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A comment on Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to personal vehicles. Parent comment

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by loeg on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:03PM (#43839568)
PHEVs (hybrids with large battery packs) are the worst of both worlds -- weight penalty of a big EV pack, but the complexity/maintenance of an ICE engine. Additionally, rarely used gas can go bad sitting in the tank. Just get a regular hybrid if you're concerned about EV range or don't like the current limited offerings.
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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by slt2021 on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:39PM (#43839853)
PHEV fits the ideal use case of short commute to work every day on EV, and a weekend trip to national park/resort city 400 miles away.

but the downside is maintenance of ICE engine and transmission and all consumables

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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by loeg on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @10:32PM (#43840618)
> PHEV fits the ideal use case of short commute to work every day on EV, and a weekend trip to national park/resort city 400 miles away.

IMO, EVs fit this use case just fine. There are plenty of chargers; it's not a big deal.

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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by lmz on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:42PM (#43839876)
I thought those were programmed to run the engine once in a while regardless of necessity - to prevent the gas from going bad?
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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by saalweachter on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @09:13AM (#43844776)
Yes -- it's happened once or twice with my Chevy Volt. Full charge, and it pops up a dialogue and runs the engine for a mile.
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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by lern_too_spel on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @09:33PM (#43840253)
It's not as easy as more components = more expensive.

The battery pack is much smaller. A Prius PHEV is almost 500 lbs lighter than a Model 3 and only 100 lbs heavier than a normal hybrid Prius, which also has a battery pack. The MSRP is lower by almost $10k, which can cover a lot of maintenance before you resell it with less depreciation.

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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by loeg on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @10:33PM (#43840625)
> It's not as easy as more components = more expensive.

I never said "more expensive."

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Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by lern_too_spel on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @12:32PM (#43847573)
You said weight penalty and maintenance. Those things have a cost in time and money. It is less than for a comparable BEV.
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