Until the engine that powers a PHEV is nearly drop-in ready for a replacement (for example, going to your local auto parts store and buying a replacement like a battery) then companies need to have service technicians and production lines to support these "engines" (they're fancy generators at this point).
However, that would also require automakers to standardize to some degree or potentially cannibalize their own business.
We've already seen this with batteries/panels in the consumer space in regards to solar. I can buy whatever packs of cells I want, and as long as the voltages match up, I can mix and match to my hearts content. If I can only get service for my Jeep PHEV from Jeep because the drivetrain is a bespoke black box and parts are impossible to get, then we'll keep seeing customers continuing to opt for traditional gas vehicles or full EVs. PHEV is just too complicated to support long term (imo).
If 90% of your trips can be covered by a normal EV, then I would make the argument that you should buy one of those (secondhand even!) and then rent a vehicle for the instances where you need AWD. The fuel and tax savings should likely make up for it in the long run. For that one year that you don't go skiing in the mountains, then you're coming out on top financially!
PHEV isn't that much more complex than an ICE. The transaxle is typically mechanically simpler, and you have two electric motor/generators instead of an electric motor (starter) and an electric generator (alternator). There's a big battery you need to find room for, and the power wiring. And the engine control is significantly different, but if it doesn't work, swap the ECU works as well for an ICE and PHEV.
> PHEV isn't that much more complex than an ICE.
I've been an owner/operator of two Gen3 Prii for 14 years and agree in practice even though in theory I would agree with the complexity argument. The one maintenance hit for both was for the vacuum pump needed for brakes/etc because the car cannot assume the engine is always running.
Toyota has moved to hybrid only for the Camry and Sienna. This is an indicator to me that technology maturity and US manufacturing is where it needs to be for broad adoption.
I have an ICE but I only fill the tank once or maybe twice most months.
The battery pack in a Model Y weighs 1700 lbs and provides 330 miles of range. A RAV4 Prime (PHEV) has a 14.5 gallon gas tank, which provides 500 miles of range from 90 lbs of gas - in addition to the smaller 300 lb battery pack providing 42 miles range. The additional weight of the drivetrain components offsets the savings from not lugging around a huge battery. Overall, the vehicles end up with similar weight, but the RAV4 has much longer range. By default, the RAV4 prime runs on EV mode until the battery runs down. With both vehicles, you’re taking an efficiency hit on the average drive for having the option of taking longer trips.
Of course, both vehicles are a big environmental win over old ICE cars, because they will move you more miles per carbon emitted. Which one works better for you depends on your use-case. If you want to lower the environmental impact if you commute even more, ride a bicycle or something.
You can get an EV, and then have to deal with half a dozen barely competent charging networks each with their own donkey, slow and insecure app, their own quirks and pricing schemes, etc. For some, the tradeoff is worth it, for others it isn't.
You can also get a PHEV, which could allow you to use one car for commuting purely on electric power - even if you are lugging around an entire ICE power train - and then also take the family out to the countryside over the weekend. Without the having to deal with a bunch of annoyed passangers when you are stuck midway through your journey and the charging station you are trying to use is giving you the massively helpeful error message of "Charging failed, please try again later".
That's just down to charging infrastructure no? Sure, there are physical limits to how much electricity one can move in a given time, but we are nowhere at those physical limits.
So it's just down to infrastructure in the end. If there was infrastructure to quickly and reliably charge EVs, ICE would only have niche advantages.
Honestly, _averaging_ 300 KW is probably within a factor of 2 of the highest we'll do for light vehicles given economic (how much electric distribution infrastructure can an 8-32 stall charging station have?) and practical (how heavy and stiff can the charging cable be?) limits.
It's unlikely EV charging speed will ever match existing ICEs. Relatively long recharge times are an intrinsic trade-off of BEV technology which needs to be engineered around, mostly by having enormous and heavy batteries.
Does this require further work? Yes of course. We are definitely not there yet, and we may never get there. But let's not pretend that this is an insurmountable problem.
On the engineering side:
- Swapping requires standardization of batteries across models and manufacturers. To accommodate different vehicles the batteries will need to be rather small so most vehicles will need multiple swapped every time
- Requires more space and weight because the battery cannot be structural. This will reduce the overall range of EVs
- Connectors for high voltage, signalling, cooling fluid, and high strength mechanical rated for thousands of cycles in the face of road grime and poorly maintained swap robots will not be small. Cooling system contamination will be a serious concern.
On the financial side:
- Batteries are expensive, how do you track and reclaim them across the entire continent? What about theft? Destruction insurance?
- With swappable batteries the incentive is to store them at 100% then run them 100% to 0%, which is especially bad for battery longevity
- How do you deal with batteries swapped at different 'swap' networks?
On the user side:
- What if the swap station is out of batteries when you need them? Are you always gambling on holiday weekends that you won't need to sit for hours charging (if that is even possible!)?
