Electric SUVs in the pipeline

[mrb09]

Whichever company can produce the first affordable Toyota Highlander EV, Honda Pilot EV, Kia Telluride EV, or similar sized EV, at a good price, will do extremely well.

I want an EV that's exactly my 2021 Honda CR-V except in electric form. Must have physical buttons and Apple CarPlay and must not have a glass roof. Everything currently on the market is a lot bigger or a lot smaller. The VW ID.4 comes close in terms of dimensions but, unfortunately has a glass roof and lacks physical buttons.

Ioniq 5 is pretty close to a CR-V, has most frequent functions on buttons, has CarPlay and (at least mine) doesn’t have a glass roof.

[Pdxnative]

Whichever company can produce the first affordable Toyota Highlander EV, Honda Pilot EV, Kia Telluride EV, or similar sized EV, at a good price, will do extremely well.

I want an EV that's exactly my 2021 Honda CR-V except in electric form. Must have physical buttons and Apple CarPlay and must not have a glass roof. Everything currently on the market is a lot bigger or a lot smaller. The VW ID.4 comes close in terms of dimensions but, unfortunately has a glass roof and lacks physical buttons.

Not all ID.4 trim levels have the glass roof.

Lack of physical buttons is an issue though. It’s a bit of a trade-off. Having no buttons (or in some cases replacing mechanical buttons with touch capacitive) allows voice control for things like climate control, radio, etc. I would rather have a button for the seat heater. But I can double tap the touch capacitive climate slider to turn my seat on instead, or tell the car to do it, or do it from the climate screen. I assume a mechanical seat heat button would interfere with the software control available from those other options. I’m pretty much used to it now.

In practice I have most things set to auto anyway so I don’t know that I miss buttons much. There are buttons for windows and such. My understanding is VW is moving away from the touch capacitive toward more traditional buttons, but we’ll see what that looks like.

[randomguy]

One thing I hated about the PHEV we had in our household years back was always needing to plug it in. I mean every day. Sometimes twice a day. With a 100 mile electric only range we would need to plug it in maybe twice a week. These little conveniences make a difference. It's a little surprising that the PHEVs from 10 years ago have the exact same range (or more) than those today. I would expect 50 miles to be the standard today but there are countless PHEVs that have ranges of 20-25 miles. Abysmal IMHO

The math doesn't really make sense for bigger batteries as the added weight and cost rapidly make them unviable vehicles. Plug ins have proven to be a bit of a "failure" in that something like 60% of the people rarely charge them. I know it doesn't sound as good saying 90% of your miles are EV versus 95% but at some point you go good enough. Hybrids/Plugins averaging ~50mpg isn't as good as the EVs doing more like 60-70. But it is a lot better than the traditional ICE down at 25.

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

[cmr79]

One thing I hated about the PHEV we had in our household years back was always needing to plug it in. I mean every day. Sometimes twice a day. With a 100 mile electric only range we would need to plug it in maybe twice a week. These little conveniences make a difference. It's a little surprising that the PHEVs from 10 years ago have the exact same range (or more) than those today. I would expect 50 miles to be the standard today but there are countless PHEVs that have ranges of 20-25 miles. Abysmal IMHO

The math doesn't really make sense for bigger batteries as the added weight and cost rapidly make them unviable vehicles. Plug ins have proven to be a bit of a "failure" in that something like 60% of the people rarely charge them. I know it doesn't sound as good saying 90% of your miles are EV versus 95% but at some point you go good enough. Hybrids/Plugins averaging ~50mpg isn't as good as the EVs doing more like 60-70. But it is a lot better than the traditional ICE down at 25.

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

Only a few, very inefficient EVs get that poor of MPGe. Most EVs get around 100 MPGe, and the efficient ones get more than 130 MPGe.

EVs are very energy efficient compared to ICE.

[slicendice]

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with some caveats. I suspect one impediment in terms of obsolescence is a big move to PHEV/range extended vehicles it would make the existing ICE investments (labor and capital) obsolete. I think the current EV technology is good enough, the real question is how fast production costs can be driven down. Mass market consumers seem to be balking at the cost differential to buy the all electric vehicles. Even if that is addressed the bigger question is charging infrastructure and I'm not just talking about endpoint plugs, but also the electric infrastructure/capacity to support fast charging of a huge number of cars bearing large battery packs. I think that is going to take a lot longer than 10 years to solve.

[Wwwdotcom]

Only a few, very inefficient EVs get that poor of MPGe. Most EVs get around 100 MPGe, and the efficient ones get more than 130 MPGe.

EVs are very energy efficient compared to ICE.

I agree that what you say is currently true, but it might not hold in a couple of years (the pipeline). High battery prices drove the initial design towards smaller efficient cars for countries such as Norway and China. With the huge drop in battery prices, people that drive suburban/landcruiser/4runner/cybertruck/f150 size vehicles will benefit the most when they switch to EVs. Those cars will be seeing 60-70mpge.

[cmr79]

Only a few, very inefficient EVs get that poor of MPGe. Most EVs get around 100 MPGe, and the efficient ones get more than 130 MPGe.

EVs are very energy efficient compared to ICE.

I agree that what you say is currently true, but it might not hold in a couple of years (the pipeline). High battery prices drove the initial design towards smaller efficient cars for countries such as Norway and China. With the huge drop in battery prices, people that drive suburban/landcruiser/4runner/cybertruck/f150 size vehicles will benefit the most when they switch to EVs. Those cars will be seeing 60-70mpge.

My response was specific to the current US EV market, which is mostly mid-size SUVs which tend to get around 100 MPGe. The smaller car/compact crossover EVs are the ones that get 130+ MPGe, but there aren't actually as many of those in the US market. The Mercedes Vision EQXX concept gets 406 MPGe, so there is significant room for improvement across the board...the micro Smart EVs from 10 years ago only got 80-90 MPGe despite being 2400 lbs with a 40 HP motor, so a lot of improvement has already been made regarding efficiency too.

[auntie]

The Fisker Ocean is amazing.

Mine is indeed amazing. There are problems with the software that are being worked on, but it's sure nice to drive.

