do half the torque and half the work before going flat.

Is that true about NiCads?  I thought they had high current output, which is why they were preferred over NiMH, which are dogs in power tools.  I replaced alkalines in a model boat with NiCd and it took off like a scalded cat! 

Of the EE friends I know, only about two or three are actively interested in electric vehicles.  Most are on the fence and a few are opposed in similar ways to several of the posters might be here. 

I imagine it will begin to shift over time, nothing changes overnight.

I don't actually recommend for anyone to buy a BEV now.  I say, don't buy anything other than a Tesla... and don't buy a Tesla.  I think they will ripen a lot in a few more years.  Not that they aren't useful in the meantime.  I just think most people will not like the few inconveniences, which will be improved upon in short order.  They have already increased the range significantly over the last five years.  Give them five more and you will see 400 mile range for $30,000. 

My use case is actually pathological for my model X.  I barely use the thing around home, then I drive 125 miles each way every two weeks.  This is just under the range of the car now that it has some wear, so I always have to stop to charge, somewhere along the route, even if just for five minutes.  I usually combine it with picking up some carry out.  So win/win! 

I also charge on a 120V, 1.4 kW outlet.  lol

[tom66]

100 km is pretty lame range, even for a city car.  I don't know how many miles a day a taxi drives, well, km then, but 100 km is only 60 miles and that's not much for any sort of working vehicle, even if you charge at lunch.  We'll see if it is successful. 

It's not a bad compromise tbh... Most of the taxis spend their time tootling around in city traffic where average speeds of 8 mph mean you're doing well.  So they can easily run till lunch.  The petrol engine then gets them any fares to the airport and back.

But I think long term something like a 200mi / 300km all electric taxi will make the most sense.  PHEVs are training wheels for real EVs

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

[Miyuki]

100 km is pretty lame range, even for a city car.  I don't know how many miles a day a taxi drives, well, km then, but 100 km is only 60 miles and that's not much for any sort of working vehicle, even if you charge at lunch.  We'll see if it is successful. 

It's not a bad compromise tbh... Most of the taxis spend their time tootling around in city traffic where average speeds of 8 mph mean you're doing well.  So they can easily run till lunch.  The petrol engine then gets them any fares to the airport and back.

But I think long term something like a 200mi / 300km all electric taxi will make the most sense.  PHEVs are training wheels for real EVs

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

Looking at the average value for Prague (a decent size city) average taxi (and all uber, bolt ...) are 180-220 km a working day

[Monkeh]

In my case it's now been 24 months owning an EV and it's done 32,000km.
An ICE car at say 8L/100km would use 1280 litres/year and at say $1.80/L that would cost me about $2300 in petrol per year. 10 years is $23,000, not including inflation related or oil market related cost increases of petrol, or maintenance. Not including reduction in home electricity cost. And I agree it's a given that the cost of petrol is very unlikely to drop.
EV's (and solar), from financial perspective are about paying a lot more up front now, for less ongoing cost in the future. But then you also have to factor in the desired longevity of the car and possble battery refurbishment costs.

Now consider I get 30-60% better fuel economy than those figures, at half the mileage or less, and have significantly less solar generation. Oh, and the insurance would probably triple, although I haven't checked on that. Someone will be along shortly to say I'd pay less tax, as if £20 a year matters.

You'll forgive me for declining to go into debt to get a vehicle which will not pay back the loan any time soon.

[tom66]

The insurance on my 204 hp Golf PHEV was less than my 90 hp Peugeot 206 HDi diesel.   

It turns out the insurance profile of EV and PHEV drivers (Tesla probably excepted) is "boring old guy who likes efficiency".  There are few better categories as far as insurers are concerned.

[Monkeh]

The insurance on my 204 hp Golf PHEV was less than my 90 hp Peugeot 206 HDi diesel.   

It turns out the insurance profile of EV and PHEV drivers (Tesla probably excepted) is "boring old guy who likes efficiency".  There are few better categories as far as insurers are concerned.

Interesting. I doubt it would be lower, but perhaps not as bad as feared. Doubt that'll last, mind.

It could also be they have as low an opinion of the average Peugeot driver as I do..

