Plugin hybrids in new emissions scandal: test show higher pollution than claimed | Hacker News Reader

Plugin hybrids in new emissions scandal: test show higher pollution than claimed

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The whole "liters per 100 km" or "g CO2 per km" approach doesn't work with plugin hybrids because it depends much more on the use case than with regular ICE cars.

Someone can commute completely with electric power and do a few longer trips per year, getting the average emissions way way down.

And someone else who can't charge at home or at work and who drives long distances daily might be using just as much gasoline as a regular car.

What are some good metrics instead of these emissions? Pure electric range? Charging speed? Required charging frequency with some typical usage profiles?

They did some research in the UK (can't find the BBC article right now, it was maybe 2 months ago) and by huge margins most folks drove hybrid in most eco-unfriendly way possible (little to no charging due to poor infrastructure and costs). So hybrids ended up as biggest polluting passenger cars in real world, when averaged.

I can imagine ie some nordic countries could have better stats though.

>So hybrids ended up as biggest polluting passenger cars in real world, when averaged.

like the article itself, that statement is subject to a lot of conditions to the extent that it is meaningless without clearly stating all those conditions. For example, even without charging i average 48mpg on the previous gen Prius Plugin (and i do drive 85-90 on 237 - better aerodynamics results in very good mileage even at speed). You need very-very special setup, far-far from real world, for that to become "biggest polluting" .

There's a difference between something like a Prius+ and the PHEVs mentioned in the article though: the BMW X5, Volvo XC60 and Mitsubishi Outlander are big, heavy SUVs, it's hardly surprising that they have poor emissions.

if the implementation isn't screwed (sounds like a big if), they would normally have better emissions than their non-hybrid variants due to regenerative breaking (especially for big heavy cars) and better ICE burning modes (even if you use the same ICE, and much more improvement can be gained by making an ICE optimized for hybrid application). If the article is anywhere close to truth, then it can only be explained by the bad implementation - may be they moved the freed diesel engineers to do the hybrids after the dieselgate :)

Recently walking a dog waiting for the light i saw/heard a Volvo XC90 hybrid doing ICE start from the red-light stop - the ICE started a moment before the car started to move - it did cross my mind back then that such start of engine would [unnecessary] burn a lot - ie. my Prius starts moving on pure electric with the ICE kicking, if/when needed, some moments later, much smoother, better torque and better efficiency. The performance-wise the XC90 had a regular start, far from anything fancy, and anyway large starting ICE wouldn't produce much performance while starting (and waiting for it to spin from the 0 in order to get some performance would eat the time thus killing that performance), so why would they do that ?

They have to carry the batteries around which are heavy.

starting up an engine isn't nearly as "expensive" as people tend to think. engineering explained did a video on this, concluding that a warm start in a typical four cylinder engine uses about as much fuel as idling the same engine for only ~7 seconds. [0] kinda makes sense, since this is the whole motivation for start/stop systems in the first place.

not covered in the video, but IIRC cold starts use quite a bit more fuel since the engine needs to run rich for a few minutes while it warms up.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo

> i average 48mpg on the previous gen Prius Plugin

Man, I did 46 mpg with a VW Passat in 2018 (UK gallons tho)... Stats like these are disappointing.

why? hybrid brings efficiency of the gas engine to that of the diesel (and better than that in the city) while being much cleaner. 15-20 years ago (the first years after coming from Russia where diesel was definitely a better option back then - and my father had diesel VW Passat there at the time :) i thought that the diesel was the way to go and was disappointed at California for the "anti-diesel" law, and only later understood that it was a right thing to do.

Also, people get confused with the efficiency of diesels, comparing MPG between petrol and diesel, when they're liquids with different densitites and carbon contents.

I just expected more by what was effectively the hybrid gold-standard (the Prius). My Passat was a regular diesel with some tweaks (VW called it "bluemotion"), thinking it got so close to the average hybrid efficiency made me slightly sad for a minute. But it's not important anyway, hopefully we're rapidly approaching an electric-first setup and that's what matters.

