A pretty good overview of the benefits of PHEV, one of the fastest growing categories of cars in the USA today.
The tl;dr: Cheaper than EVs, takes gasoline for long-trips, are effectively electric for typical distances (~20mi to ~40mi depending on model).
However, I’d like to add that PHEVs are incredibly varied. Everyone can agree that a Prius Prime is efficient and environmental, but PHEVs like the Jeep Wrangler 4xe is incredibly inefficient. Furthermore, Jeep buyers have a reputation of not even charging the batteries!!
All in all, it seems like a good article so I feel like its worth sharing.
Consumer reports feel like they have a significant bias against battery electric vehicles to be honest, so i’d take everything adjacent with a grain of salt.
Survey results pointing to shoddy reliability is… not a bias though. Its just the facts for now.
Consumer Reports always favored reliability / low-maintenance above all else. They don’t care very much about speed or zoom-zoom factor. If a car does poorly their reliability metrics, they’ll shit on that car.
Hopefully EV makers improve their reliability over time.
I’m thinking that will go up as the legacy manufacturers build more models. They just have to learn the new power train; they already know how to build cars. The startups are having to learn how to do everything, which gives them a lot more places to fail. I’m sure EV reliability metrics are not being helped by Tesla’s current market dominance.