[Cerebus]

No one.  The UK will forever be hopelessly out of date and irrelevant.  That has been the path forward in the UK since the end of WWII. 

Yes, yes, it is a great shame that the UK doesn't have any hope of keeping up with the achievements of places like Puerto Rico.

Exactly.  It's not about ability, it's about mindset.  We are limited by what we think we can do.

Well, I glad that you finally admit that you're limited by what you think you can do. Which clearly is sadly little given the lack of any concrete suggests you've managed to come up with for the problems people have described.

Oh, and if you are going to dis a group, you might at least learn something about them.  For starters, Puerto Rico is not a country.  It's a US territory.  So all your negative BS is misplaced.  Compare the Nobel Prize winners of the US to the UK.  400 vs the not even close 138 for the second place UK.  Yeah, that is embarrassing for you. 

Why are you being so petty?  I was simply trying to make a point with sarcasm.  So many people from the UK have such a defeatist attitude about BEVs.  It makes me wonder how the UK ever got anything done.  There has to be someone in the UK that can figure it out.  I guess it will take a while to find that one person.

I'm petty? You've been harping on dissing the UK for days now with no comeback from anyone and the first time you get a return shot across the bows using actual sarcasm you call it petty. Also you clearly don't know what sarcasm is, as that's very much not the tool you've been using, just simple rudeness to deflect from when you can't muster an argument that has enough backbone to stand on its own. If Puerto Rico isn't a country but part of the US where are your seats in the US senate and congress? On yes you haven't got any, so you're not actually part of the US unlike Hawaii. You are just a US protectorate, one of the castoffs of the stillborn US empire, so to claim what the US has achieved as your own is just stolen valour.

Now if you're not going to even try to add something useful to the discussion, just wave your hands and be rude to people, is there really any point in you continuing to participate in it?

[Cerebus]

Also when it's plugged in you can take advantage of the electrically driven climate control system to pre-condition your car for a particular departure time without using up any of your battery charge (well, you can on mine anyway). In the recent unseasonably hot weather in the UK that's something I've been very pleased to have; more than pleased, smug in fact. No doubt I'll be equally pleased, and smug, if we have anything that looks like a winter this year - interior warm, any frost melted off and a toasty warm seat for my backside.

I'm not judging, but these luxuries use energy, and as long as not all energy comes from "renewables" it counteracts the whole purpose of the changeover to a BEV. Sure ICE owners turn on the engine to heat the windshield and warm the car before they start driving, which is also very bad. I make it a habit to first do what is needed to prepare for driving and start the car when ready to take of. Already did so when I was still working. Just put on a pair of gloves and use a good scraper to clear the windshield.

Furthermore it shows the big flaw in the whole idea of counteracting the human impact on nature. The human race should reduce consumption of especially energy in the fight against climate change. But what we do is just the opposite. Sure I have build myself a big house I keep warm in winter, but don't need to cool in summer. Like to play the no children card here

Read SiliconWizard his post here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/why-no-dodgy-quantum-entanglement-technology/msg4372342/#msg4372342 It reflects what I'm saying.

The whole energy transition thing is still aimed at a growing and not stabilizing economy. People are very concerned about the environment and climate change and sooth their conscience with owning a BEV, installing solar panels, switching to green energy and recycling, but it should not impact their lives to the extend that they can't have three vacations a year or what other luxuries they enjoy.

Nevertheless, we do need to heat our environment, and in recent years it has even become necessary in the UK to cool it on occasion - the recent spells of record breaking 40ºC weather are witness to that. I've only had the car since March so I can't speak to its efficiency in heating, but the pre-conditioning system in cooling mode has used a maximum of 250Wh on the one occasion I used it for a whole 30 minutes. Mostly it uses much less - it usually only needs at most 10 minutes to get the car from "too hot to touch the seats or steering wheel" to "comfortable". That's impressively efficient.

