I'm extremely skeptical of any claim that hybrids are better for the environment than EVs in aggregate, but for specific use cases over certain timeframes the difference may be small.
On the one hand, volume versus weight an ICE engine is generally "lighter" than if that equivalent space were tightly packed with battery cells.
But on the other hand a car is not going to tightly pack the equivalent volume, most modern EV designs are a "skateboard" layout with all the batteries on the floor of the car. The front hood of the car is typically at that point unused space and many modern electrics place there now a "frunk" ("front trunk" or "froot"/"front boot" if you prefer Britishisms) for "bonus" cargo space.
From that perspective, a hybrid has "free" space for a gas generator by taking "back" the frunk space, but they have to shrink the battery because of the added weight of the gas generator. (The skateboard has the physical space either way, it shrinks to keep the overall car weight below an aerodynamic threshold, not to yield space for the gas generator.)
For many people that initial price difference is high enough that buying a BEV instead of HEV makes totally no economical sense - so likely the lower emissions from usage are not going to offset higher emissions on production, for the whole lifetime of a car.
The BEV economics work only if you drive really a lot on long distances, but that's unfortunately the area where BEVs lose to HEVs on convenience.
If you count in all the related emissions, hybrids seems to be the greenest cars you can get now:
What am I missing?
But this ranking doesn't include the other factors like price tag or convenience (range, time to refuel). If you additionally count these factors in, it turns out hybrids are the fastest way to get emissions down by bringing environmental friendly cars to the masses. They are a solution that exists today, and they are a plug-in replacement for ICEs. I can see hybrid cars very frequently on the streets, but fully electric cars not so much - so the effects on lowering emissions is bigger for HEVs than for BEVs. And you don't need to donate them to convince people to buy.
Also a lot depends on where you get electricity to charge the BEV from. In theory you can charge only from renewable energy sources, but in many areas you still burn fossil fuels, and in these areas hybrids are way more ecofriendly:
https://www.climatecentral.org/news/a-roadmap-to-climate-fri...
Now, maybe (though nowhere on your site does it even remotely suggest "way more") -- but one difference is that as the grid greens, EVs become more and more ecofriendly every year. As ICE engine age, they become less and less ecofriendly every year. The site you cite mentions this too, and probably underestimates how quickly the grid will green, and how quickly batteries will require less energy to create, and how much of that initial input energy can be recovered in recycling.
> I can see hybrid cars very frequently on the streets, but fully electric cars not so much
I see more Teslas than Priuses in the SF Bay these days. I expect other areas will catch up.
This logic is plain silly. You're not simultaneously on the gas and the brakes at the same time. The weight of the batteries and electric motors pales in comparison to the whole vehicle.
Car safety is much much better now than they were 5+ years ago however so it is not unreasonable for someone to change cars that often. I'd certainly not want to be in a 10yr old car in a highway accident if I could help it.
(Also, some newer cars are just nicer to drive with creature comforts people care about)
Any cite for this? It's not totally implausible to me, at least given current power generation.
While perhaps not typical, the compromise can be a massive improvement.
Having said all of the above - even according to Volvo's own stats, something absolutely stupid like 60% of all buyers never ever plug these in, it's just a tax dodge scam for a lot of people. But if you are one of the people who do, it works fantastically well.
Well, I'd love to believe this, but the matter of fact is that the tax structure around hybrids is completely messed up here in UK.
When I got my Volvo, basically as a company car you could either get the highest non-hybrid model, the T6, with about 300bhp and pay like 30% tax on it every year, or get the T8 hybrid, with 400bhp, and pay zero tax on it every year. And of course the government never checks whether you actually ever plug your hybrid in or not, so if you never do it's actually much worse for economy and emissions than the T6 which is much more to tax. It's insanity.
I wouldn't be surprised if the rated fuel efficiency decreased and emissions rose for plug-in hybrids in light of data showing relatively little usage of the battery.
The issue with standardised tests for this stuff is that it really depends on individual usage. We should be punishing polutting usage of the car, not what the "average" it can do, since it's meaningless.
You are describing the Chevy Volt (hybrid).
And GM quit making them because the Bolt (all electric) is so much cheaper to produce. Consumer convenience or emissions is irrelevant.
Hybrids are, unfortunately, a dead end because everybody is assuming that they are going to get swept away by all-electric once the infrastructure is in place. They're right--but everybody is assuming that will take 10 years when in reality it will take more like 25.
...they couldn't compete with the offerings, including plug-ins, from firms with established track records in the hybrid space; especially Toyota.
Which, taking a step back, if franky ridiculous.
Why not use a battery and the planet-wide instant power delivery system we built and are using for most of everything else?
Imagine we were operating with 100% EVs today, would people be advocating for adding in gasoline tech as hybrids?