[sandramjet]

We have 25+ years of data on hybrids. For most models, the hybrid version is at least as reliable as the ice version and have similar overall maintenance costs.

I certainly believe that hybrid models are similar in maintenance to ICE .... but I suspect the comparison to a true EV would be much different. In my EV experience so far, (5 years/120k miles) the only maintenance I have had is tires and just 2 months ago had a headlight burn out. No oil changes, brake jobs, etc. So my maintenance cost has been virtually nil compared to my ICE car (Toyota corolla)....

Do you drive a Tesla?

(apologies if you said upthread & I missed it)

No, Chevy

[watchnerd]

Aside from the model Y, it’s hard to find an all-wheel-drive, true “SUV” that has a decent electric range.

I don't think I'd count he Model Y as a real SUV due to lack of real offroad features.

[sgams]

What do the next 3-5 years look like for new brands of electric SUVs to hit the market?

Disruptive. Battery capacities will significantly increase in 5 years. Also, also FCEVs will gain momentum.
Automotive propulsion on the cusp of a major shift

[watchnerd]

I certainly would not want to buy the first generation of US electric cars. I’m sure the legacy auto makers have a lot to work out before they are ready for prime time.

I wouldn't either, since the first generation of U.S. electric cars came out around about a century ago.

Even if we consider only contemporary EVs, i.e., those that have come out since 2010 or so, most manufacturers are on their second or third generation. The idea that EVs are some sort of new and unproven tech is just absurd.

Electric golf carts have been produced for, what, half a century?

[randomguy]

One thing I hated about the PHEV we had in our household years back was always needing to plug it in. I mean every day. Sometimes twice a day. With a 100 mile electric only range we would need to plug it in maybe twice a week. These little conveniences make a difference. It's a little surprising that the PHEVs from 10 years ago have the exact same range (or more) than those today. I would expect 50 miles to be the standard today but there are countless PHEVs that have ranges of 20-25 miles. Abysmal IMHO

The math doesn't really make sense for bigger batteries as the added weight and cost rapidly make them unviable vehicles. Plug ins have proven to be a bit of a "failure" in that something like 60% of the people rarely charge them. I know it doesn't sound as good saying 90% of your miles are EV versus 95% but at some point you go good enough. Hybrids/Plugins averaging ~50mpg isn't as good as the EVs doing more like 60-70. But it is a lot better than the traditional ICE down at 25.

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

Only a few, very inefficient EVs get that poor of MPGe. Most EVs get around 100 MPGe, and the efficient ones get more than 130 MPGe.

EVs are very energy efficient compared to ICE.

The studies I have read don't use MPGe. They use their own formulas that have their own weighting of the value of pollution and energy costs to pop out some number. In general the EV come out about 20% or so ahead of the good hybrids. How accurate those numbers are going to very situational with things like where you get your energy and the life span assumptions mattering a ton.

[randomguy]

What do the next 3-5 years look like for new brands of electric SUVs to hit the market?

Disruptive. Battery capacities will significantly increase in 5 years. Also, also FCEVs will gain momentum.
Automotive propulsion on the cusp of a major shift

Maybe but people have been saying that for the past decade and it hasn't shown up. We have gotten a slow steady increase in capacity (like 5%/year) and a steady decline in cost. I have seen little evidence that any of the so called break through batteries are close to production. Toyotas solid state battery sounds great. But how many times has it been delayed so far? The date is still far enough out to be in the vaporware category.

The good news is we don't need a battery break through. Keep the current trends going another 5 years and EVs will be good enough for most of the market.

[randomguy]

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with some caveats. I suspect one impediment in terms of obsolescence is a big move to PHEV/range extended vehicles it would make the existing ICE investments (labor and capital) obsolete. I think the current EV technology is good enough, the real question is how fast production costs can be driven down. Mass market consumers seem to be balking at the cost differential to buy the all electric vehicles. Even if that is addressed the bigger question is charging infrastructure and I'm not just talking about endpoint plugs, but also the electric infrastructure/capacity to support fast charging of a huge number of cars bearing large battery packs. I think that is going to take a lot longer than 10 years to solve.

I expect they will keep building that last generation of ICE for a while with occcasional reskins. But they aren't going to skin a billion dollars into make a new drive train and the like.

As far as infrastructure, it isn't 10 years. It is more like 25. The last mass market ICE start dropping off in ~10 years (2030-2040 depending on OEM). Those cars will be on the road for 15 more years. There is no reason to have an infrastructure that supports say 90% EV today. There needs to be plan to get there. I expect there to be growing pains along the way. And I expect 8 buck gas to solve most of the consumer demand issues:)

[Valuethinker]

One thing I hated about the PHEV we had in our household years back was always needing to plug it in. I mean every day. Sometimes twice a day. With a 100 mile electric only range we would need to plug it in maybe twice a week. These little conveniences make a difference. It's a little surprising that the PHEVs from 10 years ago have the exact same range (or more) than those today. I would expect 50 miles to be the standard today but there are countless PHEVs that have ranges of 20-25 miles. Abysmal IMHO

The math doesn't really make sense for bigger batteries as the added weight and cost rapidly make them unviable vehicles. Plug ins have proven to be a bit of a "failure" in that something like 60% of the people rarely charge them. I know it doesn't sound as good saying 90% of your miles are EV versus 95% but at some point you go good enough. Hybrids/Plugins averaging ~50mpg isn't as good as the EVs doing more like 60-70. But it is a lot better than the traditional ICE down at 25.

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

Only a few, very inefficient EVs get that poor of MPGe. Most EVs get around 100 MPGe, and the efficient ones get more than 130 MPGe.

EVs are very energy efficient compared to ICE.

The studies I have read don't use MPGe. They use their own formulas that have their own weighting of the value of pollution and energy costs to pop out some number. In general the EV come out about 20% or so ahead of the good hybrids. How accurate those numbers are going to very situational with things like where you get your energy and the life span assumptions mattering a ton.

C. 15% of the emissions cost of a hybrid Toyota comes from its manufacture. That's a widely used estimate -- to be fair Toyota is not forthcoming. Another 3% for scrappage.

The number for an EV is not radically higher - it doesn't cost even twice the emissions to construct? Breakeven, at average US power emissions, is estimated at something like 50k miles (the cars will last 200k-300k miles, lower estimate is current ICE vehicles).

