Its time to call a spade a spade - the bulk of the PHEV category sold to date (with a few exceptions like toyota) has been an emissions scam, designed to skirt EU fleet emission laws.
In practice, most are mediocre range, low-speed only evs that effectively no one bothers to charge regularly because its impractical and annoying. The manufactures claim 80% reductions in emissions, and use those credits to allow them to sell more gas cars in the EU market. But real world emission reduction is 20%. They know this, they've known for years. Its a scam.
Some newer toyotas, newer BMWs and the coming EREVs will actually be able to be electric cars most of the time, and might live up closer to the claims. Doesnt change the fact the category has been mostly fraud until now.
Maybe blame consumers rather than manufacturers. And if a government sets up incentives incorrectly, blame the government schemes, not those using such badly designed incentives.
The buyers wanted a petrol car. And they choose to fill with petrol. You need your own garage to make plugging in worthwhile (and avoid getting charging cable nicked). Consumers perhaps prefer to avoid the hassle of plugging in?
In New Zealand there's a visible disincentive of a yearly tax on pluggable hybrids (to pay for road use). In NZ roads are paid by taxes earmarked for that.
> In NZ roads are paid by taxes earmarked for that.
It would be better to say that all of the money from road use and petrol taxes are spent on the roads. Those taxes don't actually cover the cost of maintaining the road system.
At which point it kind of becomes moot that those taxes are ring-fenced for paying for roads. Since I've lived here people keep repeating that ring-fenced fact like its some kind of special thing. General taxation and council taxes are subsiding just the road maintenance, and completely paying for new build roads.
> Those taxes don't actually cover the cost of maintaining the road system
Yes they almost did.
Only a few years ago the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) was almost entirely self-sustaining, funded by road users.
Recently Crown funding (grants and loans) expanded significantly to ~40% of fund income.
But approximately 30% of government transport spending is being spent on rail (to placate voters I think). Before the Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Act 2020, not much we spent by the NLTF on rail.
Currently ~3% of driven kilometres by car use electricity - so as that number increases, BEV and PHEV vehicles will need to have increased taxation. Presumably something like $700 per annum (currently about how much a person driving a petrol car pays on excise tax).
Ultimately it is almost tautological that road users pay for roads, since government spending comes from taxes, and most people use cars. How things get earmarked is just sophisticated accounting.
I find that strange just looking at my current PHEV the engine now is at 75,000 miles or what my previous one was at only 30,000 miles. Most trips we barely use the intent if we use it at all, but every once in a while we do go on the long road trips. Plus, they are great for Americans who normally don't do those long trips, but they don't get rained to anxiety or any other issues with charging.
1. you are you and your data and your use. I believe you, but thats not useful compared to the real world data from "981,035 vehicles across Europe".
2. i suspect but i have no way to prove... the PHEVs sold in america tended to be way better EVs - there's no similar total fleet emissions laws so no incentive to subsidize shitty/fraudulent PHEVs in the US.
That data needs to be split out by how the person acquired their PHEV. In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives. I remember seeing a study which said that people who are driving a PHEV because it was assigned to them by their employer are much less likely to plug it in than are ordinary consumers who bought or leased a PHEV.
Does it? It’s a million cars sampled at random. Perhaps fleet affects that a little, but these are big numbers. Claimed 80% reduction in emissions, real world 20%. Some fleet skew is not going to impact that meaningfully
> In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives.
Love to see some evidence for that being the majority
In Portugal a whopping 87% of PHEV registrations are to corporations [1]. It was close to 60% in the UK a few years ago [2].
This should not be too surprising, once you learn another fact that is probably more surprising: corporate sales make up a majority of car sales in much of Europe. Around 65% in Germany, 60% in UK, 55% in France (the 3 largest car markets in Europe).
Corporate buyers love PHEVs. They get many of the same or similar tax breaks that full EVs get, whereas hybrids that are not PHEVs usually just get the same corporate tax treatment that ICE cars get. Even though a PHEV usually costs more upfront than a similar regular hybrid which usually costs more than a similar pure ICE, the tax breaks make the PHEV a better deal even if the company has no intention of ever plugging it in.
Compare to individual buyers. They get much fewer incentives from the government. For them the higher cost of a PHEV over a regular hybrid only makes sense if they are going to plug the thing in.
Countries are starting to phase out the PHEV tax breaks for corporations, so we should start seeing the percent of PHEVs that actually get plugged in start to go up.
Although outliers like Portugal are interesting, the whole EU averages are more useful.
you are right in that corporate sales make up ~60% of new car registrations eu wide, that is kinda crazy.
But 11.7% of EU corporate registrations are PHEV [1] versus 9.8% overall [2]. So, it’s a little higher, but not really meaningfully higher.
So yeah, ~61% of new PHEVs registered to corporations. But I’m assuming a majority of those corporate cars get resold after a few years , entering the private registered market. So I don’t really know how to guess at the % of corporate ownership of cars currently on the road. Let’s wildly guess that half of new car reg corporate PHEVs are in private hands now.
That leaves ~33% of total PHEVs corporate owned, which is a sizable chunk and would affect the statistics somewhat, if those folk truly have different behavior.
Btw this analysis of the whole situation has a ton more data than the guardian I originally linked [3]. A huge part of the problem is even in full electric mode the PHEVs still used gas 1/3rd of the time due to weak ev engines. So even if plugged in they’re still a lie in real world emissions.
So I doubt changing the corporate ownership % will change the results that much, but we’ll see.