It is obviously ridiculously over the top, but I think it paints interesting analogy.
I feel like the population that both drives very long distances regularly and is willing to spend a large chunk of money of make the trip a little faster is pretty small. Plus it would be pretty hard to find gas stations if most people drove EVs.
If you don't have a long range battery, you might have to stop every 60-80 minutes of driving to charge. That will get annoying pretty quickly, especially since it's not like a smaller battery takes all that much less time to charge.
So I would expect the long range battery market to be quite big, and a range extender would have a good chance at grabbing many of those users.
Even if gas stations are somewhat uncommon, you'd only need to find one every 200-300 miles, and the worst case scenario is just that you go back to pure electric mode. You could also fill up a 5 gallon can for another huge chunk of extender range.
A single tank could save you an hour of waiting to charge.
To get "gas ranger extender" you still need oil drills, tankers, pipelines, refineries, tanker trucks, gas stations.
Without gas cars, we can retire all that infrastructure.
Well, we can obviously reduce it if we reduce gasoline consumption from the status quo (true with moving to hybrids, especially plugins using gas mostly for range extension), but since its not used exclusively for autos, we can't retire it even if we replace all autos and do nothing else.
BMW charged $4,000 for the Range Extender option in the i3, at that price, the manufacturer may as well just put in a bigger battery.
The range extender only adds around 70 miles of range:
current 2018 EPA estimates ding the more powerful i3s from 114 to 107 miles. BMW hasn’t cited an estimate for the REX model, which currently stands at 180 miles with the help of a 647-cc twin-cylinder engine.
They could put in a more powerful motor than that small scooter motor, but then that costs and weighs more, and then the car becomes a plug-in hybrid rather than a battery electric car with range extender.
And there seems to be low demand for plug-in hybrids as there aren't many options.
When I bought my Honda Accord Hybrid, I looked at the Clarity plug-in hybrid but decided against it. It didn't drive as nice as the Accord, cost nearly $5000 more, plus I was doing some regular long distance travel at the time, the accord has a ~500 mile range, the clarity has a ~340 gas+electric range, though the plug-in range would cover my commute.
And the Clarity was rated 40mpg highway, while I get around 50mpg @ 60-65mph with the Accord Hybrid (drops down to 44mpg at 70-75mph)
It's funny how HN'ers will fight to the death arguing for swappable batteries in cell phones, where they offer vanishingly few benefits, and against swappable batteries in motor vehicles, where they could potentially make all the difference in the world.
Nobody with a new battery is going to want to swap it out for a old, potentially degraded battery. But everyone with an old battery would be happy to try to swap their way into a new battery.
Instead, I think you'd need a model where the battery isn't included in the price of the car, and you have a monthly subscription to rent a battery from either the dealer or a third-party. That way you aren't attached to the specific battery you're using, and the subscription fees go towards replacing old batteries as needed. The subscription would either be a base fee + price per replacement, or a base fee for rental + unlimited replacements.
Great, this old schtick again. News flash: nobody cares whether or not they own their car battery. With modern BMS systems, you would basically pay by the coulomb.
But yeah, I think this particular ship has sailed, at least for the near-term future. Huge missed opportunity. Refueling an EV should be as quick and easy as swapping out a BBQ propane cylinder -- which is also something you don't care if you own or not -- at your local convenience store.
Perhaps in the future, total swap automation and inexpensive battery restoration or transport will reduce the risk of building the network and EV sales will finally become viable for the small minority who don’t want to take periodic breaks during the occasional long trip.
As far as “no range anxiety” people in that world would just be making similar arguments, “what if there’s no nearby gas station”, “what if it’s out of gas”, “I can’t just plug-in anywhere” etc.
Today with EVs and modern battery tech that isn’t true.
Then swap out gasoline for diesel. If nothing else, I can get vegetable oil at the grocery store at a price that isn't too bad.
> As far as “no range anxiety” people in that world would just be making similar arguments, “what if there’s no nearby gas station”, “what if it’s out of gas”, “I can’t just plug-in anywhere” etc.
That's not how (plug-in, and surely these would be plug-in) hybrids work...
Somebody will find something to do with the unused byproduct gasoline. I consider filling up my car to be a noble use instead of just burning it.
That is not true. Hybrids can be greener than an full EV. To make EVs palatable, automakers realized they need to use huge batteries with 400+ miles of range. But the average daily commute is much much less than that.
The result of which is that you waste a lot of money and CO2 emissions to produce a battery that is 3x too big.
A hybrid with a range extender and 1/3 of the battery, can better accommodate the needs of daily commuters while actually being cleaner than an EV since the CO2 emissions from EV manufacturing is almost entirely due to the battery and it takes years (two to three depending on your commute) to offset those emission even against a new ICE car.