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Comment by voisin | Hacker News Reader

Electric for 95% of driving, gas to eliminate range anxiety for the few longer trips per year. Use the gas for charging the batteries - no connection between gas engine and electric drivetrain.

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> Use the gas for charging the batteries - no connection between gas engine and electric drivetrain.

Almost all of them have a connection from the gas engine to the wheels. I don't know if it is still the case today, but no that long ago many hybrid models even reused the same automatic transmission from the ICE version of the car. Hybrids are not designed as an electric car with a generator, the drivetrain is truly "hybrid" and send direct mechanical power form the ICE to the wheels

But then just rent an ICE car when you go for a long drive... better for the environment.

That makes no financial sense. I bought a car because rentals over time exceeded the ownership of owning. Since many trips are outside the EV range.

Not sure. In the comment I replied to, they mentioned that EV is good 95% of the time. In that case, renting a car, like once a month, for a long range tip would make sense imo. Better yet, public transport, then rent an EV there.

Or just get a PHEV. And then you only need 1/3 of the batteries in your car, and you don't have to deal with rentals. Does it really make sense to have 300 miles worth of batteries that you haul around in your car when 90% of your trips are less than 100 miles?

No, but it makes less sense to haul around an ICE or more battery than needed for 100 miles.

Have you dealt with a rental agency in a population hub any time in the past 15 years? It's awful service and such a pain to do all the research anew on pricing every time you want to do a drive.

Much easier to manage your own predictable resources than try to shove your use-case into another organization's framework.

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