So. If you live in the Pacific NW (hydro-electric), or around Chicago (nuclear), say, your emissions from driving are c 90% reduced from an ICE vehicle? Let alone if you have your own solar PV array and use it to charge your car.

20%? It's a lot bigger than that? Even if you live in West Virginia or Kentucky (the most coal-using states for electric power generation).

[Valuethinker]

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with some caveats. I suspect one impediment in terms of obsolescence is a big move to PHEV/range extended vehicles it would make the existing ICE investments (labor and capital) obsolete. I think the current EV technology is good enough, the real question is how fast production costs can be driven down. Mass market consumers seem to be balking at the cost differential to buy the all electric vehicles. Even if that is addressed the bigger question is charging infrastructure and I'm not just talking about endpoint plugs, but also the electric infrastructure/capacity to support fast charging of a huge number of cars bearing large battery packs. I think that is going to take a lot longer than 10 years to solve.

I expect they will keep building that last generation of ICE for a while with occcasional reskins. But they aren't going to skin a billion dollars into make a new drive train and the like.

As far as infrastructure, it isn't 10 years. It is more like 25. The last mass market ICE start dropping off in ~10 years (2030-2040 depending on OEM). Those cars will be on the road for 15 more years. There is no reason to have an infrastructure that supports say 90% EV today. There needs to be plan to get there. I expect there to be growing pains along the way. And I expect 8 buck gas to solve most of the consumer demand issues:)

The infrastructure needs to be in place for the cars to break out into mass market adoption. Infrastructure has to run ahead of the adoption.

So it is more like 10 years, than 25. Yes there will be a "long tail" of ICE cars - no doubt some will be around in 2050*. A sibling owns a car built 90 years ago-- but drives it mostly for show, in summer.

* I have a prior that it will be, by then, extraordinarily difficult to drive them. But we'd have to get into forbidden topics around policy, etc.

[Valuethinker]

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with some caveats. I suspect one impediment in terms of obsolescence is a big move to PHEV/range extended vehicles it would make the existing ICE investments (labor and capital) obsolete. I think the current EV technology is good enough, the real question is how fast production costs can be driven down. Mass market consumers seem to be balking at the cost differential to buy the all electric vehicles. Even if that is addressed the bigger question is charging infrastructure and I'm not just talking about endpoint plugs, but also the electric infrastructure/capacity to support fast charging of a huge number of cars bearing large battery packs. I think that is going to take a lot longer than 10 years to solve.

The Chinese manufacturers have entered the chat room ....

The new low cost Chinese models are, in Europe, competitive (roughly) with their petrol-driven equivalents. Given our gasoline prices are so much higher, the life-cycle cost argument is even stronger. Probably the main objection is that a much higher proportion of European drivers park on the street (no personal driveway) and the charging infrastructure is not in place. However street chargers are coming - they just installed them on my suburban London road (roughly about 15-20% of all parking spaces now have them). These would be either 3.5kw (lamppost) or 7kw chargers so enough for an overnight charge.

[kleiner]

Whichever company can produce the first affordable Toyota Highlander EV, Honda Pilot EV, Kia Telluride EV, or similar sized EV, at a good price, will do extremely well.

I want an EV that's exactly my 2021 Honda CR-V except in electric form. Must have physical buttons and Apple CarPlay and must not have a glass roof. Everything currently on the market is a lot bigger or a lot smaller. The VW ID.4 comes close in terms of dimensions but, unfortunately has a glass roof and lacks physical buttons.

Not all ID.4 trim levels have the glass roof.

Lack of physical buttons is an issue though. It’s a bit of a trade-off. Having no buttons (or in some cases replacing mechanical buttons with touch capacitive) allows voice control for things like climate control, radio, etc. I would rather have a button for the seat heater. But I can double tap the touch capacitive climate slider to turn my seat on instead, or tell the car to do it, or do it from the climate screen. I assume a mechanical seat heat button would interfere with the software control available from those other options. I’m pretty much used to it now.

In practice I have most things set to auto anyway so I don’t know that I miss buttons much. There are buttons for windows and such. My understanding is VW is moving away from the touch capacitive toward more traditional buttons, but we’ll see what that looks like.

Good to know that not all trim levels have the glass roof. The number of trim levels is crazy however and seem to include weird combinations of features! I am not planning to get an EV immediately but probably will in a couple of years. Hopefully the ID.4 will have improved by then

[billaster]

One thing I hated about the PHEV we had in our household years back was always needing to plug it in. I mean every day. Sometimes twice a day. With a 100 mile electric only range we would need to plug it in maybe twice a week. These little conveniences make a difference. It's a little surprising that the PHEVs from 10 years ago have the exact same range (or more) than those today. I would expect 50 miles to be the standard today but there are countless PHEVs that have ranges of 20-25 miles. Abysmal IMHO

The math doesn't really make sense for bigger batteries as the added weight and cost rapidly make them unviable vehicles. Plug ins have proven to be a bit of a "failure" in that something like 60% of the people rarely charge them. I know it doesn't sound as good saying 90% of your miles are EV versus 95% but at some point you go good enough. Hybrids/Plugins averaging ~50mpg isn't as good as the EVs doing more like 60-70. But it is a lot better than the traditional ICE down at 25.

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

Only a few, very inefficient EVs get that poor of MPGe. Most EVs get around 100 MPGe, and the efficient ones get more than 130 MPGe.

EVs are very energy efficient compared to ICE.

The studies I have read don't use MPGe. They use their own formulas that have their own weighting of the value of pollution and energy costs to pop out some number. In general the EV come out about 20% or so ahead of the good hybrids. How accurate those numbers are going to very situational with things like where you get your energy and the life span assumptions mattering a ton.

MPGe is a completely useless metric. It was put in place back in 2010 when the Nissan LEAF came out because the EPA law required a gasoline number to be posted on the window sticker. It makes no more sense than having your car speedometer calibrated in furlongs because that is what they used for horses.

