Hacker News Reader

Comment by zippzom | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else skeptical of their claim that the benefits of the plug in and the hybrid are the same? It assumes that electricity production remains the same as it is right now, whereas in reality it will likely become much more green (and electric car charging is a candidate to be even more green than general production since you can charge at peak solar hours very easily).

View on HN

If you have home charging and mostly commute within the range of the plug-in hybrid, it’s the same as a full electric car with the added advantage of an ICE for the rare longer drives.

And the added maintenance and complexity. I think the Volt has shown that there is not a market here.

That’s one event. Things GM can’t pull off cannot be construed for market trends.

Maybe. The Volt was a good car. Positive reviews. People just didn’t want it. You could chalk that up to a failure by GM.

But I think it’s a market indicator. An in between product with too much drivetrain complexity, too high of a price, and the downsides of a combustion engine.

The RAV4 Prime has got to be the most appealing current model, and it starts at $38k. The normal RAV4 is $26k.

The volt is a great car. Almost every brand has a PHEV now.

The main reason a PHEV makes sense is for people who want do do road trips or regularly travel beyond a typical battery range.

PHEV vehicles should be designed with this in mind. Otherwise they should just be a full EV.

RAV4 Primes seem to be selling pretty well (supply constrained for now).

The added maintenance is minor in practice. The ICE in a PHEV like the Volt is only used for non-routine trips, the rest are done on battery. When the ICE is engaged it is buffered by the battery and runs at a low stress cycle operating mainly as a serial hybrid. In a given year, the number of miles put on the ICE are surprisingly low. It keeps track of that on reminds you of oil changes based on the miles used. For me that is around once every 2 years.

They say they can be the same, which is technically correct I suppose. I don't think anyone is suggesting that PHEV is functionally equivalent to BEV, nor that the environmental impact is always the same.

The GHG impact depends on where you live, how you use the car, and how you get your energy.

I don't expect a global automaker to make decisions about imminent models based on 10yr+ transition forecasts for US energy infrastructure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com