You should really mention that it's diesel in a comparison like this. Diesels produce significantly more air pollution (particulary nasties like NOx) than similar gas/petrol engines.

one thing to note is that there's a reason electric cars have lower range on the highway and gas cars have higher range.

first thing to note: the faster you guy, the less efficient you can be (air resistance effects you to square I of speed I believe). So this explains, why electric cars get a lower range, the faster you guy, the more air resistance they have to overcome vs local driving with less resistance.

but what about gass engines. This is simple: gas engines are inefficient. they can't be configured to produce exactly as much energy as needed (as opposed to a drawing from a battery). Therefore, at lower speeds, they are producing much more energy than is needed and it gets wasted. at higher speeds, even though they have to overcome the same amount of more resistance, much less energy is being wasted as more is needed. This has gone into why so much tech has gone into trying to make gas engines more efficient, from the prius's hybrid system, to stop/start to deactivating cylinders and on and on.

how well did your passat do on local driving? my guess perhaps 2/3 of that number?

If I remember correctly a lot of that came from fleet cars. Often the drivers never got as far as unwrapping the charging cable. They weren't paying for the fuel so they didn't care or they never had somewhere to plug in.

This isn't really the drivers' fault though. When this happens, it's usually because the company is willing to reimburse them for fuel but not for electricity.

This lines up perfectly with my predictions for the future of UK roads - they will be filled with leased, oversized hybrid SUVs, driven by people who care about nothing except getting to their destination.

These vehicles will be hybrids, because it's now almost impossible to sell a new ICE only car in Europe/the UK. Following from that, they will be SUV-sized, because hybrids add lots of extra drivetrain components and weight. Also following from that, they will be leased, because of the increased cost.

I am particularly aggrieved about this, because I generally cycle everywhere I can, and despise this new "green" future for motoring. I also tend to buy 10 year old second hand cars, which was already getting hard enough with all of the extra electronics on newer cars. The idea of buying a 10 year old, ex-lease, completely thrashed, hybrid SUV - well. I'd rather walk.

>>Following from that, they will be SUV-sized, because hybrids add lots of extra drivetrain components and weight

Not sure if I follow this, Golf GTe, Audi A3 e-tron and similar are hybrids and not exactly SUV-sized

Just for fun:

https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/volkswagen-golf-201...

Edit: The current Mk 5 VW Polo is quite a bit bigger than the original Mk1 Golf.

Why compare it to the Mk1? How does the modern gas version compare to the Mk1?

I'm comparing the modern Mk 5 Polo, which is supposed to be a small city car, to the original Golf, which is a family hatchback, to point out the ever-increasing size of vehicles. The modern Golf (including the electric/hybrid variant) is about the same size as the Nissan Juke, which is a smallish SUV.

It also greatly depends on how they are driven. I was chatting to a Lexus dealer a couple of years ago and asked about the claimed 5.5l/100km of the RX450h (SUV). He said "the way our customers typically drive, it's closer to 10l/100km". If you drive like a grandpa you probably can get the claimed economy, but most people aren't going to do that.

WLTP "high" is essentially "rural road in the summer with a 70-90km/h speed limit" - achievable, but not commonly the case.

It's attainable in eco-mode but no one will drive it only in eco-mode because it's so slow.

Source, I own this exact SUV.

In sport+ mode, I get close to what you mentioned.

I drive a 2007 station wagon like a grandpa. Average diesel consumption? 4.0l/100km. For those less into SI units, that's over 200 megabarleycorn per rundlet! [0]

Back on topic, PHEV's often get preferential tax treatment. My old car gets punished, barred even from some cities. That makes sense only if completely disregarding actual usage.

I can't possibly justify the ecological expense of selling a car that sees under 5000 km/year of usage, but misaligned government incentives increasingly push me to.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_units#Length [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

In proper US customary units, that's 62 square mil.