The biggest change to watch for will actually be once the UF (utility factor) for EU PHEVs is adjusted down in 2027 to match the real world emissions [3]. If they do that, I expect the category to collapse in sales as it won’t make sense for manufacturers to subsidize them as an emissions loophole anymore.
It is true. most are much worse at being EVs than the toyota prime models. Toyotas were the top of the euro data on real world EV-only use. Every other manufacturer ranges from worse to hilariously worse. Toyotas are not over half of sales, so therefore "most" applies.
You're making this outlandish claim so it is on you to name any currently or recently-marketed PHEV that can't reach highway speeds in EV mode, and to demonstrate that this constitutes "most" of the market or installed base.
the link to the underlying most recent fraunhofer study referred to by the first two seems broken sadly, so i cant get the breakdown by manufacturer anymore. But the data on aggregate is clear - on average the PHEVs cars out there today spend very little time on average in pure EV mode. If they did there would be more than ~20% reduction in emissions.
You are not addressing the claim that PHEVs can't reach highway speeds on batteries. That is a ridiculous claim, and it is false. You will not be able to name even one PHEV on the market with this limitation, because they do not exist.
its acceleration that causes them to drop out of EV mode, when the weak EV drives cant produce enough power. Can you accelerate all the way to highway speed in real world driving without it dropping out? for some yes, for many no, from the guardian article:
"Even when the cars were driven in electric mode, the analysis found that levels of pollution were well above official estimates. The researchers said this was because electric motors were not strong enough to operate alone, with their engines burning fossil fuels for almost one-third of the distance travelled in electric mode."
The manufacturers dont list this admittedly complicated crossover, so you cant say whether one does or doesnt from a spec sheet. The aggregate data is clear though.
Here’s an even better source, which makes it absolutely clear that their electric engines are too weak in the real world.
“In practice, the combustion engine frequently assists the electric motor in CD mode, especially during acceleration, at higher speeds or uphill driving. On average, the ICE supplies power during almost one third of the distance driven in CD mode. This is largely due to insufficient e-motor power, as most PHEVs are not designed to operate fully electrically under typical real-world conditions.”
“
The largest gap between WLTP and real-world PHEV emissions occurs in CD mode, often
referred to as an “electric” mode where real-world CD emissions are even higher than the
WLTP average. According to T&E analysis, real-world CO₂ emissions in CD mode average
around 68 gCO₂/km, which is nearly nine times as high as the estimated 8 gCO₂/km in CD mode
under the WL TP methodology, and almost twice the WL TP average overall emissions (including
both electric and combustion modes). In practice, the combustion engine frequently assists the
electric motor in CD mode, especially during acceleration, at higher speeds or uphill driving. On
average, the ICE supplies power during almost one third of the distance driven in CD mode. This
is largely due to insufficient e-motor power, as most PHEVs are not designed to operate fully
electrically under typical real-world conditions.
This relationship is illustrated by the correlation between e-motor-to-combustion-engine power
ratio and emissions in CD mode: vehicles with an average power ratio between electric motor
and combustion engine of 0.9, emit approximately 45 gCO2/km in CD mode. An average PHEV
with a ratio of 0.7 has emissions of around 68 gCO2/km. Vehicles in the lower decile in terms of
their ratio of electric motor to combustion engine power, where it drops to around 0.5, have
average CD mode emissions of 105 gCO2/km.
In real-world conditions, petrol PHEVs consume around 3 L/100km in electric mode.
“
Projects on private land, by private capital. 30gwh / 9 million homes of energy. In an energy cost crisis (nevermind the climate crisis).
Can you possibly dream of a stupider, more self destructive, more anti-capitalist, more anti-american policy? Its truly indefensible.
im no lawyer but i struggle to see how this holds up to legal challenges? this is private industry on private land. Surely this will be overturned? I could understand how the feds had jurisdiction over the offshore leases - the federal govt owns that territory. But this?
That seems hypocritical in light of the crowing about eliminating red tape and regulation. Is there any ideological explanation for going against what was previously conservative doctrine, or is this Trump personal authoritarianism?
I do know the answer, my question was rhetorical. Conservatives have bent the knee before Trump, and essentially anointed him as an autocrat. In doing so, virtually all conservatives have abandoned most of the principles of "movement conservatism". Small, local government, judicial restraint, fiscal conservatism, self responsibility and self reliance, checks-and-balances between branches of government have all been at best abandoned, but mostly reversed. Previous to Trump, we were all (including especially the press) told to treat these as almost sacred principles to conservatives, things they could not possibly cut deals on or minimize or compromise. Demanding that conservative's beliefs be treated as sacred has been revealed as a rhetorical device, given the rapidity of a complete reversal. The conclusion forced upon us all is that previous to Trump, conservatives were lying about how important those principles were to them. The very tenuous hold is apparent, revealing the hypocritical nature of the "moral high ground" that conservatives demanded for themselves.
yep it turns out modern conservatives have no principles at all. They are not sincere in any belief, all will be contradicted or discarded in a second if the leader says so. Makes debate futile, the arguments stand on nothing but spite.
In practice, most are mediocre range, low-speed only evs that effectively no one bothers to charge regularly because its impractical and annoying. The manufactures claim 80% reductions in emissions, and use those credits to allow them to sell more gas cars in the EU market. But real world emission reduction is 20%. They know this, they've known for years. Its a scam.
https://electrek.co/2026/02/19/biggest-study-yet-shows-plug-...
Some newer toyotas, newer BMWs and the coming EREVs will actually be able to be electric cars most of the time, and might live up closer to the claims. Doesnt change the fact the category has been mostly fraud until now.
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