Motor Mouth: In praise of the long-range PHEV
As interest in fully battery-electric EVs stalls, plug-in hybrids are finally getting the attention they deserve
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As we went to press with this week’s Motor Mouth, General Motors announced that, as it rethinks the scope of its commitment to full battery electrics, it is refocusing on PHEVs. Consumers, it seems, have been telling The General’s dealers they want hybrid, not full, BEVs; the Wall Street Journal reports customers want that “middle ground” between ICE-only and full electrification. And GM is only part of the hybrid resurgence, Clean Technica recently reporting that “Hybrid sales soar while EV sales plateau”.
Nor is North America the only market where hybrid sales are increasing. Even in EV-hungry China, Yahoo! Finance reports hybrid sales are surging. In fact, according to Wards Auto, Volkswagen is rejigging its Chinese portfolio to include more hybrids to take advantage of the continuing popularity of (partial) internal combustion. In other words, it’s a perfect time to remind people of the benefits of the long-derided plug-in hybrid.
I recently tested Mercedes-Benz’s new GLE 450e. Like all Mercs, it was solidly built, luxuriously appointed, and, of course, wildly overpriced. Anyone thinking the rich are smarter with their money — at least, with the money they spend on cars — needs to give their head a shake.
But the 450e, a plug-in hybrid, did something no other PHEV has ever done in my testing: it delivered 90 kilometres (56 miles) of battery-only range before the gasoline motor — a spunky little 2.0-litre turbo — had to take over proceedings. The least it managed was around 80 klicks (50 miles), more than enough for the average driver’s daily commute, and — Elon Musk, please take note — more than the 77 kilometres (47.8 miles) of EV autonomy Transport Canada rates the 450e for. The plug-in GLE may not offer great value for money, but it sure does exceed expectations for performance, at least in the range department.
It does so with what has always been Mercedes’ greatest strength: good old practical everyday engineering. The GLE 450e packs an oversized (for its size) 23.2-kilowatt-hour battery, and backs it up with efficiency (26.2 of those kWh things per 100 kilometres) beyond even smaller PHEVs’. You may be paying a premium to paste a three-point star on your hood, but the eggheads back in Stuttgart really do know how to build a car.
What those 80 or 90 kilometres of lithium-ion promise is a full day’s battery-only commute for all save the farthest-flung suburbanite or long-distance Uber-ist. And it’s massively important — more on that in a moment — that our daily commute be attainable without the need for either charging or gasoline.
Indeed, the PHEV’s major failing thus far has been insufficient range, which meant that even inner-city driving required frequent daily charging (which, despite BEV-ers’ claims it’s so much fun, is actually a major pain in the ass). Despite the theoretical promise of combining the best traits of electrics (reduced tailpipe emissions) and internal-combustion (the lack of range anxiety) early PHEVs offered neither. Or, at least, not without unnecessary inconvenience.
Consumers, not nearly the fools governments and automakers seem to think they are, quickly figured this out, and bought either traditional hybrids or full battery-electrics instead. The former offered partial electrification at a significantly lower entry cost, and the latter the convenience of just a single charge per day (or night).
Bigger-batteried PHEVs, like the 450e, dramatically alter that calculus. And, indeed, if the rumours be true that the future promises even longer-range PHEVs — Toyota claims its next-gen plug-in hybrids will boast an EV-emulating 200 kilometres (124 miles) per charge — we could see plug-in hybrids challenge full BEVs for dominance in ZEV sales. Here are the reasons a long-range PHEV may turn out to be the best, lowest-cost solution to reducing GHG emissions.
The biggest knock against PHEVs
The biggest knock against PHEVs is not based on their capabilities, but on their usage. It appears many owners don’t use them as intended. More specifically, say the critics, PHEV owners get lazy and don’t charge their batteries. This is true for a significant swath of owners, but was particularly true for those given a PHEV as a corporate car — in Europe, corporations were offered a significant incentive to have their employees drive PHEVs — since most hadn’t requested a plug-in, nor, often, did they have any interest in driving one.
With a zero-emissions car essentially forced upon them, it’s little wonder they weren’t eager rechargers. In fact, says the International Council on Clean Transportation — the organization from which much anti-PHEV information emanates — while “the average real-world electric driving share [for plug-in hybrids] is about 45 to 49 per cent for private cars, [it’s] about 11 to 15 per cent for company cars.”
In other words, even though many PHEV owners were not as diligent at charging their partial-electrics as they should have been, those having been supplied corporate cars were far less likely to plug in than those who paid their own bills, thus dragging the overall PHEV real-world ratings down. Nonetheless, whatever the reason for their lethargy, not regularly plugging in negates much of a PHEV’s ability to mitigate GHG emissions.
What PHEV critics get wrong
The flaw in this argument, however, is that these studies, having determined that current owners of first-gen PHEVs weren’t charging their batteries religiously, assert that all future PHEV owners would continue to be so lackadaisical. In other words, they assumed that, because today’s PHEV owners don’t plug in every night, tomorrow’s PHEV owners would continue those bad habits.
