The PHEV Myth
Hey ChatGPT, is the Toyota PHEV RAV4 the correct answer?
I was reading the article entitled “Why hybrids — not EVs — are winning the global transition from combustion” by Laurence Iliff on Automotive News, and my brain quickly came to a different conclusion than the article suggests.
The assumption posited in the article that hybridized powertrains serve “as a bridging technology between the polar opposites of ICE and BEV, offering benefits of both propulsion types” is foundationally false.
It turns out that PHEVs are neither a better experience nor a help in our transition to cleaner energy.
Consumer Reports found that PHEVs tend to average around 80% more problems than traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, with PHEVs heavily dragged down by complex tech glitches.
Car Buzz reports that while PHEVs might deliver a tempting combination of all-electric driving with gasoline hybrid backup, the hardware, component, and software reality required to pull it off smoothly hasn’t exactly been hitting the mark. Drivers of plug-in hybrids experience 42% more faults and problems than drivers of comparable gas-only models, according to recent J.D. Power data.
An analysis of 800,000 European cars found that real-world pollution from plug-in hybrids was nearly five times higher than in lab tests.
To be fair, EVs are also hit by a lot of new-to-market tech glitches. But most of those EV-related glitches stem from software that can subsequently be updated.
And in many cases, that software is updated over the air without visiting a dealership.
A PHEV is not automatically an environmentally responsible vehicle.
It is a compromise that only works as advertised when the owner actually plugs it in.
In The Interim, Standard Hybrids ARE Winning
HEVs, aka standard hybrids (that don’t plug in), ARE winning in North America for a myriad of reasons.
They don’t carry the same battery-phobia- and range-anxiety-laden psychology of EVs and PHEVs.
HEV vs PHEV vs BEV
This is, of course, also a myth because they also have a big battery right there under the seats.
But because you never have to plug it in, you never have to think about it.
Apparently, North Americans would prefer not to think.
They also actually successfully reduce gasoline consumption without the additional carbon penalty of having a larger PHEV or EV battery.
At the end of the day, standard hybrids are just more fuel-efficient versions of other vehicles of a similar weight class and size.
And most people, most of the time, would prefer to spend less on gas than more.
Finally, somehow, we’ve done an absolutely piss poor job of communicating how electric vehicles might benefit an average consumer.
We’ve failed so profoundly that it is unclear if or when many US and Canadian consumers will ever get the memo.
Communication Breakdown
How did we get the EV message to consumers so wrong?
I’m not entirely sure.
Maybe we didn’t know what to say.
Maybe we were waiting for someone else to say it.
But I have some thoughts on where we failed.
First, we failed to explain that most EV driving doesn’t really require a charger.
I know.
You probably think I’m nuts.
But hear me out.
Back in 2024, a University of Calgary study found that plugging your electric vehicle into a standard 120-volt Level 1 charger meets the daily charging needs of 29% of drivers.
For folk who drive a bit further, “occasional” DC fast-charging sessions, say, three or fewer per year, meet the needs of another 53% of EV drivers who would otherwise just plug into the wall at home.
Duh, you have electricity; you can just plug the damned thing in.
Second, we failed to explain to consumers that they would save money.
For a long time, due to the higher costs of EVs, this wasn’t true. But for the last couple of years, electric motors and batteries have been on par in price with other drivetrains.
The federal government’s most recent vehicle survey suggests that Canadian households drive an average of 16,000 kilometres (9,940 miles) per year.
And the fuel cost of those kilometres, Statistics Canada says, is about $2,600 annually.
This year, thanks to the orange man in the white house, you’re probably paying more than that.
The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) estimates that EV drivers spend only a few hundred dollars per year charging.
A few hundred dollars!
That’s a pretty material savings.
That’s a communication failure on top of a communication failure.
No blockade in the Strait of Hormuz is gonna make your hydro bill any more expensive (only Doug Ford can do that by doing weird things like spending $48 million to remove bike lanes unnecessarily).
The Transition Is Happening
There’s also this weird vibe in North America that somehow the transition to big battery vehicles isn’t happening.
Although the US is definitely EV-challenged, the rest of the world DID get the memo, and the sales of EVs, EREVs, PHEVs, and hybrids are growing and are expected to continue growing.
It is, in fact, the only growth area for vehicle sales.
Battery-based vehicle sales are projected to grow
The one point Laurence makes in his article that I plainly agree with is, “combustion-only vehicles are losing ground nearly everywhere.”
Welcome to the party, Laurence!
This has been true for nearly a decade.
We hit peak ICE sales in 2017 and haven’t looked back.
We hit peak ICE in 2017
Lacking EV Imagination
I know I was harsh with Elon last week.
He probably deserved it.
The thing I do admire about that cheese-hat-wearing DOGE-bag is his ability to think big.
And I think that’s also a place where we failed to communicate to consumers.
We didn’t explain what might happen if they bought an EV.
It turns out they might like it.
(Is that what we were afraid of?)
And it also turns out that once you own an EV, you don’t stop liking it.
Despite broader interest in hybrids, most EV owners are still more likely to buy another EV as their next vehicle.
House Power (not Horsepower)
Show us the damn truck!
I know, I was also harsh with Ford back in August.
But Ford is correcting many previous communication errors.
I’m really enjoying watching the trickle of information they are teasing us with about the Ford Fathom and the future electric Ford Escape.
When it becomes available, the Fathom pick-up will be the cheapest EV capable of powering, wait for it, a house.
Yep, a house!
Earlier this week, Ford announced two new EV chargers that will enable the Fathom to serve as a battery, capable of delivering power to your home or the grid.
Sure, the Fathom’s older cousin, the now-defunct-ish F-150 Lightning, could also do this trick.
But the Lightning didn’t sell for under $30,000 USD.
And the whole “power your house with your car” requires a different sort of imagination (and comms strategy) that the automotive industry hasn’t done a great job of mustering until now.
IMHO
The auto industry has spent a century telling us how much horsepower a vehicle can generate.
And the meaning of the horsepower equation gets a bit challenged (as I may have suggested before) when every new EV can hit 0-60 mph in just a few seconds.
Mat Watson of Carwow recently demonstrated that even the electric brick-on-wheels known as the Kia PV5 can do 0-60 in about 9 seconds.
That isn’t fast by EV standards. But it is impressive for a brick-on-wheels.
The auto industry has also spent the last decade failing to communicate the value of EVs to average buyers.
Maybe the more useful message isn’t how fast your EV can go, but what the battery can do after you get home.
You’ve basically got a portable Battery Energy Storage solution on wheels.
For today’s affordability-focused consumer, the value of the EV isn’t about speed or horsepower.
It might be more about “house power” and the money they could save on the road and while plugged into their house while parked in their driveway.
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