MPGe has absolutely nothing to do with measuring carbon emissions. Gallons of gasoline is just another unit of measurement for kilowatt-hours. It uses the total caloric energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. But under the laws of thermodynamics, no engine is capable of converting all of the energy of a gallon of gas to useful work -- typically only around 30%. So MPGe isn't even measuring the gasoline that an equivalent car would use.

The total energy in a gallon of gas is 33.7 kilowatt-hours. So if you want to convert MPGe to something useful, divide it by 33.7. So a car with an EPA sticker of 100 MPGe would be 3.0 miles per kilowatt-hour. It makes more sense to measure the efficiency of EVs using kilowatt-hours instead of gallons of gasoline.

[mrmass]

Where are they going to get the lithium needed for these?

Demand exceeds supply and the current prices of lithium have come down a lot. This is good for the car maker but bad for the miners. They might not mine if the price is too low.

edited to add more info:

Paywal

https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities ... ogistics_h

[MGBMartin]

Where are they going to get the lithium needed for these?

Demand exceeds supply and the current prices of lithium have come down a lot. This is good for the car maker but bad for the miners. They might not mine if the price is too low.

edited to add more info:

Paywal

https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities ... ogistics_h

Lithium Carbonate prices went from 600000 to 140000 CNY per ton in the last year or so but that means they really just came down to where they were a few years ago.
If demand exceeded supply I’m not sure the price would have come down, isn’t that the opposite of how it normally works. Maybe supply has exceeded demand.
The Electric Viking on YouTube put out a video a few days ago about Lithium Carbonate prices etc and why he thinks battery costs will drop significantly in the near future.

[David76]

Today's cars are overrated and costly. I am not impressed with any of them. The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?

[onourway]

MPGe is a completely useless metric. It was put in place back in 2010 when the Nissan LEAF came out because the EPA law required a gasoline number to be posted on the window sticker. It makes no more sense than having your car speedometer calibrated in furlongs because that is what they used for horses.

MPGe has absolutely nothing to do with measuring carbon emissions. Gallons of gasoline is just another unit of measurement for kilowatt-hours. It uses the total caloric energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. But under the laws of thermodynamics, no engine is capable of converting all of the energy of a gallon of gas to useful work -- typically only around 30%. So MPGe isn't even measuring the gasoline that an equivalent car would use.

The total energy in a gallon of gas is 33.7 kilowatt-hours. So if you want to convert MPGe to something useful, divide it by 33.7. So a car with an EPA sticker of 100 MPGe would be 3.0 miles per kilowatt-hour. It makes more sense to measure the efficiency of EVs using kilowatt-hours instead of gallons of gasoline.

MPGe was put into place because people are used to evaluating the efficiency of vehicles in MPG. In a plug-in hybrid vehicle, MPGe allows one to quickly and easily compare the efficiency of the vehicle in full electric vs. hybrid operating modes without having to perform any conversions. Clearly it's less than ideal when considering a full-electric vehicle, but again, it allows customers to roughly compare the efficiencies of a wide variety of vehicles using different types of fuel, in a unit that makes sense to them. When MPGe was introduced, the window sticker was also required to indicate kW-hours per 100 miles as well as gallons per 100 miles.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[CletusCaddy]

Today's cars are overrated and costly. I am not impressed with any of them. The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?

Just get the battery replaced every 10 years or so and today’s EVs should last indefinitely.

Do you expect batteries in any other product to last indefinitely?

[runswithscissors]

There are countless electric crossovers available now but in my opinion only one electric SUV, the Rivian R1S. The Kia EV9 and Volvo EX90 which I would also consider as SUVs will be available next year. I don't know of any other electric SUVs coming out in the next couple years but 3+ years out there may be more options. Standard operating procedure for manufacturers is to state the delivery dates for their EVs at least 2 years before they are actually delivered. So all the models that are supposedly coming out in 2024 will likely be available 2026.

What is your definition of SUV vs crossover for electric vehicles? For EVs designed on a dedicated skateboard platform, it seems like even the cars use a "body on frame" design style that usually differentiates the two from a technical perspective. The Kia EV9, for example, shares it's platform with cars (Hyundai Ioniq 6) and things that look more like traditional crossovers (Genesis GV60).

I don't really have a definition per se, but I feel that an SUV should have a minimum level of utility. And to me utility equates to large storage space that's easy to access. The vast majority of EVs that define themselves as SUV are really more of a crossover because they have steeply raked rear hatches which decrease the vertical volume of storage space at the rear where it's most important. So having a relatively "squared off" hatch is a prerequisite to meet SUV definition in my book. Also having a little bit of vertical height (and clearance) allows easier ingress/egress, loading/unloading from the vehicle... which to me further emphasizes the utility in sport utility vehicle. Others will say having off-road capabilities is a requirement but since the vast majority of SUV owners never take their vehicles off road, I don't think it matters. But that's just me.

[runswithscissors]

MPGe is a completely useless metric. It was put in place back in 2010 when the Nissan LEAF came out because the EPA law required a gasoline number to be posted on the window sticker. It makes no more sense than having your car speedometer calibrated in furlongs because that is what they used for horses.

MPGe has absolutely nothing to do with measuring carbon emissions. Gallons of gasoline is just another unit of measurement for kilowatt-hours. It uses the total caloric energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. But under the laws of thermodynamics, no engine is capable of converting all of the energy of a gallon of gas to useful work -- typically only around 30%. So MPGe isn't even measuring the gasoline that an equivalent car would use.

The total energy in a gallon of gas is 33.7 kilowatt-hours. So if you want to convert MPGe to something useful, divide it by 33.7. So a car with an EPA sticker of 100 MPGe would be 3.0 miles per kilowatt-hour. It makes more sense to measure the efficiency of EVs using kilowatt-hours instead of gallons of gasoline.

MPGe was put into place because people are used to evaluating the efficiency of vehicles in MPG. In a plug-in hybrid vehicle, MPGe allows one to quickly and easily compare the efficiency of the vehicle in full electric vs. hybrid operating modes without having to perform any conversions. Clearly it's less than ideal when considering a full-electric vehicle, but again, it allows customers to roughly compare the efficiencies of a wide variety of vehicles using different types of fuel, in a unit that makes sense to them. When MPGe was introduced, the window sticker was also required to indicate kW-hours per 100 miles as well as gallons per 100 miles.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Personally, I wished the standard was miles per kWh. By simply moving the decimal point over to the right you can relate to MPG.

