This just confirms what I said above, if you drive them all electric it's great, they're an EV with a small battery. But if you can't and just charge occasionally the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are nowhere close to the official numbers, as evidenced by the studies I linked above. I see this struck a nerve with some people but the reality is that those are only best case and the people who meet them are the long tail of the numbers.
And that's the crux of the matter, most people buy hybrids because they can't charge at home. Those cars end up driving a lot on gas. If you can't conveniently charge at home or at work, waiting for 1.5-2h to charge for 40-50Km is far less appealing than 3 minutes for 500Km worth of gas. Place more chargers and make gas more expensive than electricity and the situation would probably change.
One specific German manufacturer featured in the studies I linked above sees most of the kilometers driven in their hybrids using the ICE, with a lot of that time the ICE inefficiently charging the battery, and almost cancelling out the fuel efficiency brought by the electrification. The number of people who see anything close to the officially estimated fuel consumption or CO2 emissions is vanishingly low. And the manufacturer knows it but they aren't ready with EVs, they have to meet new fleet regulations, and they wanted to benefit from the incentives the German government offers to manufacturers for any EV or PHEV.
Looking at a family member in this situation (the one who provided me with the statistics from the manufacturer), they drove ~2000Km in a brand new PHEV with ~11 liters + 9KWh per 100Km. The manufacturer suggests ~2 liters per 100Km. That's where most efficiency numbers revolve for that particular PHEV. It doesn't help that where they live in Germany charging the battery at a public charger even when assuming the full ~40Km range is 30% more expensive per Km than filling the tank but this is a local issue that's not generally applicable.
>>And that's the crux of the matter, most people buy hybrids because they can't charge at home.
Well, that bit I don't really believe. I'd love to see some data about it. If you're buying a plug in hybrid and don't have the plug-in part.....then what are you even doing. Like I said I understand that in UK the tax structure is beneficial regardless of whether you charge it or not. But yeah, if people buy PHEVs and then don't charge them then it's pointless. I just don't think that people buy them because they don't have somewhere to charge. I got a PHEV not full electric car because there wasn't a fully electric car in my price range of the size that I wanted, not because of the lack of charging space .
>>they drove ~2000Km in a brand new PHEV with ~11 liters + 9KWh per 100Km. The manufacturer suggests ~2 liters per 100Km
I drive a Volvo XC60 T8 and that's completely not what my stats are. My long term average over a year is 3L/100km. It really depends what kind of usage you want out of it - short journeys are done without burning any petrol whatsoever. But if you travel long distance frequently then it's simply the wrong drivetrain for you. I mean it's not a novel concept either - for decades we've been telling people that if you only drive in the city don't buy yourself a diesel, but if you drive long distance often don't buy a petrol. PHEVs are in a different category where they really really really work well if you're just commuting within the EV range but can also go further if you need to. The main problem of high usage when out of the battery range usually comes from the fact that most PHEVs use petrol motors and you're not going to see any good numbers from very heavy SUVs with a small-ish petrol engine. Mercedes has it right with the 300de drivetrain where you get about 50 miles of EV range and then a diesel engine after. Like, that just works well on both short and long journeys, but that's not what most PHEVs are like.
>> It doesn't help that where they live in Germany charging the battery at a public charger even when assuming the full ~40Km range is 30% more expensive per Km than filling the tank but this is a local issue that's not generally applicable
Well, exactly, charging at public stations can be incredibly expensive, in some cases it's literally cheaper to drive a good diesel car than an electric one if you're charging at public stations. Here in UK for instance Ionity charges £0.69 per kWh, while at home at night I pay £0.05 per kWh. The difference is insane.