Personally I wouldn't have opted for air conditioning in a car, it's not something that I've ever specified when it comes as an optional extra, but it just came with the package. What I'm finding is that EVs, be they PHEV or BEV, are targeting a sector that is way above "basic transport". With a few minor exceptions, all the EVs being launched, marketed and sold at the moment range from relatively large to huge. It's a trend for the car market as a whole - you only have to look at the Mini and Fiat 500 models on sale, both ICE and electric, and compare them to the original models that held those names a few years back to see this. The mini has gone from around 600 kg in the original to around 1200 kg in the present form, the Cinquecento from a 499 kg original to around 1000 kg in present form.

I have myself described a lot of the activity around EVs as "greenwashing" and while the trend for vehicles to get bigger and bigger year on year continues I don't really see that changing. I didn't have a lot of choice about replacing my 24 year old, lightweight, very efficient ICE car. Ironically two of the things driving those events were "green" levies being imposed on ICE vehicles in London. I was lucky and found a newish secondhand PHEV that was within what I was prepared to spend and since I've had it easily 80% of the mileage that I've done has been on electricity from plug-in charging. It's certainly less polluting locally, most likely more efficient and less polluting globally but yes, it's a much larger car than I would have chosen had I had a completely free choice, and had I been able to keep and operate the old car I suspect that, especially when taking embodied energy into account, the old car would have been less polluting to operate in absolute terms.

Unlike the pronouncements from some individuals here we don't have a completely free choice in what we do. I was constrained by circumstances, budget, what was actually available and by local and national politics. I made what seems to me to have been the best compromise for the least ongoing environmental impact and that has had the side effect that I ended up with a luxury car, not out of explicit choice but simply because that's the way the dice fell as much as I could control them. So, in those circumstances I am going to use the features that the car came with, not cut off my nose to spite my face, nor wear a hair shirt when I've got a perfectly serviceable Jermyn Street one to wear.

[nctnico]

About airconditioning in a car: Personally I consider it a safety feature. It has been scientifically proven the human brain doesn't work well at high temperatures.

[pcprogrammer]

@Cerebus, don't get me wrong, it was no personal attack on you. Just an observation on society in its whole.

And you are right about that free choice is not always an option. More and more cities are implementing rules about what type of cars are allowed on the streets and what penalties you pay when you have the "wrong" one. Diesel cars are frowned upon quite heavily.

Also by making parking more difficult your choice for owning a car gets limited.

Our old car was 17 years old and the French government had a very good deal for us on trade in. As we have no income apart from some interest on savings we fall in a tax bracket that allowed a grant of 3000 euro back for our old car as long as it got scrapped. We did look into a more environmental friendly option, but the prices are to high. Now we have a ~2 year old Ford Fiesta with enough horse power to drive comfortably in the hills, which the old one lacked a bit, and it has a better fuel economy then the old one. ~5.5L/100Km. We drive maybe 8000Km per year, of which ~50% is from twice a year a trip to visit the parents in the Netherlands.

To compensate a bit I switch of my internet every night. (Mostly because it saves money ) This means 1 fiber to ethernet converter, 2 wireless routers in series (one controlled by my ISP) and a switch. Not a lot, but every bit helps.

[tom66]

Absolutely, air conditioning is essential in any country that regularly exceeds 25C ambient IMO.   To that end 10 minutes with the air con on from my car's remote control and I have no complaints about the all-black interior being roasting hot.

[pcprogrammer]

About airconditioning in a car: Personally I consider it a safety feature. It has been scientifically proven the human brain doesn't work well at high temperatures.

Many don't work that well at room temperature either

[Cerebus]

100 km is pretty lame range, even for a city car.  I don't know how many miles a day a taxi drives, well, km then, but 100 km is only 60 miles and that's not much for any sort of working vehicle, even if you charge at lunch.  We'll see if it is successful. 

It's not a bad compromise tbh... Most of the taxis spend their time tootling around in city traffic where average speeds of 8 mph mean you're doing well.  So they can easily run till lunch.  The petrol engine then gets them any fares to the airport and back.

But I think long term something like a 200mi / 300km all electric taxi will make the most sense.  PHEVs are training wheels for real EVs

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

The latest version of the classic London "Black Cab", the TX5, has a 31 kWh battery, a petrol based range extender, a 64 mile range running purely electrically and a total range using the extender of 318 miles. It supports fast charging. Speaking to a London cabby a few months back he said that the pure electric range is enough for almost all his work, that taking an opportunistic charge while he has his lunch is generally enough to keep him from needing to use petrol at all.

