This has been done a million times over.

PHEVs are a VERY practical and pragmatic solution using the technology available to the mass market at affordable prices today.

Most people I've seen who take this line appear to be the kind that if they own or drive an EV also own or have access to an ICE vehicle. PHEVs can be an all-in-one solution. One car is (usually) better than two, so that's a double benefit.

Several former BEV owners now drive PHEVs or range extended EVs, because BEVs just don't work for them "in the real world". Is this a retrograde step, or evidence that PHEVs and range extended EVs do in fact offer a great solution for today's situation. I'd say the latter.

Further more Speak EV is for plugin car drivers and owners of all types, so I welcome PHEV owners with open arms. It's a transition, a practical answer, and usually very good all-round vehicles for what people want.

I can also very much see a plugin hybrid in our families future after years of single-BEV only, but it depends how our situation and the market shapes up.

If you want to save the world, ditch your car and take a bike and public transport.

 

It would appear from the new OLEV bands they consider PHEVS to be the best solution as they are a stepping stone and they allow the existing technology to maintain its hold:

• Category 1: CO2 emissions of less than 50g/km and a zero emission range of at least 70 miles
• Category 2: CO2 emissions of less than 50g/km and a zero emission range between 10 and 69 miles
• Category 3: CO2 emissions of 50-75g/km and a zero emission range of at least 20 miles.

Many of the new PHEV willl fall in to Category 2, surely there could have been up to 5 bands with 1 being for zero emission and 2 being for true range extenders (electric range of at least 50 miles NEDC) if there really is a will from above for lower emissions.

 

It's not PHEVs that are bad for the environment, it's people. If you REALLY want to save the world, eliminate one consumer.

As Paul says some early adopters like me have gone from hybrid to pure BEV and then been forced back to semi-hybrid (i3 + Rex) as the only practical solution for our situation (barring the final solution above!)

Public transport out in the countryside where we live often consists of a single seater bus carrying either zero or one passenger. Far worse for the environment than even an ICE car.

 

These hybrids can allow us to think we are too busy and too important to stop for charging, but at the same time if we want to stop for a charge then we are saving polar bears.

It's funny that you mention polar bears - I ran one over the other day on the way to work. I was trying to fill in my self-assessment tax return form at the time & I dropped my pen in the foot well... I leaned down to pick it up and felt a thump.

I'm still not sure what a polar bear was doing on the M4 at half five in the morning.

 

Probably one of those damn immigrant bears that cause all the traffic

It's funny that you mention polar bears - I ran one over the other day on the way to work. I was trying to fill in my self-assessment tax return form at the time & I dropped my pen in the foot well... I leaned down to pick it up and felt a thump.

I'm still not sure what a polar bear was doing on the M4 at half five in the morning.

 

Of course, some people will argue that a PHEV is an interim step and that their uptake might be a stepping stone to a real EV.

I would certainly take this position. It's my own. I just took delivery of the hated Outlander as a replacement for my 11 year old diesel Mondeo. I considered pure EVs for about 3.5 minutes and then discarded the option at this stage for a number of reasons. Going with a PHEV moves me away from a pure ICE care and pushes me to get the home infrastructure installed to get charging between uses a reality for the future. My next car, this one is on a three year lease, may well be a pure EV but it will depend on what's around in 2018.

 

I considered pure EVs for about 3.5 minutes

...which is about the same time it takes to drain the Outlander battery pack at 40mph


(Just to clarify, this post is purely tongue-in-cheek).

 

Simple price will in the end dictate. Even a simple REX ends up costing more than a BEV, A few more years of development will probably make that gap wider.

 

Where's @donald when we need him?

 

Although I bet that a lot of people kept their horse when they bought a Model T.

That's more or less what we did, so our PHEV sits on the drive in two parts, e-Golf and A2...

 

So it is a step in the right direction then?

I think being "early adopters", people forget that all the steps required will be over 10-20 years as attitudes change and technology improves.

It seems logical that combining ICE and EV in one car will give you all the advantages and also all the disadvantages of both. It is down to individual use patterns as to how much of the advantages are utilised.

 

Our Leaf is great but due to my wife doing a course some distance from home we still need an Ice. I'm considering a PHEV to replace it as for the rest of the time 30 mile range would be fine. Sometimes life doesn't fit into convenient slots if it does great enjoy it before the curve ball comes along.
Granted a BEV will suit more people than most will except but you can't blame anyone for being uncertain about them after all they are a giant leap into the unknown.

 

Although having your PHEV as one car has the virtue of space efficiency, we have found that having two cars does have occasional advantages when spouse requirements diverge, as the ICE and EV modules can be going in different directions at the same time!

 

I wouldn't personally but a PHEV, but that's because we also a ICE/hybrid that can do 65-70 mpg with a tank range of over 700 miles.

