But yes, UK company tax structure around them is absolutely broken. You can get one, get a massive tax discount, and then simply never charge it, resulting in higher emissions than in a normal car, and yet keep the low emissions discount. It's stupid. I think you should have to prove that you're actually using the EV capabilities, otherwise it's just straight up fraud.
The ability to charge will drive infrastructure investments from the bottom up. Especially if it's cheaper than fossil fuels. My guess is we will start to see charging mentioned as a selling point in real estate ads in the coming years. Same with charging at stores or similar, although that is more limited.
All while helping BEVs become even more attractive.
And that's the crux of the matter, most people buy hybrids because they can't charge at home. Those cars end up driving a lot on gas. If you can't conveniently charge at home or at work, waiting for 1.5-2h to charge for 40-50Km is far less appealing than 3 minutes for 500Km worth of gas. Place more chargers and make gas more expensive than electricity and the situation would probably change.
One specific German manufacturer featured in the studies I linked above sees most of the kilometers driven in their hybrids using the ICE, with a lot of that time the ICE inefficiently charging the battery, and almost cancelling out the fuel efficiency brought by the electrification. The number of people who see anything close to the officially estimated fuel consumption or CO2 emissions is vanishingly low. And the manufacturer knows it but they aren't ready with EVs, they have to meet new fleet regulations, and they wanted to benefit from the incentives the German government offers to manufacturers for any EV or PHEV.
Looking at a family member in this situation (the one who provided me with the statistics from the manufacturer), they drove ~2000Km in a brand new PHEV with ~11 liters + 9KWh per 100Km. The manufacturer suggests ~2 liters per 100Km. That's where most efficiency numbers revolve for that particular PHEV. It doesn't help that where they live in Germany charging the battery at a public charger even when assuming the full ~40Km range is 30% more expensive per Km than filling the tank but this is a local issue that's not generally applicable.
Well that was the point ;-)
>>And that's the crux of the matter, most people buy hybrids because they can't charge at home.
Well, that bit I don't really believe. I'd love to see some data about it. If you're buying a plug in hybrid and don't have the plug-in part.....then what are you even doing. Like I said I understand that in UK the tax structure is beneficial regardless of whether you charge it or not. But yeah, if people buy PHEVs and then don't charge them then it's pointless. I just don't think that people buy them because they don't have somewhere to charge. I got a PHEV not full electric car because there wasn't a fully electric car in my price range of the size that I wanted, not because of the lack of charging space .
>>they drove ~2000Km in a brand new PHEV with ~11 liters + 9KWh per 100Km. The manufacturer suggests ~2 liters per 100Km
I drive a Volvo XC60 T8 and that's completely not what my stats are. My long term average over a year is 3L/100km. It really depends what kind of usage you want out of it - short journeys are done without burning any petrol whatsoever. But if you travel long distance frequently then it's simply the wrong drivetrain for you. I mean it's not a novel concept either - for decades we've been telling people that if you only drive in the city don't buy yourself a diesel, but if you drive long distance often don't buy a petrol. PHEVs are in a different category where they really really really work well if you're just commuting within the EV range but can also go further if you need to. The main problem of high usage when out of the battery range usually comes from the fact that most PHEVs use petrol motors and you're not going to see any good numbers from very heavy SUVs with a small-ish petrol engine. Mercedes has it right with the 300de drivetrain where you get about 50 miles of EV range and then a diesel engine after. Like, that just works well on both short and long journeys, but that's not what most PHEVs are like.
>> It doesn't help that where they live in Germany charging the battery at a public charger even when assuming the full ~40Km range is 30% more expensive per Km than filling the tank but this is a local issue that's not generally applicable
Well, exactly, charging at public stations can be incredibly expensive, in some cases it's literally cheaper to drive a good diesel car than an electric one if you're charging at public stations. Here in UK for instance Ionity charges £0.69 per kWh, while at home at night I pay £0.05 per kWh. The difference is insane.
As you said in a comment below:
> According to Volvo's own data 60% of PHEV buyers never plug them in
You confirm what I said in my unpopular comment above, on paper PHEVs reduce emissions by a lot but in reality, as a fleet, the numbers are far worse than suggested. Many are company cars because the company wanted the tax cuts and subsidies, others just test the waters with this electric stuff. They don't go full BEV because they can't reliably charge. The UK is a great place to have an EV, with the most people living in (semi)detached houses in Europe [0] and cheap electricity. Most of the rest of Europe doesn't do so well at either point.
I can't show you data but I personally know it from a very reliable source who has access to this kind of (unpublished) data from one large German manufacturer. While their EV owners charge every day, less than 1 in 6 of the drivers who ever plug in their PHEV (~40-50Km of range in ideal conditions) do so at least once every 2 days, and only about 25% of Km are driven in EV mode. This average is pulled up by those very few who charge regularly (every 1-2 days). Some more kilometers are "electrified", EM gives a boost from standstill or under hard acceleration. And a huge percentage of PHEVs were never connected to a charger. Real life fuel consumption of the fleet is 4 times higher than the official numbers.
> I drive a Volvo XC60 T8 and that's completely not what my stats are. My long term average over a year is 3L/100km.
Yes but you have to admit that you're close to the ideal case, you charge every night and drive almost exclusively electric, and you still get 50% higher consumption that the official numbers. Doesn't this tell you anything about the reality of the whole fleet, and not just your particular situation? All numbers I find online for real life fuel consumption for an XC60 T8 points to an average of over 7l/100Km. For every PHEV that's almost always charged, there are a few PHEVs that are almost never charged. This doesn't lead to great overall fuel numbers. Perhaps better than pure-ICE but certainly nowhere close to the official numbers. If I had your car after 2 days of driving I'd run out of juice, have nowhere to charge conveniently, and just fill the tank.
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
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