They aren't making pure ICE black cabs anymore, and the London Taxi Company, principle maker of black cabs for many years, has changed its name to the London Electric Vehicle Company. That a company and vehicle that's so iconic* that it's known around the world for its product has gone down this route I think speaks quite eloquently about the suitability of a relatively short range EV for the rôle of a taxi.

People get hung up on range, but even the pathetic 7.1 kWh battery in my PHEV is enough to ensure that 80% of all my travel requirements are catered for by a pure electric vehicle. Sure, you need more range than that if you're driving a pure BEV but the average person doesn't need the full range of a typical fully fuelled ICE vehicle for anything other than the most exceptional journeys. Most car owners could live with a BEV with a range of 60 miles or so for pretty much all their day-to-day driving requirements, as long as they have somewhere to charge the bloody thing.

* Let's face it, almost everybody in the world thinks 'taxi' when they see the silhouette of a TX series vehicle.

[Cerebus]

The insurance on my 204 hp Golf PHEV was less than my 90 hp Peugeot 206 HDi diesel.   

It turns out the insurance profile of EV and PHEV drivers (Tesla probably excepted) is "boring old guy who likes efficiency".  There are few better categories as far as insurers are concerned.

I went from "red two seater high performance mid engined sports car with negligible residual value and negligible theft risk" to "boring but expensive luxury PHEV with even more performance, considerably higher residual value and considerably more theft potential" and my insurance went down a little. So you're probably on the right track.

[nctnico]

And how about refilling the oil? Those taxis are Brittish made cars so they have to leak oil 

[Cerebus]

@Cerebus, don't get me wrong, it was no personal attack on you. Just an observation on society in its whole.

No, I didn't take it as such. I was just amplifying on what you said.

Our old car was 17 years old and the French government had a very good deal for us on trade in. As we have no income apart from some interest on savings we fall in a tax bracket that allowed a grant of 3000 euro back for our old car as long as it got scrapped. We did look into a more environmental friendly option, but the prices are to high. Now we have a ~2 year old Ford Fiesta with enough horse power to drive comfortably in the hills, which the old one lacked a bit, and it has a better fuel economy then the old one. ~5.5L/100Km. We drive maybe 8000Km per year, of which ~50% is from twice a year a trip to visit the parents in the Netherlands.

I missed out on any scrappage grants here, and I thought that, like you, I was going to be forced into a newer, bigger, ICE vehicle. I was lucky in hitting the first wave of ex-lease PHEVs hitting the streets at sane prices and having enough spare cash that I could afford to think long term rather than just filling the gap with what I could immediately afford.

To compensate a bit I switch of my internet every night. (Mostly because it saves money ) This means 1 fiber to ethernet converter, 2 wireless routers in series (one controlled by my ISP) and a switch. Not a lot, but every bit helps.

I'm an old hippy and proud of it. I've been trying to minimise my environmental impact as much as I can while being compatible with living in the modern world my whole life. Have I made a difference? Maybe, maybe not, but at least I consciously try.

[Cerebus]

And how about refilling the oil? Those taxis are Brittish made cars so they have to leak oil 

I think they have a separate oil tank, not actually connected to any working parts of the car, to take care of that. Got to keep up appearances, dontcha know? I think they also fit a crowbar circuit to occasionally blow the main headlight fuse to compensate for not having Lucas electrics fitted any more.

[gnuarm]

100 km is pretty lame range, even for a city car.  I don't know how many miles a day a taxi drives, well, km then, but 100 km is only 60 miles and that's not much for any sort of working vehicle, even if you charge at lunch.  We'll see if it is successful. 

It's not a bad compromise tbh... Most of the taxis spend their time tootling around in city traffic where average speeds of 8 mph mean you're doing well.  So they can easily run till lunch.  The petrol engine then gets them any fares to the airport and back.

Sorry, I missed that it is a hybrid.  I don't have much enthusiasm for hybrids.  They don't solve any problems, other than making ICE cheaper to run.

