It's as if everyone if forgetting that tonnes of people live in houses without designated parking. I have friends who'd love a fully electric vehicle but they live in a terraced house without a driveway so there is just no way to charge it. But a hybrid that achieves good fuel economy without needing to be plugged in makes a lot of sense instead.

Er.

About 7 years ago, EV charging points essentially did not exist.

Right now we have rapid chargers that allow you to drive across Western Europe with 30 minute stops.

In about another 7 years the chargers will be a complete non issue. Certainly in a place like the UK that has very few real "rural" areas.

It may be the case that for that short period it made sense to produce hybrids. We'll still look back on it as a transition period.

I think there is a massive difference between long-range commute and just living in a city and needing a place to charge. Yes, if I wanted to drive down from Newcastle to London, or hop on the ferry to Amsterdam and drive down to Berlin, absolutely no problem - there is enough charging points along motorways that you will get pretty much anywhere without any issues.

But if you live in Newcastle, say in Jesmond, fancy terraced house with no private parking space - where are you going to charge your car? In one of the 2 public spaces that are nearby? Drive few miles out to a quick charger near the motorway? At one of the public car parks where the charging time is limited? Like, I can't see any way to do that that wouldn't be a massive inconvenience every few days.

I'm not sure why you seem to be basing this on the current layout of chargers.

Right now it might be inconvenient, sure. Owning a Tesla was a few years back before superchargers existed.

I've moved out now but I didn't find it an issue to charge in London in a suburban apartment, and I deliberately went out of my way to only ever use free chargers. If I'd used the pay ones it really would have been trivial.

If Newcastle doesn't have that now, it will soon.

One of the reasons I love the Volt so much is that it still drops much of the complexity of ICE cars, since the drivetrain is fully electric. It's basically just a low-range EV with a backup gas generator bolted on.

Uhh...no: http://gmauthority.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Volte...

Source: http://gmauthority.com/blog/2015/02/secrets-of-the-2016-chev...

Under normal load and conditions the Volts are both primarily serial hybrids. There are only a few specialized situations where they include the direct engine connection to optimize output.

Is that the same for 2011-2014 series? I have a Gen 1, I believe they changed things for Gen 2 (2015+).

Not necessarily. There's the added complexity of having an additional electric powertrain, but many this enables many hybrids to concurrently remove the transmission that a conventional ICE car would have.

Prii didn't get their reputation for reliability by being unnecessarily complicated. Of course EVs are obviously simpler, but I'm not sure I'd say a Prius is more complicated than many ICE vehicles of today. Twin turbos and 10 speed autos aren't something exotic anymore -- those are available on the base trim of the F150.

Cars like the Volt are most certainly not more complicated than ICE cars …

You can simplify those cars significantly due to them being an hybrid.

I'm only moderately familiar with this topic (mostly from following racing, where many major series have integrated hybrid powertrains), but this doesn't seem accurate to me. All the hybrid vehicles have to develop and integrate an ICE in addition to the hybrid system, not instead. I don't see where the simplicity gains you refer to would come from.

Again, I'm not very knowledgeable here, I just have intuition to go on and familiarity with the fact hybrids are definitely viewed as more complex to develop and race, in motorsports. I'd love to be more informed if I'm missing some major factors

The Volt has a 1.4L ICE engine, three clutches, two electric motors (of two different types--ferrite and neodymium), a large battery, a wall charger, an inverter, and a complicated mechanical transmission that accepts drive input from any motor. The Volt may be more efficient than an ICE car, but it is in no way simpler.

The Volt may not be simpler (Not saying it isn’t, but many of the parts you listed are in regular ICE cars, just in different proportions) — but that’s not inherently because it’s a hybrid.

Look at Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive. It is rather beautiful in its simplicity, and bypasses the need for a traditional automatic transmission — a part so complicated the big auto makers have mostly given up on designing in-house. Toyota’s HSD scales from the tiny Prius to Hylander, something a CVT can’t do reliably.

Hondas’s hybrids are also mechanically simpler by bypassing a transmission as well, and the ICE motor driving the wheels directly at highway speeds.

Failing transmissions are often the cause of a totaled older car, because it is an extremely complex and expensive part to replace.

In practice the added complexity of hybrids does not make them less reliable than ICE vehicles. They spend of lot of time on EV mode. Plugin hybrid only use the gasoline engine rarely. When the gas engine does run, it does so at an optimized pace that doesn’t stress the engine as much.