The Chevy Volt only gets about 90 square mil on its generator, but its battery is more like 33 square mil-e.

Why did you say square miles? What an odd measurement to use.

That's 62 miles per gallon and 90 miles per gallon.

Why use area as a measurement and not distance?

OP is doing a bit, but it’s because a volume (liters) divided by a distance (km) reduces to an area.

You can think of it as the cross-sectional area of a hypothetical straw sucking up fuel from a continuous trough set into the roadway.

Square mil, and square mil-e[quivalent], for the battery-only efficiency, not miles.

When you have a volume-per-distance measurement, such as liters/km, you can cancel units to get an area.

The square mil -- a mil is 1/1000 of an inch, usually used in machining parts -- is the US customary unit which is best suited to the magnitude; 62 square mil is so much nicer than 0.04 square millimeters or 40000 square micrometers.

That went securely over top of my head.

I have a regular, petrol powered SUV and regularly get 13l/100km. If I go granny mode I can get it down to 10l or less. Now I don't feel so bad for not hitting these magical consumption claims. It has 380hp (280kw) and wants to be driven as such.

On-board computers that send data home about how many times they have been refuelled and charged? I suppose it might not go down well with car buyers, though.

I do think that a consumption-based tax can be implemented for PHEV's using the data from the onboard computer. When you pay your annual tax or go for the inspection, you either take a readout of the car's consumption metrics from the OBC or have the shop/DMV do it.

Then you charge tax based on the consumption. Thus, someone who used electric a lot gets charged less than someone who didn't, which is what the incentives for PHEV's are supposed to encourage anyway.

And my guess there will be people who sell black marker services, or perhaps it will just be open internet knowledge, and we will see people jailbreaking their cars to alter the displayed mileage driven to cheat what they have to pay.

If you think all laws will be broken anyway, what's the point of having laws?

What an overcomplicated way of doing what would be achieved very simply by raising petrol fuel taxes by a few cents?

If you want to penalise carbon emission, tax carbon, not cars.

Raising taxes on a fuel is not as effective, first because its harder to get through to the consumers - they don't care because the tax would be pennies on the liter/gallon, and people are used to prices going up and down anyway. Secondly because such an annual tax would hurt the wallet more - paying $100 once hurts more than paying $1 a hundred times with every fill-up.

Yes it is overcomplicated but it is a solution that targets the core of the problem - that people are not charging their PHEV's enough.

That depends on the tax rate. The >$4/gallon price delta between most of the EU and the US is entirely taxes. That's quite a bit more significant than pennies on the gallon...

I mean the marginal tax rate increase from current levels. Unless you mean gasoline taxes should be $4+ additional per gallon compared to what they are now.

Raising fuel taxes to EU levels would not be enough, but it would be a significant start towards environmental improvement, and not necessarily bad for the economy.

In a hypothetical future that is where people realise there is only one earth and some compensations are provided for the economically weaker whose livelihood suddenly gets threatened by these changes.

this paragraph shows the bias

"The BMW X5, Volvo XC60 and Mitsubishi Outlander emitted 28-89% more CO2 than advertised when tested by Emissions Analytics on a fully charged battery in optimal conditions. On an empty battery, they emitted three to eight times more than official values. When driven in battery-charging mode, which could become more common as motorists charge up ahead of using electric mode in low-emissions zones, the PHEVs emitted three to 12 times more."

1) when empty, they emit more CO2 than their average assumed values. this is obvious. its just using gas, no battery.

2) when using the gas engine to charge the battery (i.e. instead of just generate enough electricity to move the car as desired), of course it is the worst performing. you're running the generator at full blast.

I had a Chevy Volt in palo alto where I was able to charge every night. I used it for commuting around (including a regular weekend trip to SF and other trips as far north as berkeley). As I was able to charge regularly (either 220v or 110v), I filled up the gas tank once a year (and that's because the car forces you to not have gas over a year old on average). Now, I don't have the ability to calculate how much CO2 was produced because of my charging times, but in terms of actual CO2 produced by the car, I'd put my experience over any other traditional ICE car.