For example, a Model 3 or Y usually gets about 3.2-3.7 miles per kWh... move the decimal point to the right and it's 32-37 mpg... and about what you would get for a gas version of the exact same vehicle.

The larger and heavier Model X gets about 2.6 miles per kWh... or 26 mpg. Again, this is close to what a comparable gasser would be.

The Rivian R1T is roughly 2 miles per kWh... 20 miles per gallon.

And the Hummer EV is 1.4 miles per kWh... 14 miles per gallon.

And so on.

[David76]

Today's cars are overrated and costly. I am not impressed with any of them. The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?

Just get the battery replaced every 10 years or so and today’s EVs should last indefinitely.

Do you expect batteries in any other product to last indefinitely?

I just paid nearly $200 for a new battery. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric car? I'm afraid to ask.

[slicendice]

The reality is that plug in hybrids time is ending for most consumers. The future is EVs so most automakers aren't going to be investing a lot in technology that they will not be shipping in like 10 years. It just isn't worth it to build 1 last generation. You are going to need some niche market for it to make sense.

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with some caveats. I suspect one impediment in terms of obsolescence is a big move to PHEV/range extended vehicles it would make the existing ICE investments (labor and capital) obsolete. I think the current EV technology is good enough, the real question is how fast production costs can be driven down. Mass market consumers seem to be balking at the cost differential to buy the all electric vehicles. Even if that is addressed the bigger question is charging infrastructure and I'm not just talking about endpoint plugs, but also the electric infrastructure/capacity to support fast charging of a huge number of cars bearing large battery packs. I think that is going to take a lot longer than 10 years to solve.

I expect they will keep building that last generation of ICE for a while with occcasional reskins. But they aren't going to skin a billion dollars into make a new drive train and the like.

As far as infrastructure, it isn't 10 years. It is more like 25. The last mass market ICE start dropping off in ~10 years (2030-2040 depending on OEM). Those cars will be on the road for 15 more years. There is no reason to have an infrastructure that supports say 90% EV today. There needs to be plan to get there. I expect there to be growing pains along the way. And I expect 8 buck gas to solve most of the consumer demand issues:)

The infrastructure needs to be in place for the cars to break out into mass market adoption. Infrastructure has to run ahead of the adoption.

So it is more like 10 years, than 25. Yes there will be a "long tail" of ICE cars - no doubt some will be around in 2050*. A sibling owns a car built 90 years ago-- but drives it mostly for show, in summer.

* I have a prior that it will be, by then, extraordinarily difficult to drive them. But we'd have to get into forbidden topics around policy, etc.

I agree with Valuethinker the infrastructure needs to lead. Because the proposition the electrical vehicle manufacturers seem to be making right now is that you get to pay more for a car with less capability if you live in an area with mediocre charging infrastructure which area-wise I suspect still characterizes most of N.America. The power/transmission systems upgrades required for a 100% electric vehicle world to support widely available fast charging are going to take a lot of time to implement due to fairly complicated political and economic frictions. These will likely be resolved eventually but I think 10 years is optimistic.

My next vehicle will be electrified, but even though I am a receptive consumer for this technology that lives in an area with comparatively good charging infrastructure, there are a lot of tradeoffs with purchasing a pure battery electric vehicle. I'm a renter, so no 220V plug at home. A tesla supercharger facility a few miles away exists but using this will be like the current once a week trip to the gas station but longer so not a win for the EV. A smaller battery I could conceivably get by with very little inconvenience with a combination of charging at home on the 110 V trickle and charging at work and although there is charging available at work its limited infrastructure has been lagging demand-- no guarantee you will find an open charger during the day. I haven't even started considering the logistics of towing the boat to the ocean or camper to the mountains 300 mi round trip using a pure battery electric vehicle.

I originally brought up the range extended RAM truck because I think in addition to solving a lot of the above issues, the vehicle's underlying power train and frame platform and body configuration is the same as their battery electric offering. The V6 engine/generator is essentially a bolt on using existing fairly cheap technology whose infrastructure for production already exists. So the investment to produce this specific vehicle is I suspect fairly reasonable not requiring a 30 year time horizon to justify. Whether this is a quality vehicle or not is another matter. If for example the maintenance for the gas engine is basically an annual oil change, to me that is not that inconvenient and not much added complexity/expense. If this were offered in a little smaller package by a company like Toyota in a 4runner for example, it would be at the top of the list for my next vehicle. I would imagine for the people that need to own full size pickups this would be the preferred route for the foreseeable future for dealing with $8 a gallon gas.

[CletusCaddy]

Today's cars are overrated and costly. I am not impressed with any of them. The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?

Just get the battery replaced every 10 years or so and today’s EVs should last indefinitely.

Do you expect batteries in any other product to last indefinitely?

I just paid nearly $200 for a new battery. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric car? I'm afraid to ask.

Something like $10k

Once every ten years is $1k per year

And no other maintenance like you would have on a gas car

[onourway]

Personally, I wished the standard was miles per kWh. By simply moving the decimal point over to the right you can relate to MPG.

For example, a Model 3 or Y usually gets about 3.2-3.7 miles per kWh... move the decimal point to the right and it's 32-37 mpg... and about what you would get for a gas version of the exact same vehicle.

The larger and heavier Model X gets about 2.6 miles per kWh... or 26 mpg. Again, this is close to what a comparable gasser would be.

The Rivian R1T is roughly 2 miles per kWh... 20 miles per gallon.

And the Hummer EV is 1.4 miles per kWh... 14 miles per gallon.

And so on.

No normal consumer knows what to do with miles per kWh. That is changing, but for now consumers need a way to compare vehicles using different fuels in units that make sense to them.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that this conversion method was correct, but it's off by about a factor of 3.

It seems that you are not accounting for the fact than an EV is ~3x as efficient as a gas ICE.

[MGBMartin]

Personally, I wished the standard was miles per kWh. By simply moving the decimal point over to the right you can relate to MPG.

