As the owner of both a hybrid and an EV, I'm not aware of any factual basis in your above statement. My experience with my hybrid SUV is that it is a pleasure to drive.
From my limited experience (mostly with my son's mod. 3) you are correct that Teslas are very good cars. However, they are relatively expensive compared to many other EVs (and ICE.) SO it makes the most sense to match one's needs to the car (ICE or EV.)
I do think PHEVs are a really good compromise between EV and ICE. Many people will hardly use the ICE and most of their driving will be like any other EV. BUT for long trips, the PHEV will seem just like any other ICE. A nice compromise. I think a PHEV would generally be for someone who drives at least the average (about 12K miles per year) or more as they cost more than a similar ICE. Driving more miles gives the PHEV a chance to make up the cost - especially when running as an EV.
Hmm. A little divergence in opinion there.
My w*rk friend was a very early adopter of the Volt, the Chevy plug in hybrid. He absolutely loves it. I have taken a few rides in it, and my friend always likes to show off the neck snapping acceleration.
His only complaint? Sometimes the management system forces the ICE engine to come on in order to stir the gas, use some, get the bearings turning, etc. Otherwise, since it is plugged, it never really needs the ICE until they go on long trips.
I'd like to think you're being tongue in cheek here. It certainly is a compromise, but we live by compromise in almost anything we do.
I have no personal experience with PHEV, but know folks who have them and love them. YMMV
Yes, I was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but only a little. For the most part, a Hybrid doesn't give you a lot of the benefits of a BEV. I was recently reminded of this during my recent trip and had a Prius as a rental for 3 days. It is no fun-to-drive: Very poor acceleration, very poor handling. Still had to get gas, and the gas engine would come on randomly making noise and vibration. There was also no frunk for secure storage of my luggage. A high-performance ICE would be much more fun to drive at the cost of efficiency. A typical BEV would've been even more fun to drive, be even more efficient, and have all the other performance and handling benefits too. So, the typical hybrid sits in the middle, where the only thing it kind of does better than full-ICE, is efficiency. But.. eh.. For me personally, driving a lethargic car is torturous -- I'd rather just drive a performance ICE with a nice, manual transmission. At least it's much more fun... But we all make our own compromises. Tesla allows me to to not make any.
But I would push back on the Tesla being relatively expensive compared to other EVs and ICE. A Tesla Model 3 starts at $40,240 BEFORE incentives. And you can get an inventory car right now from Tesla directly for only $37,830 BEFORE incentives. People worried about price at this level would definitely qualify for all incentives. That would put it at $30,000 before any state or local incentives, which would, for many states, mean a BRAND NEW Tesla with nearly over 270 miles of range can be had for ~$20k-$25k! Imagine.. Being able to drive one of the top 1 or 2 safest cars ever tested... for less than $30k. That's just an insanely good deal. A Corolla is $22/24k and a Camry/Accord is $26/27k. A Model 3 is closer in size to to the Corolla/Civic on the outside, and Camry/Accord on the inside, and way more cargo space, power, efficiency, among many other benefits.
Watched this Barron's Roundtable interview a bit ago of Ford GM Jim Farley.
Interesting notes: EV's are "not for everyone" according to Farley. "But if you have three cars in your household and one is just for short distances, running around town or 100-200 mile range then [the EV] is the better car."
"It is for specific customers who use the vehicle in specific ways. [the market] is not a monolith. Some people like to view this like this change is going to happen everywhere, but that is not happening."
He projected that ICE sales volume at Ford would continue to grow.
The interviewer noted that according to a Wells Fargo analyst EV prices remain higher than $7000 more than an equivalent ICE car.
Farley said they are projecting Ford's EV sales to reach 50% to total sales by 2030.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6327433589112
Farley's making some good moves for Ford toward electrification, but of course he's going to publicly claim it's not all EV for everyone... he has an ICE business that he needs to do a "slow landing" with. Not sure how anyone could expect anything else from him. He's already starting to separate the EV business from the traditional ICE business, investing in batteries, and partnering with Tesla on NACS. They did a great job with the Lightning -- it's a great truck. But no matter what, he's not going to throw his ICE business under the bus.
This is essentially what I said earlier and what is accepted within the automotive market (other than Ford specific projections which are theirs alone).
The challenges of EV's are limited driving range, battery life, limited charging infrastructure/fragile grid, limited towing capacity or top-end power, longer fueling times, and environmental and supply chain concerns.
However, they they are cheaper to operate and cheaper to repair on the plus side.
ICE vehicles have their own sets of plusses and minuses which are essentially the inverse of those for the EV: longer driving range, better fueling infrastructure and quicker fueling times, etc.
Cheaper to buy on average but more costly to operate.
So there you have it.
Naturally, someone buying an EV meets the profile of an EV buyer or otherwise has no problem with the range, fueling, battery life limitations of EV's, or see's the lower operating costs as worth the tradeoff.
That is different than pretending they do not exist.
This is what any buyer for any product does. Makes a buying decision based on value and features. Autos are certainly no different.
Let me just push back on a few of those:
limited driving range: I will give this to you, but that is really a single "limitation" that should be lumped together with "longer fueling time" it's two sides of the same coin.
Limited infrastructure: This is almost the "third side" of the same above coin analogy, though I've already made the point that the infrastructure advantage/disadvantage is external to the vehicle and will flip fairly soon.