For most 'normal' people though the 'range' issue of BEV is some thing they just cannot get their head around. Even if used as a second car, people have been brought up on the rutile of going to petrol stations, and upuntill the last few years the only BEV people could relate to was/is milk floats.

Even my wife still have doubt about using the Leaf for her daily commute despite it been a journey of only 7 miles. Its now, only after 2 months into our BEV ownership period she is agreeing to take the Leaf out by her self with the car displaying less than 70 mile range.

Even for my self, I knew about the Leaf and Tesla for years. But it wasn't until we got a ICE/Hybrid that could do 5 miles in EV mode did I think my self...Hold on, this EV driving isn't half bad

I hope most PHEV come to enjoy the EV part of the equation more than the ICE part, and from there will look to move onto a full BEV car....Given the magical sub £30k 200 mile range BEV still isn't on the market yet, the timing might be prefect, as by 2017 the early(ish) PHEV drivers will be looking to chance and by than hopefully full BEV with enough range and low enough cost will be around

 

, member: 2143"Given the magical sub £30k 200 mile range BEV still isn't on the market yet, the timing might be prefect, as by 2017 the early(ish) PHEV drivers will be looking to chance and by than hopefully full BEV with enough range and low enough cost will be around

I don't think it really matters if a REV will do 200 miles or not, the argument will just be the same. At the moment a REV is only financially viable if you do a lot of miles and yet most people buying one seem to only do short journeys. Other people are put off buying because it only does 124 miles (I wish!) and yet they almost never drive that far in one go. I would suggest that a substantial majority of those put off by the 124 mile range have another car anyway, which they could use on those rare days they go that far. So really it isn't about reality, in which case a fantasy 200 mile range isn't any different to a fantasy 124 mile range. Those of us who could really use a REV capable of 200 miles (or even 124!) are cranks who already have an EV and understand what the extra range will do for us.

 

Some very bad points here, but I grant you, all very well made!!

Can we PLEASE BAN the expression 'saving the world'. I realise that there is an element of 'tongue in cheek' but it is said so often there is a larger contingent that actually believe reducing lifetime CO2 emissions by 30% will do just that!

The world doesn't need 'saving'. Humans need saving. The world will be here long after our civilisations have crumbled and we're back to being forest dwellers.

I could go on about that point, but not today as there is juicier meat here to throw my usual scorn on ....

Firstly, the argument that BEVs are in some way less polluting and demand fewer resources than PHEVs is misconstrued and not evidenced. That may or may not be the case in some or other particular set of circumstances. However, there is nothing 'given' about that and the refereed material in the mainstream today does not show this to be true. The optimum in through-life resources and emissions, certainly at the moment, appears to be a PHEV that delivers just, or just under, a person's typical daily minimum requirement. Let's call that a battery:engine ratio of 1;1. As battery manufacture cleans up and demands fewer resources, that will change and go up to a 2:1 ratio, then 3:1, etc. so that once battery manufacture is cleaner than puppy farts then a full BEV makes sense. But right now, 1:1 works. The original OP does not seem to be accounting for the relative issues of replacing battery kWh with liquid fuel generated kWh, in which there are both pros and cons.

Secondly, there is a hint in my last phrase - ICE need not run on fossil fuels. As the demand comes down with a PHEV you can use other stuff, possibly more expensively made but something that demands fewer resources and makes cleaner emissions. With so little of it needed for daily purposes, the cost becomes less important.

Thirdly, it really doesn't make much difference. Really, it doesn't. When folks start invoking the 'saving the planet' argument, we have to look at this from a different perspective: If we reduce all our consumption and emissions by 50% maybe it means mankind will die out as a technological civilised species in 10,000 years instead of 5,000 years. So what. One way or the other, we are on a trajectory of self-destruction, and we can aim to slow this down by such technologies, or not, but it's not going to make big differences. Picking the best possibly imagined BEV passenger cars over the best possibly imagined PHEV passenger cars is really going to have no measurable effect on the longevity of us as a species on this planet.

If we are not clever and bright enough to make nuclear energy work, cleanly and safely without turning the product into bombs, then really, we have no future, nor do we deserve one!

 

Can we PLEASE BAN the expression 'saving the world'.

Tony Stark, Iron Man, owns a Tesla Roaster. So no.

 

I think the residual will start to improve over time, motoring journalists said the same when the Prius first came out.
As for the Outlander IMO any 4x4 is unnecessarily oversized but people want them and if I am correct I think they have a better MPG figure in hybrid mode than most diesel 4x4's.

 

I am correct I think they have a better MPG figure in hybrid mode than most diesel 4x4's.

As long as you aren't doing mega miles, if your doing long trips then diesel is better. But for trips around local customer sites no more that 30miles roundtrip its definitely heaps and bounds better than the diesel.

