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Comment by ClarityJones | Hacker News Reader

A Model 3's battery is 82kWh, a Camry Hybrid's battery is 1.6kWH.

In terms of battery, you could produce (82 / 1.6 = 51.25) hybrids per fully electric car.

The total fuel savings of replacing 10+ ICE cars with hybrids is an order of magnitude larger than replacing 1 ICE car with a fully electric car.

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A PHEV battery is 1/10th the size of an EV battery typically giving about 50 km of range. 90% of most people's daily use is less than 50 km. We could build 10 PHEVs with the battery from one EV. This means instead of an EV cutting fossil fuel use by 100%, 10 PHEVs could cut fossil fuel use by 90% x 10 = 900%.

PHEVs also charge faster due to the battery being 1/10th the size but they don't require buying a 240v charger and can be charged using 120v in 1/5th the time of an EV.

If you don't have anywhere to charge, you'll have to get an HEV.

For each of those 51 hybrids you need to manufacture an extra ICE engine. Which is not cheap. It's more complex to make a drive train that can seamlessly handle switching from EV to ICE. So it's more difficult to manufacture. Has there been a study that takes the whole lifecycle of a hybrid into account vs an EV or ICE?

Would be super interested if there had been a research that also takes into account that we don't need SUVs that seems to be the go to car in the US.

ICE engines may be more complex, but batteries are still more expensive than a small ICE engine. Have you seen the cost of a replacement battery for a Tesla? $12-20k all day long. You don't need a massive, high performance ICE engine to charge up batteries on the go, or to get your car down the highway. Meanwhile I can get a high performance crate engine for less than half that cost ($5-6k all day). Less than half that for a basic, economical 4 banger.

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