Battery life: They last 100's of thousands of miles; longer than the practical life of a vehicle -- your suspension components and other body components will probably fail long before the battery degrades to a very unusable state.
Towing capacity: It's not towing capacity -- EVs have plenty of torque to haul. It's the efficiency hit when towing. Yes, this is a limitation due to the high efficiency of EVs. This is less of a problem for lower-efficiency EVs. If we could get an ICE vehicle's efficiency up, it would have the exact same issue too, but a larger tank is an almost-free solution to that. For EVs, they will continue to get more efficient, so the towing penalty will only get worse -- it's just math. Eventually, we'll get a crazy-long range EV where the efficiency penalty of towing nets a still-usable range. Something like a 1,000 mile range truck being reduced to 400-500 miles while towing.
Top-end power: This is nuanced... Electric motors have such high torque and flat torque curve that they have incredible top-end power: so much power that an ICE will never even come close. Having such a deep and broad torque band means that EV manufacturers often forgo a multi-speed transmission completely because you really don't need it for the full range of vehicle speeds from the parking-lot to the highway. Multi-motor EVs can play with using different gear ratios for different motors to extend the torque curve across two or more motors and gain even more efficiency over a broader range of speeds while adding better performance for "free." The original Roadster 1.0 had, and a Porsche Taycan has, a 2-speed transmission that gives it higher performance/efficiency at the top-end in exchange for complexity, cost, extra failure-modes, and a hit in performance during the gear shift.
On the other hand, gas engines have a very narrow torque band. That's why they need 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, infinitely-variable speed transmissions to try to keep the gas engine within it's super-narrow torque band. Oh, and an EXTRA gear for reverse because the gas engine can't spin backwards... Plus a neutral "gear" & starter motor because obviously 0rpm is well outside of its torque band.
You didn't mention that EVs have more cargo and passenger space, much better performance, are safer, and quieter.
And the cost disparity cited was the cost to manufacture, which really means the cost of the battery is about $7k more than the cost savings from removing the ICE. And that really only applies to most non-Tesla makes... Because Tesla vehicles are very competitively priced for their class... even lower than equivalent ICE cars in many instances. A Model 3 is ~$40k while a BMW 330 starts at ~$44k. A Model 3 Performance is ~$53k while a BMW M3 starts at ~$75k and is much slower to accelerate, though it does have a more distinctive ext&int styling compared to a regular 3-series. These prices are all before an incentives, which the Model 3 fully qualifies for.
It's not worth debating now since the Volt is extinct, but the Volt was more of a serial hybrid (electric motor provided power to drive while ICE mostly acted as a generator to charge the battery), whereas most HEVs and PHEVs are more parallel hybrids (ICE and an electric motor can both power the vehicle). Nothing wrong with the Volt, but I wouldn't use it as a frame of reference for most HEVs or PHEVs. PHEVs have larger batteries than HEVs, so they can propel a vehicle further in pure EV mode than an HEV, but nowhere near the range of any BEV.
Yeah, Volt was a serial hybrid during normal operation, but it had a mode in which the ICE can directly drive the wheels, so it is both a serial and a parallel hybrid (I think this is what your "mostly" is alluding to). A BMW i3 with REx (ICE range extender) was a true serial-only hybrid. Still, I feel a serial hybrid makes a better driving car and has more of the benefits of a BEV.
Honestly, I'd love to buy an EV but I don't see any way due to charging. I hope that changes. Does that exclude me from participation? I absolutely love the technology. I've learned a lot about that here. So since I'm not able to buy one, should I bow out?
Absolutely not. Things in the EV world are changing rapidly. You need to keep up so you know when to jump in. Otherwise, you may never know to jump in or it'll take you months to catch-up.
Yep. It's no wonder that Ca has so many EV's.
Mostly NOT true. The IRA incentives are just from this year. The incentives from the previous federal program phased out for both GM and Tesla starting in 2018, before they got to very high volumes. And California state incentives introduced income limits around that time. Tesla makes up most of the EVs sold in California and that means most of the EVs sold in California didn't get most (or any) of those incentives.
My understanding (separate plug in hybrid thread now) is many folks criticize the complexity of hybrids having two technologies, so more things to go wrong. However, practically speaking the leading hybrid manufacturers like Toyota have managed to make them extremely reliable regardless. Japanese and Korean. Kudos to them!
I'll admit, when hybrids first came out, the complexity was a concern of mine. Traditionally, it seems like whenever any new technology comes out, there are usually "teething problems". For instance: automatic transmissions, air conditioning, front wheel drive, 4-speed automatics, fuel injection, on-board computer/diagnostic systems, and countless other things, I'm sure. I would add Diesel engines, but that tended to be mostly a GM thing, where they converted an Oldsmobile gasoline V8 to a Diesel, but didn't beef it up enough.
But hybrids, it seems, were pretty reliable right from the get-go. That added complexity might cause issues as they age, but to be honest, that's any car. For instance, I've had things fail, repeatedly even, on my 2003 Regal, that don't even exist on my older cars.
Yes. Surprising how reliable they have been. Especially Toyota.
Reliability of Toyota's hybrids is completely not surprising. Their gasoline vehicles were already refined so much that they were highly-reliable. Adding an EV drivetrain, which is inherently very-reliable, will add some overall complexity, but really won't negatively affect reliability all that much.
