Exactly. GM showed with a Volt that a PHEV could be effectively a BEV 90% of the time and perform excellently even when falling back into ICE mode, but the Prime came out after the Volt and its drivetrain is inferior in every way to it. I understand the Prime is roomier and so on, but in terms of drivetrain it's woefully inferior.

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.

My ideal vehicle would be a Volt made by Toyota. I have several mechanic friends and all have warned me against buying any GM vehicle, especially one with as complex a drive system as a Volt.

The drivetrain in the Volt is exceedingly reliable. Like, 0 problems for most people. There's almost no maintenance required.

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.

My impression is that GM had trouble making the Voltec drive train work in larger cars. The Volt is a low-slung, very aerodynamic car. As soon as you turn that into a crossover (as they were rumored to be doing) or a small SUV, both range and gas mileage are going to suffer.

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.

I assume US drivers drives more miles than drivers in other country. Possibly such PHEV is mainly designed for outside US.

To be fair Toyota announced their new lineup of BEVs just last month, to be released next year. Toyota is late to the party, but they are on their way.

To be fairer, they were very early to the party too.

They bet on electric, very early in the game and more than one kind too!

That’s what’s so frustrating! They had the technology and the scale to go nearly all-in on battery electric about 2 decades ago (maybe with gas backup in the early days) but they squandered it.

Toyota bet on Electric and Hydrogen, then proceeded to double-down on hydrogen. Then never really went all-in on electric and this sadly lost them their early lead.

Toyota still bets solid state battery, but I with they bets current li-ion more

> Their only one, the Prius Prime, is more expensive than its competitors and offers less than half their range. What's the point of getting a PHEV if I still spend half my commute running on gasoline?

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.)

It’s about half of what you’d need to comfortably go without gas the vast, vast majority of time. The Chevy Volt has about the right plug in electric range (50 miles) for a future where we have to basically synthesize all fuels.

Exactly. It's a future proof car. If gas gets much more expensive you're ok. If the battery ages and dies you're still ok.

This year they introduced the RAV4 prime, with 48 miles electric.

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.

RAV4 prime is woefully underproduced. Wait times of 2 years, and it'll be almost impossible to get in areas outside of coastal US. Sounds like they haven't nailed down the battery supply chain for it.

But can that 48 miles be exclusively electric or does it fall back to turning on the ICE every time you punch the accelerator? This is my grief of every PHEV I've tried other than the Volt; they cannot be driven as a true EV even when the battery is full because they use the ICE for performance boost, etc. The Volt runs better without the ICE.

I have the Prius prime, it gets a little over 25 mi EV-only and the only time it needs to burn gasoline is if you turn on the windshield defroster because the heat pump can only do so much I guess.

But the performance feels much sportier in EV mode and it has no trouble pulling up to 80mph without any ICE

25mi EV only is like an electric scooter range.

I live in a small town so the only time I drive more than 25 mi in a day is when I'm driving 200+ miles, and then I'm glad it takes gasoline. But yes, 50 mi would be better, but they already took the spare tire out to make room for battery as is (out of curiosity I googled it and wow, Tesla's don't have a spare either. That's probably my least favorite thing, I had to get towed my first week in the car because of the wimpy high-efficiency tires.)

Yes it is, very much so. You need to know your needs well to maximize your purchase, but for us it was cheaper than a Leaf to buy and it works exquisitely. I only hoped Toyota had never bet on Hydrogen for everyone, and ended up with zero-emissions in the hands of no one.

48 miles is probably good enough for 95%+ of people. Also worth noting that that’s higher than any other PHEV in its class (SUV).

The rav4 Prime is sufficient at nearly 50 miles of electric range, but it sucks that it took 2 decades to get there when even GM had the technology basically perfected a decade ago with the Volt.

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.

> GM had the technology basically perfected a decade ago with the Volt.

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.

I have a Volt and it's awesome. It's a hatchback with lots of cargo space (5 seats in the Gen 2 Volt, too). Don't know that you mean about "limited utility." The Volt powertrain would've worked fine in a crossover vehicle like the Rav4 with only a small scale-up.

> I have a Volt and it's awesome. It's a hatchback with lots of cargo space

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.

Depends on where they're located. Outside America, subcompact cars are still the norm unless you need the utility of something large for your immediate family/job. Only got 2 kids? Subcompact.

> Outside America, subcompact cars are still the norm unless you need the utility of something large for your immediate family/job.

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.

It may be good but no one (in America) wants 48 miles. People complain about the range on current EV’s during winter. A nice round number like 100 has a much better chance of appealing to consumers.

Right but the advantage of a PHEV is that it can switch to using its ICE. With a full tank you should have a range of 1000km+.

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.

Bonus from ICE is that it generates massive waste heats, so the heat can be used for heater in winter.

If it's going to take 10 years to reach 50% BEV sales, why not focus on PHEV's first. 10x smaller battery still covers 80% of uses.

Or perhaps we are past that point already - I have no idea how that upgrade math checks out...

More expensive and substantially less specs on paper is pretty par for the course for Toyota. But motorcycles only really work when the weather is good and people buy those too. People rationalize these purchases in other ways.

3 major problems none of the EV evangelists are addressing about with EVs are

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.

3) 36% of global grid power comes from coal down from 41% in 2013. It’s expected to hit 22% by 2040.

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.

My physisicist friends did the sums (for professional reasons). Electric vehicles produce less CO2 even if the electricity comes from dirty sources.

there are published papers stating exactly this; one of the first google hits i've got states 54% in a realistic comparison. if they're 2x off the mark it's still a worst-case break even.

https://www.avere.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/englisch_St...

> 3 major problems none of the EV evangelists are addressing about with EVs are

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?

For #2, I'm not so sure the situation is strictly worse than with gas. I lived in NYC during Hurricane Sandy, and it took many days for gasoline to become available (a few weeks, IIRC). Electricity was plentiful, though.

Did you evacuate? Where to?

>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)?

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?

> 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.

1. They will be recycled.

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.

For #2, I think it might be valid for areas which experience hurricanes or other natural disasters.

Though, couldn't you charge your car with a gas generator in an emergency if you really needed to?

Good point! You could carry the gas generator with you when you leave. Maybe some EVs would let you plug in while driving! You'd just have to redirect the generator exhaust out the back via some sort tail-pipe...

Yep, I'm sure you can jerry-rig something. Afterwards, when the emergency has passed and you are back to your boring life, you can then put the generator back in the garage instead of bringing it everywhere you go.

And for 3, it's not all or nothing - it can happen incrementally. I fully charge my Tesla using the panels on my roof, no hydrocarbons were ever involved.

More answers to add to the others already given...

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.

> deploy EVs too early

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.

> Coal burning infrastructure is still inextricably involved in generating the power to charge these vehicles

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