For example, a Model 3 or Y usually gets about 3.2-3.7 miles per kWh... move the decimal point to the right and it's 32-37 mpg... and about what you would get for a gas version of the exact same vehicle.

The larger and heavier Model X gets about 2.6 miles per kWh... or 26 mpg. Again, this is close to what a comparable gasser would be.

The Rivian R1T is roughly 2 miles per kWh... 20 miles per gallon.

And the Hummer EV is 1.4 miles per kWh... 14 miles per gallon.

And so on.

No normal consumer knows what to do with miles per kWh. That is changing, but for now consumers need a way to compare vehicles using different fuels in units that make sense to them.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that this conversion method was correct, but it's off by about a factor of 3.

It seems that you are not accounting for the fact than an EV is ~3x as efficient as a gas ICE.

I think I understand what he is trying to say but when I tried typing it I gave as it wasn’t making sense outside of my head.

I have an EV and I get anything from 3.6 to > 5 miles/kWh.
I like the idea of miles per unit of fuel as that’s what we’ve used for years in mpg. I see a lot of EV reviews, mainly Europe, that talks about kWhs per 100 miles or km; I can’t wrap my head around that as it’s like saying my car gets 4.2 gals per 100 miles.
When I got my EV I just did a quick figure in my head. My ICE gets 20 mpg around town which is most of my driving. 100 miles in my ICE car with premium fuel costs about $20 whereas the same distance in my EV is about $3.50.

[runswithscissors]

Personally, I wished the standard was miles per kWh. By simply moving the decimal point over to the right you can relate to MPG.

For example, a Model 3 or Y usually gets about 3.2-3.7 miles per kWh... move the decimal point to the right and it's 32-37 mpg... and about what you would get for a gas version of the exact same vehicle.

The larger and heavier Model X gets about 2.6 miles per kWh... or 26 mpg. Again, this is close to what a comparable gasser would be.

The Rivian R1T is roughly 2 miles per kWh... 20 miles per gallon.

And the Hummer EV is 1.4 miles per kWh... 14 miles per gallon.

And so on.

No normal consumer knows what to do with miles per kWh. That is changing, but for now consumers need a way to compare vehicles using different fuels in units that make sense to them.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that this conversion method was correct, but it's off by about a factor of 3.

It seems that you are not accounting for the fact than an EV is ~3x as efficient as a gas ICE.

Clearly this method has zero scientific basis.
The point is that it's familiar and relatable. The mpg equivalent after moving the decimal point is very close to what the exact same vehicle would get if it was stripped of the EV components and swapped with ICE components. Ultimately, miles per kWh or watt-hours per mile should be used. At least this way people can determine the operating cost of an EV based on their electric utility rate and annual miles driven. The MPGe standard is useless in determining operating costs and this is by far the most important metric for anyone moving from an ICE vehicle to an EV.

[cmr79]

The units are only useful if applied to appropriate contexts.

MPGe is useful for comparing the energy efficiency of EVs and ICE/hybrid vehicles.

Miles per kWh is useful for comparing efficiency between EVs and is easier for determining real-world range and fuel cost per mile based on individualized electricity costs.

Comparing EV vs ICE/hybrid fuel cost per mile is a lot more complicated because both gas and electric costs vary widely between regions, though in almost all areas (other than around Boston, to my knowledge) electricity costs per mile are generally less than gas costs per mile in comparable vehicles.

Back on topic, I'm fairly excited about the Lucid Gravity, which was just revealed in the last week and will be a competitor to other premium EV SUVs like Tesla Model X, Mercedes EQS SUV, BMW iX, Volvo EX90/Polestar 3 and Audi Q8 e-tron. I'm curious to see if they can improve some fit/finish issues and whether software improvements made from earlier misadventures with the Air make this a more mature product at launch.

[Wwwdotcom]

Personally, I wished the standard was miles per kWh. By simply moving the decimal point over to the right you can relate to MPG.

For example, a Model 3 or Y usually gets about 3.2-3.7 miles per kWh... move the decimal point to the right and it's 32-37 mpg... and about what you would get for a gas version of the exact same vehicle.

The larger and heavier Model X gets about 2.6 miles per kWh... or 26 mpg. Again, this is close to what a comparable gasser would be.

The Rivian R1T is roughly 2 miles per kWh... 20 miles per gallon.

And the Hummer EV is 1.4 miles per kWh... 14 miles per gallon.

And so on.

No normal consumer knows what to do with miles per kWh. That is changing, but for now consumers need a way to compare vehicles using different fuels in units that make sense to them.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that this conversion method was correct, but it's off by about a factor of 3.

It seems that you are not accounting for the fact than an EV is ~3x as efficient as a gas ICE.

Clearly this method has zero scientific basis.
The point is that it's familiar and relatable. The mpg equivalent after moving the decimal point is very close to what the exact same vehicle would get if it was stripped of the EV components and swapped with ICE components. Ultimately, miles per kWh or watt-hours per mile should be used. At least this way people can determine the operating cost of an EV based on their electric utility rate and annual miles driven. The MPGe standard is useless in determining operating costs and this is by far the most important metric for anyone moving from an ICE vehicle to an EV.

How about KWH per mile instead?

[jdb]

Today's cars are overrated and costly. I am not impressed with any of them. The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?

Just get the battery replaced every 10 years or so and today’s EVs should last indefinitely.

Do you expect batteries in any other product to last indefinitely?

I just paid nearly $200 for a new battery. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric car? I'm afraid to ask.

Something like $10k

Once every ten years is $1k per year

And no other maintenance like you would have on a gas car

Just replaced battery in our 2012 Tesla Model S with 90,000 miles. Cost was $15K. Got a 4 year or 50,000 mile warranty on new battery. Car drives like new. And car still looks good. Of course the battery is by far the most important part of an EV. We plan to keep it for at least another 4 years, hopefully many more. Good luck.

[billaster]

How about KWH per mile instead?

Fractions? Yikes! But you could do KWH per 100 miles, similar to liters per 100 kilometers used in most of the world.

[CletusCaddy]

Today's cars are overrated and costly. I am not impressed with any of them. The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?

Just get the battery replaced every 10 years or so and today’s EVs should last indefinitely.

Do you expect batteries in any other product to last indefinitely?