Similarly, drove the car cross country. While I wasn't able to charge regularly, the electric motor handled the ups and downs of the terrain much better than all the other ICE cars I passed with ease.

You missed this line:

>"The BMW X5, Volvo XC60 and Mitsubishi Outlander emitted 28-89% more CO2 than advertised when tested by Emissions Analytics on a fully charged battery in optimal conditions.

Hybrids are designed by manufacturers who want to pass emissions legislation, and bought by customers who just want a car (in my experience, here in the UK that means "I want an oversized car so I feel safe as I blast around small roads at excessive speed).

Can't speak for the UK, but in the Netherlands the tax deduction laws have changed (already 4 years ago) to no longer give lease-car drivers a tax advantage when driving a hybrid. Only full electric cars were eligible for a lower tax rate - the hybrids were taxed like regular ICU cars.

I have personally driven a C350e - a hybrid with an amazingly short range - and I really like the concept. If you compare the fuel consumption with similar cars (same, weight, size) it is much more fuel efficient. And indeed, that greatly depends on how disciplined the driver is. I charge wherever I can, manually set the car to 'full electric' until I run out of charge and don't "blaze around small roads at excessive speed". The 1600 kg Mercedes can run a comfortable 1 liter per 30 kms and more.

So sure, the fancy stories told by the salesmen, you are never going to see happen. But better fuel consumption without the charging stress (anyone seen the Tesla's waiting in line for supercharger-stations during the previous winter when we still were allowed to ski?) is easily done.

And if that weight and cost budget was just used for batteries, instead of an engine and drivetrain, you'd get a much better electric vehicle.

If you took the BOM cost of the ICE components in a hybrid car, and spent it on the electric drivetrain, you would end up with a very poor performing EV (at least, the range would be abysmal).

This is less and less true every year. Similar to the x86 vs ARM performance chart, or any disruptive technology really.

I think the crossover will happen in less than 10 years. After that point an ICE vehicle will be worse in every performance metric, and cost more for less.

Compared to the supply chain for an EV motor, the supply chain for an ICE is incredibly complex and ripe for disruption. When that disruption occurs things are going to get real interesting, real fast.

(As one indicator to watch, Bosch is a German conglomerate that alone makes a surprisingly large fraction of the ICE supply chain and key parts in almost every major ICE from at the very least US and German manufacturers. Bosch has rumored a pivot for several years now that the time for them to get out of ICE vehicle parts is coming up as all the German manufacturers plan to go EV only. If Bosch makes that pivot they would hugely disrupt ICE costs. That's just one conglomerate of a dozen or less capable of that kind of disruption right now.)

I have a Chevy Volt as well. But we also have an Outlander PHEV. I wouldn't call the Volt a PHEV or include it in the same category as the Outlander at all. The Volt is an electric car that happens to have an ICE as backup. the Outlander PHEV is a soft hybrid with a bigger battery. It's pretty much impossible to drive it without using the gas engine, even when you hit the "EV" button. And from my impression that's the case with pretty much every PHEV other than the Volt.

But we needed a people mover that fits kids, dogs, skis, etc. for longer trips. So that was the best compromise.

It's a shame they killed the Volt and screwed up in marketing it. Such an amazing piece of engineering. I don't like GM's products generally, but I would have bought an Equinox type vehicle with a Voltec drivetrain and paid good money for it.

GM indicates that they think the EV transition is happening sooner than people and has no plans for another PHEV, just a large slate of EVs between 2023-2030. The Volt is mentioned as a transition option no longer necessary, according to current GM plans. Relatedly, all of the German automakers currently expect to be entirely EV by 2030. (Asian automakers are interestingly split by how much they rely on US car sales versus Chinese car sales. Those selling to China are on a very fast ramp to all EV production and those with much more reliance on US sales are still hedging their bets.)