- Since some batteries will be more worn than others, how do you deal with constant variability of range because maybe last week you got a new set of batteries and next week you'll get an older set with only 80% capacity left.
- Are you allowed to charge at home? How is the wear from that charged?
- Did I buy a battery with my car, or are cars no longer batteries included? If my car came with a battery, how do I know I get it back? Do I get paid for the wear other users put on it? Do I need to retrieve my battery from the same station on the way home after a road trip?
That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others. Most of these issues are solvable with unlikely levels of corporate cooperation or immense levels of excess capital expenditure. However, they all cost money and will reduce the economic viability of battery-swap EVs versus every other vehicle type.
GP's argument can be countered with basically every hybrid getting better mileage than its ICE sibling in city traffic.
Hybrids use a smaller engine that is running in a more efficient operating range during cruising (i.e. not pulling a huge vacuum and moving lots of parts the whole time). The battery/motor comes in for acceleration.
Unlike combustion engines, electric stuff isn't really inefficient at low load.
I'd expect it operates in mode 2 a lot when at highway speeds, but not accelerating.
It's a really simple and clever solution. So much so that brain hurts to think about
For two decades there has been a roughly free 5% or so in fuel economy available to any ICE car if only we could manage to be slightly more patient drivers, but American car buyers would literally rather spend twice the cost on a V8, gasoline truck, that gets worse fuel economy than it's $8k more expensive diesel variant, worse performance, and often a less reliable engine.
Americans will swear that a ten cent increase in gas prices will drive them to financial ruin, and then choose to buy the SUV made out of a terrible truck chassis that gets 20mpg. They did this despite having to learn the hard way back in 2008 what it actually meant for gas to be expensive.
Look, come on. There's no need to turn every comment into a chance to bash a whole country. I bet there aren't many countries you think so poorly of that you'd make sweeping statements about their populations. Gas prices affect all prices due to direct logistics costs and the increases every employee needs all along every supply chain. That's the problem with them.
Any time you're not at highway cruising speed, it's just in the normal position where the electric motor drives it (the engine only functions as a generator). It's effectively an electric car with a small, far under provisioned in Civic terms, engine that comes on to top the battery up sometimes if regen braking isn't enough.
At highway speeds, the gearbox has the engine drive. And since it's a less powerful engine, it will have better fuel economy than one that has to ever handle acceleration from a standstill.
And the whole thing weighs about 3200-3400lb, far less than any electric vehicle. So you're "lugging" around less.
Typed this before I saw that you said expensive. I’ll leave my comment anyway.
My impressions had been that it largely mirrors the EV market: A few early PHEV models (such as the BMW i3) had poor battery management leading to unreliable battery packs. This was fixed in subsequent generations and is not a problem unless you are scraping the bottom of the used market. That's much the same as how EV batteries are generally reliable unless you buy early versions of certain problematic models (particularly the Nissan Leaf).
BMW i3 owner here. The i3 never had such issues and has been praised for its overall great engineering (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjPIuLz5VFI and https://evclinic.eu/2024/11/03/which-used-ev-to-buy-a-beginn...). It is also not a PHEV but an EV that had an option for a range extender.
It works. People hates it. The issues with it are mostly theoretical or matters of preferences. That's hallmark Toyota, isn't it...
Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?
Getting all of that capability in one car is very convenient. We replaced an 11 year old gas vehicle, and I don't expect that this PHEV one will last us as long. But it was the right car for us in our current situation.
Yes? Probably half of all my drives are 30 minutes or less, round trip. Some get closer to 40ish minutes of driving on battery, which would cover more like 90% of my drives.
AFAIK it's not (usually?) two drive trains, it's one electric drive train and a generator that's way smaller than a normal gasoline engine.
PHEVs are lovely to drive, and availability of gas stations means almost no planning is needed. Fuel low, stop in for 5 minutes and good to go for hundreds of miles (current one does 500-600/tank depending on conditions)
30' are enough to go to work, where I can recharge during the day for the return leg. 30' are enough for any daily errand, too, so that would not be a problem.
Finally, for long trips, I'd use it as a "real" car with its internal combustion engine.
The other 10% are beyond any practical battery range, so a BEV isn't an option.
(I on the other hand drive into a city about 60+ minutes away so I don't know what the percentage is but I do a fair number of trips an hour+ away.)
It might be thirty minutes on the highway, as new PHEV cars have ranges in the 30-40 miles range. But if you're driving in the city, 30 miles is enough to get you basically anywhere you want to go and back, even if traffic makes it a 2 hour trip.
So, if "30 minutes" was actually how you measured range (and not in miles), the average worker in the longest group would burn fuel for 3 minutes, instead of 33 minutes. This is 90% less fuel than a traditional hybrid car would use in the same time.