But I think long term something like a 200mi / 300km all electric taxi will make the most sense.  PHEVs are training wheels for real EVs

That's something people say that makes no sense to me.  It's not an EV, it just uses a battery and electric motor to improve mileage.  It doesn't have the same advantages or disadvantages. 

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

You mean the density?  Yeah, that's true.  But I've never seen a battery power tool that lacked in power.  I would still be using my NiCd Makita, but I'm not paying nearly as much for a new battery as I would for a new drill.

[gnuarm]

100 km is pretty lame range, even for a city car.  I don't know how many miles a day a taxi drives, well, km then, but 100 km is only 60 miles and that's not much for any sort of working vehicle, even if you charge at lunch.  We'll see if it is successful. 

It's not a bad compromise tbh... Most of the taxis spend their time tootling around in city traffic where average speeds of 8 mph mean you're doing well.  So they can easily run till lunch.  The petrol engine then gets them any fares to the airport and back.

But I think long term something like a 200mi / 300km all electric taxi will make the most sense.  PHEVs are training wheels for real EVs

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

Looking at the average value for Prague (a decent size city) average taxi (and all uber, bolt ...) are 180-220 km a working day

So 150 km (90 miles) should handle a day's work with a top off at lunch.  There are lots of BEVs that get that sort of range and would not be so high priced.

[tom66]

Sorry, I missed that it is a hybrid.  I don't have much enthusiasm for hybrids.  They don't solve any problems, other than making ICE cheaper to run.

That's something people say that makes no sense to me.  It's not an EV, it just uses a battery and electric motor to improve mileage.  It doesn't have the same advantages or disadvantages. 

I don't know if you actually understand what a PHEV *is*.

The best way to think of a PHEV is like a battery-electric vehicle that can run on petrol when the battery is flat.  That is why I say it is like training wheels.  You get slowly more used to electric mobility.  Working out how to schedule your charging times, finding public chargers, optimising efficiency for EV driving.  That kind of thing.  My PHEV offsets some 80% of emissions because the petrol engine *simply never runs for those miles*.   When it is running on petrol, you get some efficiency benefits from being electrically-assisted, e.g. my car only has a 1.4L engine but is almost as fast as the comparable model with a 2.0L engine, which means less drag and higher load factors.  But that's relatively minor compared to pure EV benefits.

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

You mean the density?  Yeah, that's true.  But I've never seen a battery power tool that lacked in power.  I would still be using my NiCd Makita, but I'm not paying nearly as much for a new battery as I would for a new drill.

Both energy and power density are improved, the drill can do more torque and it can supply that torque for longer before needing a battery charge.

[gnuarm]

Sorry, I missed that it is a hybrid.  I don't have much enthusiasm for hybrids.  They don't solve any problems, other than making ICE cheaper to run.

That's something people say that makes no sense to me.  It's not an EV, it just uses a battery and electric motor to improve mileage.  It doesn't have the same advantages or disadvantages. 

I don't know if you actually understand what a PHEV *is*.

The best way to think of a PHEV is like a battery-electric vehicle that can run on petrol when the battery is flat.  That is why I say it is like training wheels.  You get slowly more used to electric mobility.  Working out how to schedule your charging times, finding public chargers, optimising efficiency for EV driving.

 

That's the part that makes no sense to me.  You don't need to undergo training wheels for a BEV.  None of this is rocket science.  Also, most PHEVs don't use level 3 charging, only level 1 and 2 which take time.  People don't want to wait around for that, so not much use of public charging.  They will mostly either just charge at home, or not charge at all and run off gasoline.  This is why a PHEV is not at all like a BEV.  It has many of the disadvantages of an ICE vehicle and few of the advantages of a BEV.  It is it's own animal, which takes getting used to, in ways that are different from BEVs.

That kind of thing.  My PHEV offsets some 80% of emissions because the petrol engine *simply never runs for those miles*.   When it is running on petrol, you get some efficiency benefits from being electrically-assisted, e.g. my car only has a 1.4L engine but is almost as fast as the comparable model with a 2.0L engine, which means less drag and higher load factors.  But that's relatively minor compared to pure EV benefits.