There's an interesting feeling in the air that it could be a surprisingly fast switch in the next few years. I've loved my Volt and it was a great purchase in 2011, but in 2020 it does feel like a transition tech that I wouldn't buy again (especially as commute changes and electric reliability have moved me more and more to the "gas up once a year only because the Volt makes me" group), I'd personally go for a proper EV next time. It will be interesting to watch the next few years because I think things are about to go "weird" quickly (in rapid shifts in gas prices and availability).

Until there's charging stations deep in the woods a few hundred km from any town, I won't be able to own a pure EV as my only car, and I'll be holding on to my Volt. I can't see that happening in the next decade. And I'm by far not the only one with those kind of use cases.

I think a pure EV meets the needs of most consumers. But I think it's incredibly short sited to drop something like the Volt from the product line, especially in places like here in Canada. Especially since it was superior to anything similar that has come out.

I also don't trust GM to actually be pushing the EV transition. It feels to me like stalling.

I don't think GM is leading, that's why I mentioned the German automakers. GM, at least, isn't falling behind like Ford seems to want to.

There are RV hookups somewhere in most random woods a few hundred km from any town in the US. Many of them are already 220V ("dryer plugs", good for a "Level 2" charge) and all you would need is a plug adapter to charge from any one of them. Everyone thinking of chargers like gas pumps is underestimating how many "chargers" currently exist in the wild. The auto industry hasn't helped matters by over-engineering ("for safety!") their plugs so much, making it seem a lot less like a plug is just a plug is just a plug (just like the early 1900s used to make and everyone has on almost all their walls).

I think when a changeover occurs, there's going to be a huge re-evaluation of the parts of the electric grid we've already built. I don't know if that means that RV plugs everywhere will need to be "upgraded" to credit card reading "proper chargers" or if we'll see a growing industry of "dumb plug adapters" from the dumb fancy EV "charger" plugs to more classic situations like dryer plugs. There's already a lot more plugs in the world than gas stations.

(Also the Volt has a very tiny battery compared to what is being released today. The equation is very different when you factor in current EV ranges rather than trying to extrapolate from your current Volt's range.)

I drove the volt cross country. I wouldn't have been able to do that with a pure electric (at least without a heck of a lot of planning and limited ability to be spontaneous). I enjoyed driving it up and down and across (covered around 6000 miles over a month)

I went through 2 Chevy Volt leases and loved that car. Averaged 150mpg lifetime.

Now I’ve got a Pacifica Minivan plug-in hybrid which has a similar value proposition but the drive train is noticeably different than the Volt’s all electric plus a generator approach.

The dirty little secret is that other studies have found that these low-range PHEVs (the three cited above have a useful electric-only range of <10 miles), unlike the Volt, are not often charged by their owners. And, even when they are, the short range means that most miles are driven on dino juice.

So, emissions when not charged are extremely relevant. That’s not editorial bias. It’s reality.

The Volt (and Clarity PHEV) are almost in a different class. Their large batteries make them more similar to an i3, and a 5-8 year old Volt has more range than a similarly-aged Leaf (unless the owner was extraordinarily lucky and lived in a cold climate)

a plugin hybrid with less than 10 miles of range shouldn't be considered a plugin hybrid. So, this would seem to be against a certain class of PHEVs, not the concept in general. I would argue that any PHEV that the government wants to recognize as such, should be required to have a minimum range of 40-50 miles.

I think 30 miles is fine for some user's daily commuting.

depends where one lives, but 30 miles range would have been difficult for my palo -> san jose and back commute if I couldn't charge near work and deffinitely not enough if I would do anything else on the way to or from work. that's why I think a 40-50 mile range it lets you commute + do errands.

but at the end of the day, we somewhat agree, there needs to be a significant amount of electric range where its not just a gimmic or a glorified prius type hybrid. just because a car can charge from a socket, shouldn't make it regulatory a PHEV.

And I would agree with you... but... the vast majority of PHEVs (by number of models and by sales volume) are "mild PHEVs". Volt and Clarity are the exception, not the rule. Even the Prius Prime (the second, better Prius PHEV) has only 22 miles of electric range.

