As a Volt and Mitsu Outlander PHEV owner I obviously have nothing against the PHEV concept. But just comparing the two I can say that the Volt is more of a BEV with high quality range extension, while our Outlander is just a soft hybrid that can only sometimes use the battery exclusively. Pretty much all the PHEVs (including the Prime) are like that, and they gave the whole concept of PHEV a bad name.
EDIT: the Outlander has other attributes that make it innovative and good for us, though, such as its AWD system which uses dual electric motors, negating the need for a longitudinal shaft and differential etc.
It's too bad. We have a Volt and I would have loved the same drivetrain in a car with more ground clearance and a bit more cargo space.
Other things in the car are the issue. Stupid things like the infamous "shift to park" issue (crappy $2 switch in the shifter mechanism so it doesn't recognize that you're in park even when you're mechanically in park and complains when you turn it off). Or just generally typically mediocre Chevy interior, etc.
Still love driving mine, I'd have a hard time giving it up. It somehow feels very sporty. I find Toyota's very boring to drive.
They bet on electric, very early in the game and more than one kind too!
The Prime has a 25 mile battery range, which is well over the average driven commute distance in the US (its about the average daily driven distance for drivers.)
The Prius prime is still in it's initial design iteration. Major updates occur typically every 7 years for auto manufacturers, so one would expect a new, improved range Prius prime somewhere in the 2023 range.
It’s literally better than their hydrogen vehicles. Even if you had to synthesize the small amount of gasoline they might use.
Longer range plug in hybrids plus electrically synthesized liquids beat pure hydrogen vehicles in cost, refueling ease, and overall emissions.
The Volt is tiny car with limited utility. The RAV4 EV has vastly more cargo and passenger space.
For a single person going from point A to point B it might not matter, but the technical challenge of battery range plus utility isn't the same as battery range disregarding utility.
It has 10.6 ft³ of cargo space. A Yaris (a subcompact) hatchback has 15.4 ft³, Prius Prime has 19.8 ft³, Honda Civic Hatchback has 24.5 ft³, RAV4 Prime has 33.6 ft³ (for models with folding seats, those are all without seats folded.) The Volt doesn't have “lots” of cargo space, it has miserably small cargo space whether compared against other compact cars or other PHEVs.
Yes, and by that standard the Volt is a big car (not a subcompact), but still has small cargo space for a hatchback (2/3 of a Yaris, which is a subcompact.)
By American standards, its a fairly small car that has very small cargo space relative to its size, and so tiny cargo space compared to what the market expects. And also small compared to competing PHEVs, which to be fair generally also have small cargo space relative to size.
Theoretically (if it works well) it’s an EV for short trips combined with an ICE for longer trips in a single car. That should overcome the range and charge time objections to BEVs.
But the performance feels much sportier in EV mode and it has no trouble pulling up to 80mph without any ICE
Or perhaps we are past that point already - I have no idea how that upgrade math checks out...
1. What happens to all the giant lithium batteries on these vehicles after they reach end of life?
2. How will people be able to evacuate a city or state in an emergency situation when charging/electric supply is not present (which is always likely to happen)?
3. Coal burning infrastructure is still inextricably involved in generating the power to charge these vehicles, that must be considered in terms of overall value of EVs in reducing environmental impacts of fossil fuel elimination.
We need to realize that the motivation to deploy EVs too early is driven by profit rather than by motives in environmental protection and conservation of resources, then the really productive conversations can occur.
2. Never heard this one, what kind of apocalypse are you foreseeing ?
3. Centralised generation is easier to mitigate, and later replace with clean generation.
Though, couldn't you charge your car with a gas generator in an emergency if you really needed to?
2. Mass evacuations by car are inherently inefficient, we should use public transport.
2. or... petrol supply requires transportation whereas electrical supply does not, the former does not seem inherently better than the latter.
2. or... it's as impractical for everyone to fill up their cars in an emergency as it is for everyone to charge their cars.
Honestly, I don't think petrol is any better here – we've just got more cases of this mostly working with petrol cars, and no examples either way yet for electric cars.
3. Oil refinement for an amount of petrol takes roughly as much energy as an electric car takes to go that distance, so we aren't just shifting oil -> electricity, we're actually doing (oil + electricity) -> electricity. This gives us an immediate and significant win on overall fossil fuel emissions even if electricity is entirely generated with fossil fuels.
3. Coal burning infrastructure is not in any way inextricably linked to the power to charge electric vehicles. Coal burning happens to be how much of the US/China gets its electricity for powering electric cars but the fact that solar power can be fed into the grid with no changes to anything else shows that the "inextricably" is false.
3. Coal burning happens to be used in some countries but in others, green energy production is far more available and there electric cars are much better for the environment.
> We need to realize that the motivation to deploy EVs too early is driven by profit rather than by motives in environmental protection and conservation of resources, then the really productive conversations can occur.
Companies are driven by profit, yes, however there are vast, immediate, benefits to the use of electric cars, as well as significant future benefits that can be realised as we transition off fossil fuels. Saying that EVs cannot be motivated by environmental benefits is disingenuous.
only in countries which haven't yet decarbonised (decarboned?) their energy infrastructure. In france for example, 90% of electricity is non carbon, and that rises to 100% for several smaller countries
Secondly coal isn’t nearly as bad as you might thing relative to gasoline. Simply producing gasoline releases significant CO2. Refineries alone release approximately 2.5 lb of CO2 for each gallon of gas, add in exploration, extraction, and transportation means gasoline is doing a lot of damage before reaching your car. Next gasoline > car engines > transmissions is vastly less efficient than EV’s coal > power plants > electric grid > batteries > EV transmission.
Net result while some of the energy comes from hydrogen in gasoline it’s still actually worse for the environment than coal, much worse than natural gas, and vastly worse than everything else.
https://www.avere.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/englisch_St...
I never understood this scenario. Any situation where there is no electricity supply also means you wouldn't be able to pump gas. You do realize gas stations run on electricity right?
If you are concerned about emergency readiness, keeping a reserve fuel level in a typical gas (incl. hybrid) cars tank that provides more range than even the overly generous EPA-listed range of any pure electric short of a Tesla Model S Long Range Plus is eminently practical. So, if there is a recharging/fueling outage and need to evacuate, gas wins.
This is straight up false. These same points are addressed again and again and again and again by EV supporters but I guess (if I took your claim seriously) no one actually pays attention? (See the sibling comments for folks responding to them.)
I mean, you might still disagree with what they have to say, but you CANNOT claim they don’t address those extremely common points. Is it okay to just repeat a lie like that for rhetorical purposes?
EVs get cleaner as the grid does, there is no need to wait. EVs are already at least on par with the cleanest ICE cars on every mix of energy generation in the US and only getting better as coal plants shut down and the grid shifts to renewable. Waiting is letting perfect be the enemy of good. No one is suggesting switching to EVs is a solution to climate change. Cleaning up the grid and electrifying everything is a solution, of which EVs are a part.
Used EV batteries command a serious premium for all sorts of re-use. Recycling of the raw materials will be economically valuable once batteries are no longer useful for even stationary grid storage
As others have pointed out, when the power is off gas pumps don't work either. If you're concerned about evac practice good charging hygiene the same way you would store potable water and food. Plug in each day and the battery will always have tons of range.