Germany Has A Massive Plug-In Hybrid Problem 

I watch many of your videos and am based in Germany and completely disagree with your theory on PHEV. Everyone I know who has one, spend the majority of their trips on electricity alone. At our company we have more than 100x 11kW chargers, and around 30x 4kW chargers purely for PHEV, although they have full access to our 11kW chargers as well. The reason it works here is because most people live within 50km of their workplace and the majority of those in fact less than 25km round trip. Company cars receive a card for charging and gasoline. Basing your theory on a single company is a very poor example.

You god it wrong with the tax. In Germany you have to add some value to your income for driving a company car. This depends on the netto price of the vehicle. A normal petrol car is rated 1% of the price tag added to your income before government income tax per month. This is half with a plug-in hybrid. And only if the car is below €60,000 it could be .25%, with a fully electric vehicle. So let's say the car has a price tag for the base model of €40,000 it would be €400 added to your taxable income or just €200 or €100 respectively. If your income tax is about 25% you have in this example €100 are €50 or €25 to pay more in income tax every month.

They already changed the requirements. In 2022 a hybrid car needs to able to drive at least 60km on pure electricity. In the following years the range also increases and they are thinking about making it mandatory to drive the car electric to some degree so the things you mentioned wont happen anymore. I think it was a good decision to get incentives for hybrid cars so people get a feel for EVs. Now that there are some options on the market I could see hybrids dying out. Then again it is just not possible for everyone to own an EV since there is limited public charging. The future will be interesting. Also you only pay 0.25% for an EV if the MSRP is under 60k otherwise you would have to pay 0,5%.

Canada is in the same trap. Federally a Ford Escape PHEV gets a 5K rebate. Meanwhile a Tesla Model 3 gets $0.

If the big reason to migrate to BEV’s is to reduce climate change (which I think is somewhat dubious), I think PHEV’s are a great intermediate step. You can build four or five PHEV’s with the batteries that would be required for one BEV. This allows more people to benefit from electric powered vehicles at a lower price point and eliminates the range anxiety issue for longer trips. So many people in the green movement want instant change to BEV’s. In fact it is a long transition process and these vehicles are a good bridge. Not to mention the issues around the reliable availability of electricity. Europe is struggling with power production and energy cost problems. California has a heat wave this week and authorities are requesting not to charge EV’s during certain hours. Trying to migrate a society to pure electric energy is difficult and dangerous. You need diversity in the supply chain of energy.

Okay, US based PHEV drivers here (XC60 T8 & A3 etron), good points but let me offer some counters: If the company car came with free charging instead of free gas, seems that simple change would significantly incentivize things in the right direction all by itself. Your points about driving on the Autobahn...well many EVs can't go as fast as you were and would have ridiculously poor range if they tried, so in the land of the Autobahn maybe PHEVs actually are the best of both worlds, if ofcourse incentivized properly. DC Fast charger stations...so many of them simply don't have _any_ classic level two J1772 plugs anymore, it's rather annoying to see rows of often empty chargers that we can't use, so would love to have the ability to even use CCS plugs. Lastly, yes we've tested running the XC60 simply as a 'hybrid' with no extra charge, and it easily beats the efficiency of the non-hybrid T6. If one has a perfectly flat perfectly straight highway with no traffic, in that newtonian physics world, sure the extra weight leading to very slightly more rolling resistance would very slightly loose to a non-hybrid, but the real world isn't like that. The ICE being able to turn off on any downslope or deceleration, recuperating electricity every time more deceleration is needed, and then reusing that reclaimed power is a huge advantage over a very moderately lighter ICE only vehicle. Great reviews keep'em coming!

Interesting thoughts about a phev taking the plug of an ev at the station. I personally see phevs as a good solution for mostly home charging, since most of them take 4 hours or more to charge on AC for 25-50 miles ish of range. Otherwise a normal hybrid will be much easier to live with

The pricing of the company cars is a bit different from what you said: first of all, the lease is a part of your salary, so basically the 1% of the price of the car is added to your pay slip so that you pay taxes on it. The government let you pay taxes on this "advantage" provided by your employer. If you get an EV, you add only 0,5% of the value of the car to your salary => less taxes.

I own a 2021 Ioniq phev. Compared to the full electric version of the same car, it is about 15% to 20% less efficient using just electricity. Compared to the hev version, it is a lot more efficient on gasoline. On my daily commute and just running around town I'm averaging about 250 to 300 mpg in summer time. On longer road trips I usually get about 70 mpg if I can charge up at the destination point. If there is no convenient place to charge, the return trip would be about 15% to 20% less efficient than the hev. On the freeway I'm getting about 40 to 50 mpg in hev mode depending on traffic and how I'm driving. I filled up the 11 gallon tank 280 miles ago and the fuel gauge hasn't moved off of full yet. So I've probably used somewhere between 1/2 and 1 gallon of gas.