There are a few simple things one could do:

* Limit the power of the ICE to 80HP or whatever, so that these cars are not fun to drive with gas

* Only pay out the tax rebates if the computer shows a sufficient number of charging events, say a year after purchase

* Give employees "electricity cards" similar to the "fuel cards" they receive today for refueling company cars

Just stop all subsidies for hybrid cars, as it creates too much of the wrong incentives. If somebody really needs a hybrid car, he can pay for it full price, or buy a subsidized full electric (or wait a few years more until cheaper options are available).

I'm planning to buy a full electric car next year, and it will be the first time I buy a new car.

Or stop all subsidies for hybrids + electrics and just tax fuel like hell? That way, buying a plug-in hybrid to actually plug it would save money, while using it as an ICE car wouldn't.

Macron tried that in France, and got a huge upheal from poor people.

It's also not fair to people who bought their car already, because they had to calculate with the price of gas to see if it's worth it for them.

Would doing regular, small ramps on gas taxes over multiple years solve that problem?

The debate is so emotionalized that I don't think that the problem is the actual increase in price, but the very fact that you want to make driving more expensive.

Don’t neglect the propaganda problem catalyzing the outrage.

It makes little sens to make driving more expensive if it's still a necessity to work, if we don't tax the most polluting activities that are mostly used for leisure (private jets flying just for a weekend trip). The emotions you're referring too come for a feeling of a lack of social justice. If we can manage to apply the same or stricter rule to the most privileged, then a carbon tax might be acceptable. Macron is perceived as the "president des riches" for good reasons.

On the other hand, if we keep subsidizing driving, people keep moving farther away from work, more people drive, and more money needs to be allocated to car-centric infrastructure. It's not a simple problem.

I think other options need to be explored in addition to any new taxes to ameliorate such people. Like massive buy back and replace programs and infrastructure.

Because there was no tax on kerosene (for planes mostly used by rich people, for leisure) while Macron wanted to tax the commute of poor people who had no chance but to go to work by car. Macron's policies keep ignoring how much the rich pollute and yet he significantly reduce tax on the top 1% (flat tax on capital is now well below their marginal tax rate).

> It's also not fair

So? The world's not fair, deal with it.

That would be a good way to get voted out in the UK. People really don't like fuel taxes very much.

Congrats on your upcoming purchase. Most people cannot afford an electric car and for those who can, not everyone lives in a place with good charging infrastructure so hybrid cars are still quite useful.

All my friends who bought a new car can afford an electric car as well. Buying a new car in itself is a luxury.

The problem is that hybrid cars are often misused by 400% of their allocated quota, which can't be done even with the volkswagen that was caught cheating. I'm OK with hybrids, but definately not OK with the CO2 allocation that they get away with.

> All my friends who bought a new car can afford an electric car as well. Buying a new car in itself is a luxury.

Dunno where you live, but here in Poland there's over a 3x difference between the cheapest (new) petrol car and cheapest new electric car... And the electric's price includes state subsidy. In result, there's plenty of people of modest means (pensioners even) who buy new petrol cars - as they intent to own them for 10-20+ years while doing minimal mileage, making the purchase quite economic - while electric cars are basically still exotic toys.

I'm from Hungary, my first car was 7 years old when I bought it, I used it for 10 years, my second car was 6 years old when I bought it and used it for 7 years. I don't see any valid reason for buying a new gas/diesel car, even if it's a cheap one. Now that I have enough money I feel that I can do something for the environment (and my lungs), that's why I'm buying a new electric car, otherwise I would go for a used gas car again.

I do think PHEV's are a good stop-gap, especially given that Li-ion batteries are expensive and there's not enough manufacturing capacity for the demand. Meanwhile there's plenty of experience and R&D that's gone into optimizing gas engines.

