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Comment by tonyedgecombe | Hacker News Reader

Plugin hybrids do seem to offer the best of both worlds right now.

My problem with them is that they don't offer the greatest benefit of electric: the simple drive train. No thousands of moving part kept moving by a handful of fluids and rubber pulleys all needing meticulous care. With the hybrid you get the best of both worlds in convenience and range but the worst in maintenance. Battery aging? Check. Expensive combustion engine service schedules? Check.

People keep saying that electric cars are inherently more reliable but Tesla has worse-than-average drivetrain reliability.

I'm sure ev reliability will be bad for years as it's young technology but all the more reason not to duplicate risks by having two separate drivetrains.

Huge weight gain, with associated efficiency and handling compromises? Check

Couldn't you get at least a simpler drive train if you only used the engine as a generator?

No, not really. You still need a full-fledged engine. You might be able to simplify it a bit because it doesn't need to produce optimal fuel economy across a large operating range, but it still isn't going to be much different than a normal car engine. For a good example, check out the Chevy Volt, which works exactly the way you say.

This is why I bought a Chevy Bolt instead of a Volt.

"Meticulous" is a bit of an overstatement,. I've had a Prius for about five years now and I've changed the oil a few times and put in windshield washer fluid. And most of the accessories are electrified anymore, so the only belt is for the water pump.

I wonder how many EV drivers end up in the dealership only once a year.

Battery aging is less a problem when the battery capacity is less essential. You still get hybrid mileage benefit even if the battery can only hold a single braking charge (and let's face it, it will never go that low during the lifetime of a car).

In any case, there are always going to be advantages and disadvantages, and the market will tell where people's priorities lie. After all, there already is the $100k Model S, with its abysmal range when driving at 100 mph -- and some say that it even has too big a battery for an affordable EV! A hybrid suffers none of that with its more complicated ICE. (They're not that bad, but I'm not going to start arguing about that. I don't even know if you own one to maintain.)

The greatest benefit and main purpose behind electric vehicles is reduced emissions. In this regard plugins are a big step beyond cars with just an internal combustion engine.

"Plugin hybrids do seem to offer the best of both worlds right now."

Yes - absolutely. If you are a legacy car maker. You get all the benefits of the halo of "modern" technology and "green" initiative but you still get to hang on to your very lucrative ICE maintenance business (oil changes, fluids, complicated mechanicals, etc.).

As a consumer ? You get none of the technological benefits (dramatically lowered center of gravity from "skateboard" designs and all wheel drive coming from multiple motors, to name just two ...) but you get all of the logistical and aesthetic penalties that come from running a shitty little lawnmower engine inside your fancy new car.

I think the BMW i8 is a perfect emblem for this kind of flawed thinking. A beautiful, modern (looking) "luxury" car that has a 3 cylinder ICE hidden inside.

If I could say one thing to all of the legacy car manufacturers pinning their strategy on hybrids: Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining gold.

Car makers make essentially nothing from ICE maintenance. The labor goes to the independent shops, even if you have a dealer do the labor the car maker gets nothing for it. The fluids are from a third party (you can buy manufacture fluid in a few cases - but that is someone else's fluid with their sticker on the bottle). Rebuilds are mostly done by independent shops. Sometimes the manufacturer supplies parts, but this isn't a large source of income for any of them (though it is significant enough to keep doing it)

The complicated mechanical are a negative for the most part. They have to spend massive sums of money to keep meeting the latest emissions standards, along with more money on efficiency. The only silver lining in this is the side effect that it costs so much you won't see more competition as only a few companies can afford to design an engine.

In the US these "independent shops" are called car dealerships and they sell all of the new cars in the US. Manufacturers don't sell cars directly to customers and this is enforced by law in many states. Tesla is the only company doing it. The independent shops usually sell only one brand of car and their profits come mainly from service not sales. Think of them as sales floors subsidized by the money brought in when the product breaks or need service you can't do your self. Not a feedback loop that is good for customers, I think.

By independent shops I mean fully independent - no business relationship with the manufacture. Dealers are a mix: they are independently owned, but they get things from the manufacturer that the fully independent shops do not.

The typically model is you take the car to the dealer while it is under warranty and then go to a cheaper shop afterwards. Which means that the dealer gets some maintenance revenue (enough that as you say they are sales floors subsidized by the maintenance shop).

It would be interesting to know what the total revenue of independent auto repair shops is in comparison to total dealership revenue from repairs. A quick google did not get any good hits for me.

For heavy loads, like pulling trailers over very long distances, this is true, but for most other applications, I think it is the right time now to go full-electric, as you get rid of the combustion engine, which is the most complex and maintenance-intense part of your car.

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