The problem with such conclusions is they discount that most powerful of human motivations: greed. Or, more accurately, the threshold at which our lust for filthy lucre overcomes our inherent laziness.
If the rumours be true that the future promises even longer-range PHEVs, we could see plug-in hybrids challenge full BEVs for dominance in ZEV sales
Do the most basic of maths, and there’s a good argument that early PHEVs simply didn’t make it worth their owner’s while to bother plugging in. For instance, 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) of electric range would, in a typical PHEV, save you, at today’s gas prices, about $3.50. Frankly, that’s not much motivation for many consumers — especially for those able to afford the premium pricing plug-in hybrids command — to ferret out public charging points. Or even, for that matter, to bother plugging it in on a cold, winter-y night.
On the other hand, that Merc I tested would put at least a ten-spot in my wallet every time I plugged it in. And that solid-state-batteried Prius Prime that Toyota promises will soon hit 200 klicks on lithium-ion alone would be good for something like a $25-dollar “rebate.” I suspect — and I am not alone in this — that will be enough to get more of our fat asses to plug in our PHEVs.
It certainly was for me. Right before I drove the Mercedes GLE 450e, I tested Lincoln’s Corsair Grand Touring. A fine-handling and luxurious little plug-in it may be, but its range is, unfortunately, barely 30 kilometres. So, while I did plug it in at home, I didn’t otherwise bother, three lousy Loonies not nearly worth the trouble of getting out of the car at -10 degrees C and fumbling with infernally-slow charging-point touchscreens.
The Mercedes was a different deal altogether; its 90 klicks of full EV autonomy was, as it turns out, more than enough motivation for me to make sure I plugged it in everywhere I could. And again, if future PHEVs can indeed get 200 klicks out of a battery, even this BEV agnostic will get religion. Past performance, as stock-market analysts are wont to remind us, is no guarantee of future results. People will religiously plug-in their PHEVs if it’s made worth their while.
The case for long-range PHEVs
The fiscal case for PHEVs may, frankly, be more compelling than for BEVs, at least for a large swath of consumers, even those in urban settings. Those 200 kilometres Toyota promises for the future means at least 95 per cent — probably more — of the driving public will, in their daily use, never have to use public chargers. In other words, less public charging infrastructure needed in our large urban centres, especially since, in an emergency, a PHEV can always get home under piston power.
That long-range electric ability would also mean that, once our fleet of pure ICEs miles out, the number of gas stations in urban areas could be dramatically be reduced. Along intercity highways, our current fossil-fuel infrastructure could be retained, and there would not need to be nearly as much new charging infrastructure built. Since the going price of 150-kilowatt chargers is around $100,000 — and 350-kW units significantly more — the cost savings would be enormous.
Throw in not needing nearly the same level of grid upgrades — especially along our busy transportation corridors and far-flung rural settings — as well as reducing how many hydro-electric or nuclear generating stations we’ll need if we went the full battery-electric route, and the infrastructure savings will be in the tens, perhaps even hundreds, of billions of dollars.
Crunching the PHEV emissions numbers
The entire premise of electrification is, of course, the reduction of tailpipe greenhouse-gas emissions. The most important comparison between BEVs and PHEVs — according to many, if not most, environmentalists — should be emissions reduction, and not costs savings.
So, what emissions penalty would, say, a hypothetical 200-kilometre Toyota RAV4 Prime exact over a fully battery-electric Tesla? On the low-end of such a scenario, we’ll take a typical suburbanite who commutes 50 kilometres (31 miles) into work every day and takes two 700-kilometre (435-mile) road trips per year. Based on an annual 25,000 kilometres (15,500 miles) a year — and faithful plugging in, as we can expect with a full 200 km of electric autonomy — that’s a 92-per-cent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. Even those proclaiming that emissions-reduction trumps cost-saving will have to admit that that last eight per cent of emissions reduction is going to be mighty expensive.
Even road warriors like me — as many as eight trips a year from Toronto to my significant other’s cottage north of Montreal, for a total of 30,000 kilometres (18,600 miles) a year — would be reducing their carbon footprint by at least 20 per cent. And those reduction are, in fact, without charging as well as refuelling at highway stops — which, if you do even more math, would still take less time than recharging a pure BEV, if, of course, those future Toyotas are also capable of DC fast-charging.
This latest push — again, both in North America and China — to hybridization is the result of consumer demand, not government mandates. The Wall Street Journal is right, consumers really are looking for that sweet spot that reduces emissions while remaining affordable, convenient, and familiar. Battery-electrics will continue to prove attractive to many, but I suspect that if Toyota — and others — can indeed deliver a real-world 200 kilometres of electric autonomy, hybrids will prove even more popular with Canadian consumers.
If, of course, governments allow them!
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