Most trips are short and easily covered by battery. The gas engine then comes in on the highway. I really think that's the best of both worlds. Especially given that BEV's aren't cheaper or lighter - because the missing gas engine's weight and cost is more than compensated by the additional batteries needed.

Yeah, over the life of my Volt I’ve averaged almost 100mpg since charging covers my whole commute. That includes a number of long road trips on gas, so one car fills both the electric commuting niche and my occasional long distance ICE needs.

The point of the article is that many cars get the PHEV nameplate and tax credits, but are nothing at all like the Volt.

The Volt was an EV with a backup generator. These fake PHEVs have like 10-20 miles of battery range even under ideal driving conditions.

The point is the regulatory credits need to be smart enough to see this.

It’s just like diesel-gate, it’s not saying all diesel engines are a terrible scam, just certain Diesel engines.

In light of this it appears that the CARB's approach, where a car is classified as a "range-extended battery electric vehicle"(and thus qualifies for high incentives) only if its range with the battery depleted is no greater than the range on battery alone, makes a lot of sense.

While hybrids can help reduce overall emissions, it also matters where the emissions occur. Running on batteries in the city reduces emissions (to zero) in areas that already have terrible air quality. For longer journeys outside of the city, the air quality is better and there's less population density to be affected. So they can still be a net win even if they are just shifting emissions from one place to another.

Shame they don't write about people like me, which drive on pure electric all the time. ICE kicks in once per month on on longer journeys. So effectively i have +inf times lower emission.

If most of the companies emit 400% of the allocated CO2 quota and you 10% of the quota, statistically your usage can't compensate for the scam that's going on with the current incentives :(

You're right. This is why not cars, but fuel - you know, like the source of the carbon - should be controlled/taxed. I also think that any car can be driven in an inefficient manner. The 1.7t PHEV I use has been amazing in terms of fuel economy, but I know people that burn more fuel in their hybrids than in V8 ICE sportcars.

Of the PHEVs for sale right now, there's almost none that could really be driven pure electric. Only the Volt really let you do that, and it's no longer for sale. Pretty much all of them will fire up the ICE if you hit the accelerator hard or need to go highway speeds, etc.

My PHEV - mini countryman - can go up to 140km/h on pure electric. It even has an option in the car settings where driving on pure electric can be the default setting. Same goes for BMW PHEVs and Porsche ones.

Prius Prime RAV4 Prime Honda Clarity

(see these all over the place in SoCal)

What are you trying to say? Prius Prime uses the ICE quite frequently and has a tiny battery. And the Clarity will also kick it in whenever you accelerate hard.

Is this a reputable news source (genuine question)? Some of the lines are hyperbole: "Plug-in hybrids are fake electric cars, built for lab tests"

T&E across Europe are biased (not in a bad sense but they will drive their agenda as strongly as the other side) ecological association. In my country they will oppose all personal transportation but bicycle and public transportation. That's why this kind of "study" should be read with a grain of salt.

>Plug-in hybrids are fake electric cars, built for lab tests

That is a very reasonable assumption. Euro emissions legislation makes it practically impossible to sell a new ICE-only car, so hybrid cars are designed to be the nearest thing while fulfilling the letter of the legislation.

That is a bullshit assertion, proven by the fact that every cost conscious Uber and Minicab driver in competitive markets has switched to HEVs, and many to PHEVs. (Of course none of them are using HEV SUVs though).

You're talking about a different market - the advertised mpg of the Prius, et al, might seem high in the US, but here in Europe / the UK, it is barely competitive with regular ICE cars.

There's also the various government incentives to run a HEV / PHEV.

FYI, here in tke UK, almost all Uber cars are older diesel saloons / estate cars, and mostly just a normal taxi with an extra "Uber" sticker. Talking of BS assertions, I doubt that many Uber drivers outside Silicon Valley (or maybe, to be generous, prosperous American cities) are using HEVs / PHEVs.

> FYI, here in tke UK, almost all Uber cars are older diesel saloons / estate cars, and mostly just a normal taxi with an extra "Uber" sticker.