I just paid nearly $200 for a new battery. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric car? I'm afraid to ask.

Something like $10k

Once every ten years is $1k per year

And no other maintenance like you would have on a gas car

Just replaced battery in our 2012 Tesla Model S with 90,000 miles. Cost was $15K. Got a 4 year or 50,000 mile warranty on new battery. Car drives like new. And car still looks good. Of course the battery is by far the most important part of an EV. We plan to keep it for at least another 4 years, hopefully many more. Good luck.

Nice. How much degradation did you have on your original battery?

[jdb]

Just get the battery replaced every 10 years or so and today’s EVs should last indefinitely.

Do you expect batteries in any other product to last indefinitely?

I just paid nearly $200 for a new battery. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric car? I'm afraid to ask.

Something like $10k

Once every ten years is $1k per year

And no other maintenance like you would have on a gas car

Just replaced battery in our 2012 Tesla Model S with 90,000 miles. Cost was $15K. Got a 4 year or 50,000 mile warranty on new battery. Car drives like new. And car still looks good. Of course the battery is by far the most important part of an EV. We plan to keep it for at least another 4 years, hopefully many more. Good luck.

Nice. How much degradation did you have on your original battery?

Almost none. In fact that is the one problem I wish Tesla would fix. The car drove fine for 11 years without noticeable battery degradation, then without notice one day when parked at a local business it no longer worked, luckily had enough battery life that could drive to local Tesla service center for battery replacement. Which took less than 10 days. So I am going to suggest to Tesla that there should be some type of advance warning on battery needing replacement. Though after more than 11 years of good battery life can’t complain too much.

[cmr79]

How about KWH per mile instead?

Fractions? Yikes! But you could do KWH per 100 miles, similar to liters per 100 kilometers used in most of the world.

The convention in that case is to shift to watt hours per mile...because yes, fractions are scary!

[FoolMeOnce]

I certainly would not want to buy the first generation of US electric cars. I’m sure the legacy auto makers have a lot to work out before they are ready for prime time.

I wouldn't either, since the first generation of U.S. electric cars came out around about a century ago.

Even if we consider only contemporary EVs, i.e., those that have come out since 2010 or so, most manufacturers are on their second or third generation. The idea that EVs are some sort of new and unproven tech is just absurd.

Electric golf carts have been produced for, what, half a century?

My grandmother was born during WWI. When my son interviewed her about life when she was young for a school project, I learned that her family had an EV when she was a kid. Too bad they faded away.

[billaster]

How about KWH per mile instead?

Fractions? Yikes! But you could do KWH per 100 miles, similar to liters per 100 kilometers used in most of the world.

The convention in that case is to shift to watt hours per mile...because yes, fractions are scary!

Except everything is typically in kilowatt-hours -- that's what shows on your EV display and that's what appears on your electric bill, so maybe KWH per 100 miles makes the most sense. As before, liters per 100 kilometers is the standard for most of the world.

[Valuethinker]

I certainly would not want to buy the first generation of US electric cars. I’m sure the legacy auto makers have a lot to work out before they are ready for prime time.

I wouldn't either, since the first generation of U.S. electric cars came out around about a century ago.

Even if we consider only contemporary EVs, i.e., those that have come out since 2010 or so, most manufacturers are on their second or third generation. The idea that EVs are some sort of new and unproven tech is just absurd.

Electric golf carts have been produced for, what, half a century?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... ic_vehicle

Acceptance of electric cars was initially hampered by a lack of power infrastructure.[40] In the United States by the turn of the century, 40 per cent of automobiles were powered by steam, 38 per cent by electricity, and 22 per cent by petrol. A total of 33,842 electric cars were registered in the United States, and the U.S. became the country where electric cars had gained the most acceptance.[41] Most early electric vehicles were massive, ornate carriages designed for the upper-class customers that made them popular. They featured luxurious interiors and were replete with expensive materials. Electric vehicles were often marketed as luxury cars for women, which may have generated a stigma among male consumers.[42][43] Sales of electric cars peaked in the early 1910s. There were over 300 listed manufacturers who produced a vehicle in the United States until 1942.[44]

In 1900 there were more electric cars in the United States than gasoline powered vehicles. Steam was also a realistic rival to ICE.

There's quite a rich literature now on the early history of the electric vehicle.

Lithium ion batteries are relatively new (Tesla in 2012?).

[Valuethinker]

I just paid nearly $200 for a new battery. How much does it cost to replace the batteries in an electric car? I'm afraid to ask.

Something like $10k

Once every ten years is $1k per year

And no other maintenance like you would have on a gas car

Just replaced battery in our 2012 Tesla Model S with 90,000 miles. Cost was $15K. Got a 4 year or 50,000 mile warranty on new battery. Car drives like new. And car still looks good. Of course the battery is by far the most important part of an EV. We plan to keep it for at least another 4 years, hopefully many more. Good luck.

Nice. How much degradation did you have on your original battery?

Almost none. In fact that is the one problem I wish Tesla would fix. The car drove fine for 11 years without noticeable battery degradation, then without notice one day when parked at a local business it no longer worked, luckily had enough battery life that could drive to local Tesla service center for battery replacement. Which took less than 10 days. So I am going to suggest to Tesla that there should be some type of advance warning on battery needing replacement. Though after more than 11 years of good battery life can’t complain too much.

Sounding suspiciously like that was a software induced failure? A built in time limit.

Cory Doctorow (an accomplished writer on the internet, to the point where he has coined a term en********ation (go look it up), which is widely used in discussing what has happened to search and to Amazon) was good on this. Tesla had a help line where if you complained about a software-enforced problem with the battery, they moved you to a category where you would receive no further help (I am vague on the details - sorry).

[Valuethinker]

Personally, I wished the standard was miles per kWh. By simply moving the decimal point over to the right you can relate to MPG.

For example, a Model 3 or Y usually gets about 3.2-3.7 miles per kWh... move the decimal point to the right and it's 32-37 mpg... and about what you would get for a gas version of the exact same vehicle.

The larger and heavier Model X gets about 2.6 miles per kWh... or 26 mpg. Again, this is close to what a comparable gasser would be.

The Rivian R1T is roughly 2 miles per kWh... 20 miles per gallon.