> Well, that bit I don't really believe. I'd love to see some data about it
As you said in a comment below:
> According to Volvo's own data 60% of PHEV buyers never plug them in
You confirm what I said in my unpopular comment above, on paper PHEVs reduce emissions by a lot but in reality, as a fleet, the numbers are far worse than suggested. Many are company cars because the company wanted the tax cuts and subsidies, others just test the waters with this electric stuff. They don't go full BEV because they can't reliably charge. The UK is a great place to have an EV, with the most people living in (semi)detached houses in Europe [0] and cheap electricity. Most of the rest of Europe doesn't do so well at either point.
I can't show you data but I personally know it from a very reliable source who has access to this kind of (unpublished) data from one large German manufacturer. While their EV owners charge every day, less than 1 in 6 of the drivers who ever plug in their PHEV (~40-50Km of range in ideal conditions) do so at least once every 2 days, and only about 25% of Km are driven in EV mode. This average is pulled up by those very few who charge regularly (every 1-2 days). Some more kilometers are "electrified", EM gives a boost from standstill or under hard acceleration. And a huge percentage of PHEVs were never connected to a charger. Real life fuel consumption of the fleet is 4 times higher than the official numbers.
> I drive a Volvo XC60 T8 and that's completely not what my stats are. My long term average over a year is 3L/100km.
Yes but you have to admit that you're close to the ideal case, you charge every night and drive almost exclusively electric, and you still get 50% higher consumption that the official numbers. Doesn't this tell you anything about the reality of the whole fleet, and not just your particular situation? All numbers I find online for real life fuel consumption for an XC60 T8 points to an average of over 7l/100Km. For every PHEV that's almost always charged, there are a few PHEVs that are almost never charged. This doesn't lead to great overall fuel numbers. Perhaps better than pure-ICE but certainly nowhere close to the official numbers. If I had your car after 2 days of driving I'd run out of juice, have nowhere to charge conveniently, and just fill the tank.
Ok, I was asking specifically for data that shows that people buy hybrids because they don't have somewhere to charge(rather than, for instance, that they get a nice tax discount by doing so). In my other comment I pointed out that on my street there's someone else with a PHEV and I have never seen him charge it, even though he could easily do so - private driveway, plenty of space, if he wanted to then he could.
And while I agree with you in general, I think you obsess with the official numbers a little bit too much. In my previous mercedes AMG the official numbers were something like 6L/100km, in normal use it was hard to get under 12L/100km. Those numbers just don't mean anything.
And if you see somewhere that the fleet average for the XC60 T8 is just 7L/100km then that's frankly fantastic. It's a 2.2 tonne SUV with 400bhp. That's an incredible fuel consumption(as in - low) even if it's above the official numbers. Do you happen to know what the fleet average for the XC60 T6 is? That's the same petrol engine without the hybrid system(not the PHEV T6). Because I imagine that fleet average will be closer to 12-14L/100km than 7L/100km.
My point is that for most people who ever charge the car the PHEV is an improvement. It's those who don't charge it who are the problem, but I'm confident this is a problem of legislation and/or tax rabates.
> I think you obsess with the official numbers a little bit too much.
Maybe but that's because it was that particular statement that started the discussion. The only reason I mentioned it was in response to OP's statement:
> [hybrids] they are about the only way to comply except pure BEVs
Of course it warranted the addendum "on paper" since in reality and according to all studies and data from any source they do not comply as a fleet, it's a mathematical trick.
Saying that I obsess over the particular point that started the discussion seems a bit unnecessarily dismissive. You obsess about your very particular situation and your neighbor's even if we can both agree it's not generally applicable to the vast majority of people out there.
> if you see somewhere that the fleet average for the XC60 T8 is just 7L/100km then that's frankly fantastic
I simply googled for websites that collect user submitted fuel consumption data and picked the median rather than the average. This data is of course very limited. And it may very well be fantastic but again, the whole point of my interjection was that official numbers are fake and from the data I do have access to fuel consumption of PHEVs is marginally better than the equivalent ICE (despite being a bit heavier). As a fleet they barely make a dent in the emission problem. But people either see this as being different from their particular situation and assume it must be wrong, or they realize it's exactly their situation and don't like it being pointed out.