That’s not true in London. Most Uber cars in London are Toyota Prius hybrid cars. I would guess that’s true for >80% of London Ubers

That's probably much more to do with exemptions from the Congestion Charge, and the Ultra Low Emissions Zone.

> On an empty battery, they emitted three to eight times more than official values.

One would expect that after VW dieselgate there would be very close and frequent testing by all possible cars by regulatory bodies (or even competition). What a fail.

Let's not forget countries like UK want to have electric and hybrid-only cars allowed in mere 9 years (with most being hybrids). As usually with many eco-related changes that cost billions from ordinary folk's pockets, good intentions pave road to hell once money and politics get involved.

I know what our next car will be if/once 2nd baby comes - diesel bmw 530xd wagon. One hell of an utility and proper fun driving with minimal real consumption, euro6 emissions. If lucky with good state of crucial parts, will last 10 years easily. We do long hauls quite often (1500km drive in 1 day or spread to 2). At one point happy to switch to electric, but right now they are too costly & cumbersome, plus we always buy used for 25-30% of the price which isn't a thing with electric. Used hybrid - no thank you.

I think the used market is going to become quite interesting in a decade or two. Right now I could buy a reasonable runner for as little as £1K. It might not be that desirable but if you were on a really tight budget it would get you to and from work.

I don't see that being the case once we shift to electric. If you look at old Nissan Leafs now the range is abysmal but the cost of a new battery if £5K.

I have a feeling the bottom end of the market is going to disapear.

>1500km drive in 1 day or spread to 2

That's got to be hell with kids or even just as you get a bit older.

Interesting point, at one point old cars will be un-roadworthy (because e.g. they'd have to have a bit of electric powertrain), so no one will even be able to buy them used (unless to export so they can keep polluting in poorer countries, but hey, climate saved! /s).

But didn't California have this in the last decades with their tough emissions standards?

> One would expect that after VW dieselgate there would be very close and frequent testing by all possible cars by regulatory bodies (or even competition). What a fail.

The governments were more interested in keeping their car industries chugging happily (and keeping voters' jobs, and probably their own political jobs), so they preferred to keep the easy emissions test: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/24/uk-franc...

A bit of anecdotal "evidence".

I bought the 2020 Ford Kuga/Escape PHEV this summer, which has been recalled because of battery issues, thus forcing me to drive with discharged battery. Even then, we frequently drive 30-50% of our range on pure electric, because of regenerative charging. In practice it means that our big dirty 2.5L engine, even though it pollutes more, actually gets us to 20 km/l in the city. I'm not saying that's great, but if i could charge the car, all those city drives would effectively be pure electric. On the open road i think we currently average about 18 km/l, and i have a heavy foot :)

In comparison, my previous car a 2016 Ford Focus EcoBoost, ran on average 10-12 km/l.

I was discussing with someone in Germany (when looking for a car) about the plugin hybrids and how a lot of companies here buy them for the low taxes and subsidies and then use them almost exclusively as standard ICE cars or to the minimum possible in E mode as the infrastructure is not there yet and in the end, why bother any more? you got the tax cuts and subsidies...

I also live in Germany and the last Firmenwagen I was assigned (this year) was a diesel Passat. A PHEV would have been an improvement.

Its a chicken vs egg situation. If they had given me a PHEV, I would barely have been able to use the battery mode because of the lacking infrastructure and defective Ladesäulen (charging stations) everywhere. However a few colleagues of mine have houses and garages, and for them it would have made a lot more sense. However all of us needed to cover long distances for client visits and thus, BEVs aside from Tesla LR models were totally out of the picture.

What about non plugin hybrids? One has to assume that since they must be monitored as a closed system (ie you can't assume the battery will be charged externally but rather account it in the consumption/pollution measuring), that those won't he able to get away with these tricks.

You could end up in this situation without malice. Obviously, you need to meet regulations, so the conditions they outline is what you optimize for. I suppose you have to go out of your way to consider the bigger picture.

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