 

Can we please not get too preoccupied by payback times and economic viability? We all know that these are primarily lies we tell ourselves (or our spouses or accountants) when we feel it necessary to find some post-rationalisation for what is mainly an emotional decision. I'll bet most of us here value our cars above all either for the experience of driving them, or the intellectual fascination we get from their technology.

To quote Wilde, "A cynic is a man who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing".

(Of course after that, he said "And a sentimentalist... is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”)

 

I have a Freelander 1 which is currently for sale. The tax is almost £500 per year, it averages 25mpg approx around London. I'm doing about 12-15,000 miles a year.
I bought my Leaf at 1 year old and 12,000 miles. It makes economic sense for me. Insurance is also about half the Freelander.

 

You might want to work on your sales patter or perhaps try a different forum

I have a Freelander 1 which is currently for sale. The tax is almost £500 per year, it averages 25 MPG. Insurance is also about half the Freelander.

 

Can we at least agree that when running in EV mode we can all breath a lot better. Given that it's been proven that the air quality inside a car is worse than outside even car drivers should appeciate EV's.
Although maybe not as a friend of mine suffers from asthma but still thought it funny to emerse the car behind in soot from his diesel. He never got the irony.

 

Doesn't drive the (non EV) buses of Milton Keynes does he?! They're disgusting when not broken down or on fire.

 

PHEVs are very bad for the environment
No, CARs are very bad for the environment. Whether you drive a BEV, PHEV or ICE doesn't, IMHO, make a huge amount of difference. But a PHEV is significantly better than an ICE, if you look at whole life costs. I think we've seen from the data from the states that Volt drivers do more electric miles than Leaf drivers, albeit not in percentage terms of course .
We came from a diesel S-max. We have three kids. We bought an Outlander as no other PHEV (or BEV)would work for us. My wife often drives back (reasonably long distance) by herself late at night - she really didn't want to risk having to stop at a service station late at night, only to find that it wasn't working, so we had to go PHEV.
Most other people round us run two cars, even though we have good public transport not that far away (about a mile to a train station with a good service to Glasgow). We run one car and I cycle to work unless we're travelling together.
When we come to replace the Outlander, in about 2020, hopefully there will be more choices out there and the infrastructure will be better, and we can go BEV!

 

No, CARs are very bad for the environment. Whether you drive a BEV, PHEV or ICE doesn't, IMHO, make a huge amount of difference.

I'm sorry, but I read trite like this as leftist mediaevalist ideology.

What can you possibly mean? We, us, our technological civilisation is 'BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT'. It always will be. But it makes no sense for us NOT to be this way.

What? Should we just give up on anything man made and head back into the forests right now? Better not chop down any trees for agriculture because that would be BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. You can't deny it, each tree is going to put some squirrel and several bird families out of a nice home at the very least. So that means we have to be hunter gatherers. But better not kill too many animals, that would be BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, but seeing as we no longer have tools, because the manufacture of metal products would be BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, I guess we might use flint, or maybe quarrying flint is also BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.

But no worries, because if we can't perform agriculture then a northern climate country like Britain where hunter gathering is basically impossible in winter time means without being able to store grain and other preservable crops then it won't be possible to live here anyway.

...Let's get this straight. LIFE is bad for the environment, but that makes no sense because what's the environment there for if not to be lived in?

The ONLY proper objective we can have is to minimise our impact when there are alternatives by which we can do so. This will extend our civilisation and time on the planet, but that is all.

The problem is nothing to do with resources and what we make, buy and use. It is because there are too many people chasing limited resources and space. Simple as.

 

.

Cannot agree with you, better than any diesel.

 

Ah, I could see you were a reasonable chap worth debating with!!

Incidentally, FWIW, I did do some calculations with a guy who was an avid cyclist, and we figured out that my Fluence emitted less CO2/km, based on electricity from the UK mix, than he would have done had he eaten lamb-meat as a food source (lamb has the biggest CO2 footprint).

The lowest footprint food was lentils, but we struggled to decide if the volume of the inevitable CH4 outputs (multiplied by the greenhouse multiplier for methane!) made much of a difference in the end!

 

lamb has the biggest CO2 footprint

But such cute little feet. Who'd have thunk it.

 

Put like that, I can only agree!

 

People! If you're going to have a big debate on a Friday can you at least give me fair warning so that I can take my laptop home.

Reading all these points, counter arguments and statistics is really difficult on the tiny screen of my phone, especially since i need glasses to read small print and avoid getting a headache.

Oh, and one other thing - to save digital bits, (and to promote reduce-reuse-recycle) if you are re-stating a previously published position please link to your original post rather than retyping it. If we all did this, think of all the digitals bits and energy we would save.

