EDIT clarifications:
- the article is from the European Commission. This thing comes from a serious study based on hard facts and data.
- Check this comment by @wooster@startrek.website, who reported the data.
- Note that plugin hybrids are still better than pure ice, but they were expected to be much better.
It’s not a typo: plug-in hybrids are used, in real word cases, with ICE much more than anticipated.
In the EU, fuel consumption monitoring devices are required on new cars. They studied over 10% of all cars sold in 2021 and turns out they use way more fuel, and generate way more CO2, than anybody thought.
The gap means that CO2 emissions reduction objectives from transport will be more difficult to reach.
Thruth is, we need less cars, not “better” cars.
PHEVs should be able to charge off of regenerative braking. You don’t need to plug them in to get benefits from the hybrid system. The stated fuel economy for the vehicles assumes that there will be a certain amount of electric-only travel. The article doesn’t say it, but most PHEVs advertise that you can use the battery for most of your day to day travel, and only use the ICE when you are making longer trips. So the takeaway from this article shoud not be “hybrids are bad, just keep making gas cars” but instead should be “testing and assumptions about the fuel use of these vehicles needs to be changed to more accurately reflect reality.”
Plug in hybrids usually do worse in mpg when in hybrid mode compared to standard hybrids, so if someone buys a plug in but doesn’t charge it, it’s actually worse than buying a standard hybrid. Regen braking is awesome but it won’t charge a plug in’s battery. The energy you get from braking 45-0mph would likely only get you back up to 15 to 30mph due to all the efficiency losses, plus you still need more energy to maintain speed.
As long as the system offsets it’s additional mass, it is a net benefit to the total economy of the car. Consider that an equally sized ICE vehicle loses 100% of that braking energy, and still has to accelerate that same 15-30 mph. You’re also leaving out that electric motors are much more efficient at accelerating a vehicle at low speeds than an ICE.
I’m just comparing a plug in that never gets charged to a standard hybrid. If you aren’t going to charge it regularly, you’re better off with a non-plug-in. Both are better than a non-hybrid, but if only the last 5% of battery capacity is being used that all the resources that go into the other 95% of the battery are wasted.
Makes sense to me. Not much point in hauling around more battery than you are going to use.
@Bytemeister @hobovision which is another reason the range anxiety narative is harmful: people buy EVs with batteries larger than they need
I don’t recall saying anything about range anxiety?
@Bytemeister Did I say you did?
Not every reply is arguing against you, I was agreeing with you and pointing out one of the factors going into EVs having batteries larger than needed
I guess not, but the way you specifically called me out kinda implies that you did.