And the Hummer EV is 1.4 miles per kWh... 14 miles per gallon.

And so on.

No normal consumer knows what to do with miles per kWh. That is changing, but for now consumers need a way to compare vehicles using different fuels in units that make sense to them.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that this conversion method was correct, but it's off by about a factor of 3.

It seems that you are not accounting for the fact than an EV is ~3x as efficient as a gas ICE.

I think I understand what he is trying to say but when I tried typing it I gave as it wasn’t making sense outside of my head.

I have an EV and I get anything from 3.6 to > 5 miles/kWh.
I like the idea of miles per unit of fuel as that’s what we’ve used for years in mpg. I see a lot of EV reviews, mainly Europe, that talks about kWhs per 100 miles or km; I can’t wrap my head around that as it’s like saying my car gets 4.2 gals per 100 miles.

never mind about how confusing miles are .

Then there's what you call a gallon, which is not what we (Canada and UK) call a gallon.

litres of gasoline per 100km is the international standard. Maps to kwhr nicely.

Like for like with EVs then you work out what your gas would cost, and compare it to what your electricity would cost.

When I got my EV I just did a quick figure in my head. My ICE gets 20 mpg around town which is most of my driving. 100 miles in my ICE car with premium fuel costs about $20 whereas the same distance in my EV is about $3.50.

As per poster jackfr## who lives in Greater Boston, it's really dependent on what you pay for electricity.

Off top of my head petrol in UK is about 1.59/ litre last I checked. Electricity is currently 24p/ kwhr. (1 GBP = c 1.15 USD). I haven't done the math.


one example I found on the web

ANNUAL MILEAGE
I drive 10,000 MILES per year

£960*
Estimated yearly fuel savings in an electric car
PETROL/DIESEL*
£1,817
Cost estimate per year
£1.58 / litre
vs
ELECTRIC*
£857
Cost estimate per year
30p / kWh
*Fuel savings and costs are estimated and should be considered as guidelines. The calculations are based on the annual mileage you choose above and the following assumptions: a litre of fuel costs £1.58; your petrol/diesel car has an average efficiency of 39.5 mpg; you charge your electric car at home at 30p per kWh; your electric car has an average efficiency of 3.5 miles per kWh.

Interestingly quoting miles per kWhr - I think to align w mpg. (Note that's an Imperial/ UK gallon, so your US mileage would only be 80% of that]

30p per kwhr is slightly high I think (electricity prices came down when the winter gas supply crisis (Russia) eased).

Electricity and Fuel Cost Per Mile Analysis

Below are typical fuel costs per mile for EVs and standard petrol and diesel cars.

We display both the 30p Energy Price Guarantee rate from our calculator above (applied 24 hours a day, if you're on a standard variable tariff), together with an example off-peak home electricity rate of 10p (available at time of writing on 4 May 2023).

The table shows how even greater savings are possible when charging off-peak:


Cost per Mile Vehicle Efficiency Fuel Cost
Electric Car – Off-peak 2.9p 3.5 miles per kWh 10p per kWh
Electric Car – Energy Price Guarantee 8.6p 3.5 miles per kWh 30p per kWh
Diesel Car 16.9p 43 mpg £1.60 per litre
Petrol Car 19.7p 36 mpg £1.56 per litre
Understanding how much petrol / diesel is per mile illustrates how the electric vs petrol / diesel car comparison favours electric, especially when charging off-peak.

£1.60 per litre is $6.06 per US gallon

[ElSchumi]

PHEVs are the worst of both worlds. They still have Gearboxes, oil coolers, catalytic converters and - additionally- a small battery and an e-motor. You need to service both worlds instead of enjoying zero to low maintenance of a real EV. PHEVs also catch fire far more often than even pure Gasoline cars https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs- ... car-fires/. There is almost zero upside and a lot of downside in owning an PHEV.

[cmr79]

How about KWH per mile instead?

Fractions? Yikes! But you could do KWH per 100 miles, similar to liters per 100 kilometers used in most of the world.

The convention in that case is to shift to watt hours per mile...because yes, fractions are scary!

Except everything is typically in kilowatt-hours -- that's what shows on your EV display and that's what appears on your electric bill, so maybe KWH per 100 miles makes the most sense. As before, liters per 100 kilometers is the standard for most of the world.

I agree with you and think that would make a lot more sense...but for some reason, Wh/mile is a more common convention vs kWh/mile or kWh/100 miles when talking about energy use per distance in the EV space. Just an observation from following a number of EV technology channels and websites.

[stoptothink]

PHEVs are the worst of both worlds. They still have Gearboxes, oil coolers, catalytic converters and - additionally- a small battery and an e-motor. You need to service both worlds instead of enjoying zero to low maintenance of a real EV. PHEVs also catch fire far more often than even pure Gasoline cars https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs- ... car-fires/. There is almost zero upside and a lot of downside in owning an PHEV.

That's highly dependent on your use case. I tend to agree, that for most drivers a PHEV is the worst of all worlds and I've never seriously considered one, but they are great for people in certain situations. Reality is, there is no one best tool for everybody.

[onourway]

PHEVs are the worst of both worlds. They still have Gearboxes, oil coolers, catalytic converters and - additionally- a small battery and an e-motor. You need to service both worlds instead of enjoying zero to low maintenance of a real EV. PHEVs also catch fire far more often than even pure Gasoline cars https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs- ... car-fires/. There is almost zero upside and a lot of downside in owning an PHEV.

A PHEV is simpler, on the whole, than a pure ICE for reasons already outlined in this thread. It's no surprise that on the whole PHEV's are extremely reliable.

The upside is that you can have a vehicle that gets EV efficiency for day to day short trips (which is the source of most fuel consumption/emissions with an ICE) and hybrid efficiency for long trips, at a price that is reasonably affordable.

[andypanda]

"The GDR built the Trabant -- a car with a service life of 25+ years. Why can't we buy a car with a 25-year service life today?"

We do, they are called riding mowers. And they are not allowed on the roads or interstates.


"How much horsepower did the Trabant have?
The 26 horsepower Trabant goes from 0 to 60 in 21 seconds with a top speed of 62 mph."