Now comes the most important bit of my post:

 

What is it with this 'one size must fit all' - 'PHEVs are bad' argument? I enjoy reading these forums but the tiresome PHEV bashing is wearing thin.

I live with my wife, three kids and a dog. We live in a small house with no off-road parking - this is the price we pay to be able to walk to our jobs and to the kid's schools - that is far more sustainable than any EV commute or school run.

We still need a car though, like presumably everyone else on here. But it needs to serve for those shorter trips to friends/family, shopping etc as well as to take me to meetings on remote sites (sometimes a little off the beaten track) and to take us only longer trips, like on to the continent for a holiday, loaded with the nonsense that three kids bring - maybe even towing something.

The PHEV is almost perfect for our profile. I've discovered I love EV driving and charge on longer journeys whenever I can, to get more of the fix. I've been able to install a charge point at the office to get a regular feed of juice - but it is not as practical as a home connection.

While I'd love it to, could any of BEVs on the market really work for us? Certainly not as our sole vehicle and not really while we live where we do.

Yet despite this entirely rational choice - that has introduced me to the joys of EV and resulted in 100s of emmission free miles a month - I come on here read posts and feel like some tax dodging, gas guzzling villain! It also makes me feel guilty when using public charging - in case some more worthy BEV driver should come along. Maybe I'm not the only one. Maybe that is why we see other PHEVs parked in service station car parks, just metres from two empty rapid charge points.

I'd dearly love to have a massive south facing roof to cover in PV and a driveway to park a BEV on to charge from my 80kwhs of tesla batteries in the garage and be as self righteous as some of the PHEV bashers on here - but I'm just not that lucky (yet!). Peoples circumstances are sometimes different - dont assume and don't generalise!

Rant over. Sorry - at least it's off my chest!

 

What is it with this 'one size must fit all' - 'PHEVs are bad' argument? I enjoy reading these forums but the tiresome PHEV bashing is wearing thin.
... shipped for brevity...
Yet despite this entirely rational choice - that has introduced me to the joys of EV and resulted in 100s of emmission free miles a month - I come on here read posts and feel like some tax dodging, gas guzzling villain! It also makes me feel guilty when using public charging - in case some more worthy BEV driver should come along. Maybe I'm not the only one. Maybe that is why we see other PHEVs parked in service station car parks, just metres from two empty rapid charge points.

I'd dearly love to have a massive south facing roof to cover in PV and a driveway to park a BEV on to charge from my 80kwhs of tesla batteries in the garage and be as self righteous as some of the PHEV bashers on here - but I'm just not that lucky (yet!). Peoples circumstances are sometimes different - dont assume and don't generalise!

Rant over. Sorry - at least it's off my chest!

Well said @carima and I couldn't agree more. +1million. Please be reassured that there is plenty of support for PHEV owners on this forum and don't be put off by a very vocal minority of PHEV-bashers, many of whom are clearly suffering from Compulsive Disagreement Disorder ... a very unpleasant syndrome for which there is currently no known treatment and which unfortunately seems to be exacerbated by driving a BEV!

 

I still do not recall any direct 'bashing' of PHEVs. If you could show me an example, maybe I can get my head around wht you mean.

What there is is many clarifications on the limitations of one type of car over another. If it is a factual post that unpicks the details to determine what is or is not a good solution to various scenarios, then there is nothing wrong with that. What I see is some thin-skinned attitudes to being protectionist about their own choice of vehicle.

So, if you have an example of PHEV 'bashing', maybe we could just clarify, if you wouldn't mind?

Sometimes we get a comment like the thread of this title, but if you look at the detail it is not actually a commentary on PHEVs it is looking at the way in which consumers choices are being biased.

 

I'm


I'm probably not going to trawl the forums looking for example posts - life is too short. But I cant be the only one who sees the posts implying that all PHEVs are bought for their BIK value - often said totally out of context to the thread, just as a dig.

What about the posts that say someone turned up at charge points to find it PHEV'd? Making claims that this type of charging is less justified. Often the worst is assumed of a PHEV driver, where in contrast the benefit of the doubt is seemingly (and quite correctly) given to all others.

All of these, and other posts, constitute 'bashing' in my mind, because they are based on generalisations and cause a negative undertone towards one group based on assumptions that everyone who drives one car, is the same. Which wouldn't be reasonable to any group.

 

The point to me is that BEVs are not good for the environment either, they generally take a longer time at chargers and offer both BIK and government incentives to owners.

You don't see many (any?) threads created by PHEV / REx / eREV owners pointing out or shouting about those things. But some BEV owners seem intent on raising the PHEV hangups several times over.

I wonder sometimes if it's just a case that BEV owners bought in to EVs with some idealistic view of why and how they and others will use plugin cars and this utopia is being trampled somehow by others who can "have their cake and eat it".