The article did not address a point that I’ve assumed (perhaps wrongly). Seems like a good thing for city driving to be electric mode, less pollution in the congested areas.
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I think it’s useful for those who think phevs are some sort of best of both worlds to understand the compromises they’re making.
I think for those of us who have driven EVs for awhile now, some of the justifications for these sorts of vehicles just seem misguided. It feels similar to having a cell phone with a 6hr battery and also a gasoline powered engine for longer breaks between charging. Obviously, that seems like nonsense to anyone who has lived and traveled with a cell phone.
If a person mostly drives under 40 miles per day they’ll have no trouble with an EV, including on longer trips.
I do understand a paradigm shift is required to understand this though.
Btw, I can use my EV for daily driving under 40 miles AND for 200 mile trips without finding a charger.
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Consumers should certainly do their research before purchasing any vehicle. In the end there isn’t necessarily a one size fits all and each configuration might have a certain type of customer that would benefit most from purchasing it. I’m all for sharing pros and cons and more information. I’m not for saying that a certain configuration has no value to anyone when it might just be a great option for many purchasers. Again, everyone should do their own research and do what they feel is best for them.
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We just bought a Toyota Venza hybrid a couple of months ago. Enjoying it so far. Getting regularly 40-45 mpg with a car that is the same size as the Hyundai Santa Fe it replaced, which got 20-22 mpg city and 26-ish on trips. Dear wife who has a lighter foot than I do, can hit 50+ mpg regularly.
Where we live in rural-ish suburbia, a hybrid works well for us.
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I’ve leased/owned a Volt, Bolt, Tesla and Ioniq. If I had my druthers I’d take the Volt and a PHEV. The vast majority of my driving was on electric but at least once a month I’d have to drive 300+ miles for work/family over a short period of time. It became too taxing to try to plan around finding charging stations, taking the time, etc., while I was jugging work and family responsibilities as well. So life was easier when I had the Volt as I’m not really much of a car enthusiast and was able to charge at home.
PHEVs don’t seem nearly as popular but I agree that it’s probably a necessary step for many people. I now mainly drive EVs but I need an ICE in the household for when we need to go somewhere far and not have to worry about charging. My wife hates the hassle of EVs, has range anxiety and won’t be switching anytime soon. The Volt was necessary for me to make the transition - I wish it were still around and had a range of 80 electric miles.
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I just booked a trip in the fall to visit our son. The hotel we’re staying at has free EV charging. Last time I booked the Kia EV6, which I mostly liked. Regrettably, it was significantly more expensive this time around. I ended up renting a Polestar 2 through another company that had a very cheap rate! With a Thursday pick up and Sunday drop off I’m only paying $203 all in(with the SiriusXM upgrade included).
Before I committed to renting it I went on Youtube to look up reviews. The one below made me laugh, specifically because of the depreciation bit at the beginning. Maybe I should grab a used 2 year old Polestar to commute to work. LOL!
With all electric I still have the insecurity of finding a charging station when I need it - and/or not convenient which is the main reason I haven’t purchased one. With PHEV I get the best of both worlds and will still not use any gasoline until we take the PHEV on a trip. Every place I go around my home is within 20-25 miles…then the hybrid kicks in if I go further. No need for a second “vacation” vehicle. The article read to me like an EV promotional article.
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Tesla has a really good deal on the Model Ys right now. They are eligible for both a $7500 EV credit (subject to income limits) and 0.99% financing. Your state might provide an additional rebate as well.
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Should anyone plan to buy a jaguar with a gas engine, better do it this year. They are stopping production of ICE vehicles and switching to all electric next year.
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We have a Bolt and a Volt. We are seriously considering ditching the Volt and going all EV. We usually use the Bolt when we road trip
People still buy Jaguar vehicles?
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This depends on use and perspective. I have owned my EV for 4 months now and even received a bunch of free charging credits when I got it but have yet to ever use a charger other than at home. So not an issue for me at all. The stats show the vast majority of charging does occur at home. Our household has more than one car. If we’re doing a road trip where we plan to do more than 250 miles, we have always opted for the other car so far.
As for best of both world with a PHEV, that’s depends how you look at it. Don’t get me wrong – I like PHEVs and if we only had one car I would have gotten one. But since I already own an ICE car, the PHEV is not the best of both words because I get none of the maintenance upside of an EV since I still have to maintain an ICE engine even if I am primarily driving short drives with the EV motor only in use. And the car has to make room for both the ICE engine and the batteries. One of the big benefits of the EV is less maintenance requirements.
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A bunch of the brands are doing similar deals right now. Kia is compensating people for the equivalent of the tax credit up-front and doing 0% financing or leases for near-zero money factors.
We are trying to go toward a single car as I just retired and my husband retires in a year, we would like to only have one car, currently we have 3 - 2 hybrids (13 years and 2 years) and 1 ICE (10 years). I’m guessing the ICE car will go before the 13 year old hybrid, we’ll probably start looking at a PHEV when that happens, but fortunately, we have enough cars to keep us covered for a while.
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Agree wholeheartedly! I have now had my ID.4 for 18 months and am at 25K miles with zero maintenance. Ok, close to zero…I did need a new rear windshield wiper blade. 
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I got a Ford Escape PHEV a few months ago. All-electric SUV’s of a similar size are more expensive, especially considering the need to upgrade the electric panel and add a specialized charger to our house, and the range is just too small to be reasonable for the road trip from Phoenix across 400 miles of desert every few months. My Escape went almost two months and 1600 miles on the first tank of gas. I can charge overnight at home and do nearly all of my daily driving on electric (37 miles range) and not worry on road trips, where I still get 40 mpg. We need my car for most road trips because DH drives a Miata.
Chatting with another friend with a BMW PHEV that for lots of us two-car families , an electric car and a PHEV would be ideal.
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I had not thought about the need to upgrade electric panel. Is that always required? Or only if you want rapid charging?
At the townhome community where I live, the electrical panel would indeed need to be upgraded according to other neighbors with full electric cars. The builder did not use a panel with enough juice. While it can be done, I most likely will only be here a couple of more years, so don’t want to make the investment. I also need to check, as some have mentioned blown fuses when charging their PHEV without an updated panel.
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I can plug my Bolt into an electric dryer outlet for a rapid charge. If your panel has a 220 dryer outlet you could tap into that circuit, but you wouldn’t be able to charge your car and dry your clothes at the same time.
Installing the additional outlet would be relatively easy.
Edit to add: I did a quick search and found a device you simply plug into your dryer outlet and it adds an outlet for the EV, with the benefit of automatically overriding the EV when the dryer is in use.
https://insideevs.com/news/481938/splitvolt-circuit-splitter-review/
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A 200 amp panel with slots available won’t require an upgrade to install an evse (charger). Just an added circuit.
Those with 100 amp panels and/or no space left might require a service upgrade, panel upgrade, or some sort of load sharing strategy (just as they would if installing a new electric appliance outlet). Some are able to use a switch on the dryer outlet, for example.
There are ranges of level 2 charging that provide flexibility. I have a 60 amp circuit for one of our chargers but could have opted for 50, 40, 30, with relatively slower charging speeds.
Level 1 charging uses a simple 120v outlet but is slower (still adequate for many people, adding around 3 miles per hour).
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