Mercedes has long range PHEVs and it absolutely makes sense to have DC charging if the range is 100km.

I'm not a fan of PHEVs, but the bad image for company cars that are rarely charged is a bit overblown. Most of these company cars are usually driven for a maximum of 12-24 months, if at all, and then sold to private customers. At the latest then the behavior changes, because they have no fuel discount and are interested in charging the cars. These are often cars in the upper price segment and are more likely to be bought by homeowners who have the possibility to charge at home for their daily commute.

Your argument about not pluggin in PHEV's on public chargers is waaay to static thinking. If people don't plugin then charging companies don't see a need to setup more charges so you all lose. It's the same as saying the it would be best if everybody stoped buying EVs because else public charging stations will be clogged up. We know that's not true. It's only getting better with more users. Every mile driven on electric instead of gas is good and PHEVs are doing great in this aspect if they are plugged in as often as possible.

It’s also an example of poorly designed tax incentives. This waste of taxpayers money without achieving it’s goals is a nightmare. Unfortunately it is not the only example.

Agreed, it sucks people aren't using them properly, but I'm excited about the prospect of many PHEVs entering the used market and people that actually want them can buy them.

NEW TITLE: KYLE HAS A MASSIVE PROBLEM WITH PLUG-IN HYBRIDS. At least that’s what I would have said. I’ve watched a lot of Out of Spec videos and Kyle has been mostly critical of the PHEV. But here he says “I actually think they are probably the best solution for us for our market” (meaning the US I’m guessing). I never got that impression that he thought that before. I don’t know about how the incentives are playing out, Kyle seems to be making a lot of assumptions, but I think Kyle is happy have another reason to criticized PHEV’s. From his comments in previous videos I got the feeling he didn’t really get their appeal. They are not for everyone, but if you do mostly commuting within the EV range it can feel like the best of both worlds. I don’t bother charging my RAV4 Prime when I travel as it’s too slow. I feel like the chargers should be for those who really need them. The car doesn’t allow the battery to ever get completely depleted and when it has only enough batter for HV mode it feels like it still has all the power when I stomp on it and I can see the electric motors are activated to help out. I’m not sure if it can maintain that for a long time but I mainly “need” it for passing. I liked it better when Kyle just made misinformed complaints about PHEV’s. This guy who also says they are the best solution for our market confuses me. It’s less amusing to watch. But then again it is kind of interesting to see him get so concerned about PHEV incentives in Germany. I don’t think I’ll lose any sleep over it. And I watched a whole video about it so there’s something goofy about me too. : )

You guys need to watch Bjørn's latest videos. Now that he has a baby at home, he's not out driving around in the middle of the night -- he's mixing it up with the rest of humanity during the daylight, and Norway is where the rest of the planet is heading -- to a time when "it won't make any difference how fast your battery electric vehicle can charge up." To a time when "it won't make any difference if you can find a 350-kilowatt charger or not." No, the day is coming when you will wait for hours for the ten cars in line in front of you. When there are twenty cars, thirty cars, fifty cars -- start doing the math. Start keeping track of how many battery electric vehicles are on the roads in your country, and how many DC fast charger stalls have been installed for them. And keep track of how many of those chargers are actually functional at any given time. As battery electric vehicles become "mainstream," the number of cars per charging stalls is going to go up dramatically, and -- like Bjørn is seeing right now -- the time it will take you to charge your battery electric vehicle will depend upon how many hours you will have to wait for all of the cars ahead of you to charge, and the actual time it will take YOUR vehicle to charge won't make much of a difference, at all. So, sneer at plug-in hybrids all you want. Go spend a few minutes around noon at a Costco gasoline station. Watch how somewhere around 500 vehicles fill up per hour. Then start thinking about how those numbers will work with battery electric vehicles that will take somewhere between half an hour to an hour to charge up. Think about what you'll do when you've pulled into a charging station with 1% of your battery charge left, and you'll have to wait for four hours just to get your car plugged in. Think about what "normal" people will do -- I doubt you'll see them pull into a charger with less than a third of their battery charge left. So, they will be spending even longer times on the chargers, trying to charge up to 80% or 90% -- and thus, think about each of the 20 cars ahead of you, each taking full hours to charge up. Count the cars, count the chargers, do the math, and project how many chargers we'll need to avoid "ladestau" as you drive around on battery power. Yes, plug-in hybrids have plenty of room for improvement, but watch as people trade in their battery electric vehicles for plug-in hybrids some day, after getting frustrated out of their minds each time they find out "I could have DRIVEN HOME by now, but I still haven't made it to one of the chargers up ahead of me!"