I was turned on to this thread, by an HN user. I work for Audi in Germany. The real stats for our hybrids are not great if you compare to newer Toyota hybrids, for example and as far as all my contacts tell me the situation is identical for all German manufacturers.
We are not selling the Audi Q5 TFSIe 55 - 14KWh battery, around 12KWh usable, and (unless you are hypermiling) ~25-40Km of realistic electric range depending on weather - for lowering real life emissions. We do it for 3 reasons: 1) it allows us to mix in "fake" estimated fuel consumption and emission numbers thus lowering the fleet overalls, 2) we also get money from the EV/PHEV incentive programs, and 3) it is an awesome car, it has a great gas engine, a great electric motor, great transmission, it's actually one of the most fun SUVs to drive. Companies lease a lot of these, because the incentives cover most of the price of the lease and the taxes are close to nothing. But I mean we lease these 60K+ EUR PHEVs for as low as 3000EUR per year (limited to 1-2 years) just to get them out there, get the money from the government, get the official fuel/emission numbers into the fleet average, and a lot of the private buyers are cross-shopping, so it's win all around.
But we know from sale time that most private buyers do not have regular access to a charger at all, at home or work. Which is why most of our customers never plug in the car or do it a few times just to see how it works. They are usually charged while driving from the engine at a big fuel penalty. Most cars have a higher fuel consumption than the equivalent hon-hybrid Audi Q5. But overall the fuel consumption for the hybrid fleet (~9.5l/100Km) is lower than for the ICE fleet (~11l/100Km) because of a number of cars which get to drive a lot and almost only in electric mode. Some charge only during the day so at work and very few only during the night so at home.
In Germany at least charging at a public charger is guaranteed to be more expensive per Km than gas for this car. The cheapest chargers are 50c/KWh and I saw some that charge 65c/KWh + 3-4c/min + 1E/h for the parking + 1E one time plug in fee (that's at best 6E and at worst ~12E for the 40Km electric).
I happen to drive one and since I don't have a charger at home, and 2020 meant I mostly don't go to work, my fuel numbers are bad. I charge once per moth, use it in hybrid mode (dynamic), and once the battery is empty it will try to charge it as long as the engine is running whether it's in static or dynamic mode (most people never read the manual, have no idea how to change some extra modes other than the big button in the center console that switched between EV - hybrid - battery hold). And when this happens the fuel consumption just explodes, I'm visiting friends across town and I get there with >18l/100Km even with no traffic (just the occasional light).
Fun car, not made to save the world unless you can plug it in every night. But if you can it's hands down great!
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And that's the crux of the matter, most people buy hybrids because they can't charge at home. Those cars end up driving a lot on gas. If you can't conveniently charge at home or at work, waiting for 1.5-2h to charge for 40-50Km is far less appealing than 3 minutes for 500Km worth of gas. Place more chargers and make gas more expensive than electricity and the situation would probably change.
One specific German manufacturer featured in the studies I linked above sees most of the kilometers driven in their hybrids using the ICE, with a lot of that time the ICE inefficiently charging the battery, and almost cancelling out the fuel efficiency brought by the electrification. The number of people who see anything close to the officially estimated fuel consumption or CO2 emissions is vanishingly low. And the manufacturer knows it but they aren't ready with EVs, they have to meet new fleet regulations, and they wanted to benefit from the incentives the German government offers to manufacturers for any EV or PHEV.
Looking at a family member in this situation (the one who provided me with the statistics from the manufacturer), they drove ~2000Km in a brand new PHEV with ~11 liters + 9KWh per 100Km. The manufacturer suggests ~2 liters per 100Km. That's where most efficiency numbers revolve for that particular PHEV. It doesn't help that where they live in Germany charging the battery at a public charger even when assuming the full ~40Km range is 30% more expensive per Km than filling the tank but this is a local issue that's not generally applicable.