As for Ni-Cads, no doubt at all that a Li-Ion power tool battery will outperform on current output.  My drill battery is fist sized and can do 30 amps without cutting out, at 18V.  That's over 500W peak power.  You are not getting that from Ni-Cads.

You mean the density?  Yeah, that's true.  But I've never seen a battery power tool that lacked in power.  I would still be using my NiCd Makita, but I'm not paying nearly as much for a new battery as I would for a new drill.

Both energy and power density are improved, the drill can do more torque and it can supply that torque for longer before needing a battery charge.

Ok, so from the school of if some is good, and more is better, then too much is just enough!  That was my point.  My Makita drill had all the power needed from NiCds.  Lithium ions would not improve that since there is no need for unlimited power.   It's a hand tool.  At some point I can't hold onto it.

[tom66]

That's the part that makes no sense to me.  You don't need to undergo training wheels for a BEV.  None of this is rocket science.  Also, most PHEVs don't use level 3 charging, only level 1 and 2 which take time.  People don't want to wait around for that, so not much use of public charging.  They will mostly either just charge at home, or not charge at all and run off gasoline.  This is why a PHEV is not at all like a BEV.  It has many of the disadvantages of an ICE vehicle and few of the advantages of a BEV.  It is it's own animal, which takes getting used to, in ways that are different from BEVs.

Well, you live in a country that is just over 100km across, whereas I'm in a country where a holiday is easily 500-600km so I think perspectives vary.  You do need to consider fast charging if you live in the UK.  A PHEV eliminates that hassle.  You can do shorter journeys, like your commute on electricity alone but longer trips require little or no planning, as long as you have petrol you can just... go.

At the time I bought my PHEV the only other EV option in my price range was the BMW i3 94Ah which had roughly 100 mile all electric range.  I would not have made much impact to my overall electric usage (maybe gone from 80% to 100% electric) but had the inconvenience of a short range EV with slow fast charging (~38kW max for the i3) making road tripping a pain.  Keep in mind we own a single car, so we don't have the option to own a short range EV and a diesel car or something like some families do.

Now, today, there are many better options, if you can buy them, like the VW ID.3 which have 100kW+ fast charging and 300km+ range so the 'hassle' factor drops to close to zero if you have home charging.

I would argue that anyone buying a brand new PHEV (with a few limited exceptions) is making a mistake but used PHEVs are bloody good bargains.

[sokoloff]

The best way to think of a PHEV is like a battery-electric vehicle that can run on petrol when the battery is flat.  That is why I say it is like training wheels.  You get slowly more used to electric mobility.  Working out how to schedule your charging times, finding public chargers, optimising efficiency for EV driving.

  That's the part that makes no sense to me.  You don't need to undergo training wheels for a BEV.  None of this is rocket science.  Also, most PHEVs don't use level 3 charging, only level 1 and 2 which take time.  People don't want to wait around for that, so not much use of public charging.  They will mostly either just charge at home, or not charge at all and run off gasoline.  This is why a PHEV is not at all like a BEV.  It has many of the disadvantages of an ICE vehicle and few of the advantages of a BEV.  It is it's own animal, which takes getting used to, in ways that are different from BEVs.

That seems to be majorly discounting the flexibility that the PHEV offers. If you're in a situation where charging is easy and convenient and you're driving the typical short amount per day, it gives you a lot of the benefits of the BEV. If you're in a situation where charging isn't easy or where you have a particularly long day of driving, it's still able to accomplish that without any fuss or inconvenience relative to a normal ICE car.

It allows someone to buy a PHEV, expecting to own it 7-10 years, without knowing in advance their exact parking/charging/garaging situation.

Flexibility has value, especially in this case. Our daily drivers right now are a BEV and an ICE. When it comes time to replace the ICE, we're almost surely going to replace it with a used PHEV, for the flexibility reasons listed above.

[nctnico]

Agreed. Having a charging plug on a hybrid makes a lot of sense.

[bdunham7]

Our daily drivers right now are a BEV and an ICE. When it comes time to replace the ICE, we're almost surely going to replace it with a used PHEV, for the flexibility reasons listed above.

Same here.  I don't understand how combining the features of a BEV and ICE/hybrid into a long-range PHEV make it somehow worse than a separate BEV and ICE.