Think the "bring your cable" strategy is far better. My cable is 7,5m long. Means it does not matter where the outlet is, the cable wraps around half of the car (length and width). I also can occasionally make use of ICE'd chargers as the cable is long enough.

The good thing about this is that whoever buys this vehicle secondhand, he’s gonna get an excellent deal

problem easily fixed. low lease price only for PHEVs with big batteries, and stop giving out the free gas cards.

Hopefully these leased PHEVs will make for a healthy used market option and get better electric utilization in their second life.

Another part of the problem is that by EU regulations car manufacturers have to get down their fleet wide CO2 emissions . They are doing it by building more PHEVs which have much lower fuel consumption and CO2 emission - at least on paper. That's because they can run a big part of WLTP emission test on electric power. But as you mentioned - that's not how these cars are used in the real world. Yes, it's a problem. But at least it gets fixed next year, finally.

I owned a chevy volt for 5 years before it was totaled in an accident. I loved that car. It was a transition car to now my Hyundai Ioniq Electric.

It only falls apart if you don't pay for gas. If you have to pay then you will charge up for your daily commute because that is where the benefit is. I also think it is the PHEVs that should use charging at the office since they are more likely to need it to get back home on electricity.

Kyle, I'm a big fan of the channel and videos, but please get rid of the gum before a video. On top of language being clearer and presentation being more pro-level, those of us with misophonia would really appreciate it. Awesome videos and context as always, and thank you for all the great content!

Was in France last week and had a Peugeot 3008 Plug in Hybrid rental. I'm certain I was the first to charge this car in its first 16k km.

I thought that the Chevy Volt was a very good model for the US for those that have range anxiety. Driving an EV to and from work (hopefully you could recharge at work) and then for longer trips you have an efficient hybrid motor, where you can easily fill up. Too bad more companies didn't see this as a good way to transition to EV. Now a lot of naysayers are feeling it's being forced down their throat.

slight mixup on the cost. In Germany company car users (not owners because lease) have to pay tax on the fact that they are using a company car privately. It's a flat rate tax. 1% for normal ICE. So a 100k ICE car (which the company pays for, hence the lease) costs the driver the income tax for 1% of the car price. Meaning every month you pay tax on 1000€ if "virtual income" because you get to use a company car. Normal income tax on 1000€ varies of course, but let's put it at 40%. So you have to pay 400€ tax every month. The 1% of the car price is treated as if it were income. PHEVS are currently taxed at 0,5%, so that same 100k car (not being a PHEV) now has to be taxed at 0,5% of 100k, so 500€ become your "virtual income" and you pay 40% income tax on that. So 200€ am month. BIG difference. BEVs are taxed at 0,25% currently, same example would mean 100€ a month. This is why SOOOOO many PHEV's drive around in germany. Because the government was lobbies into making the PHEVs from german manufacturers (and they didn't have much anything else at the time) more attractive.

I‘m a German business owner and we lease multiple PEHV as company cars. I think you misunderstood the 0.5 % rule. This isn’t the rate for leasing. This is a tax rule. 0.5% of the value of the car is added to your income statement so you pay more income taxes when you lease a company car. The good thing though: we got 4,500 euros per car from the government for leasing a PHEV which reduces leasing cost drastically. But these rules are changing and the requirements are increasing. To your other critique point: we drive fully electric around town since we can plug the cars in at home and at the office. We only use the combustion engine on longer trips. Therefore the PHEVs are the perfect solution.

Have to disagree, I have a company Audi hybrid - same engine. I use electric just around London everyone else I know with one does. A fast charger would be great as it takes 4-5 hours to charge if I could charge more quickly it would be better. Even not charged the car uses it’s Petrol engine max 50% of the time. A lot more efficient than mild hybrids I’ve driven - so expensive but more efficient.

Amercan dude with string opinios goes into a foreign country with too little knowledge of the situation. What could possibly go wrong? No one in Germany is charging their PHEVs away from home. Because the charging speed of 95% of the PHEV are too slow (especially the VW models). PHEV are mostly charged at home where it makes sense. That no one is plugging them in is a total myth created by car-hating people which Germany has quite a lot of.

Petrol hybrids are a con and are like charging point lice blocking these points for 100% evs. Toyota / Lexus backed the wrong horse with mad investment in petrol hybrid when they should have concentrated on 100% ev or in developing diesel technology to the max. Now Hyundai / Kia are miles ahead (no pun intended).

"the plug-in hybrid problem is getting out of hand" - you're talking in circles! plug the thing in at night, used ICE when you have to.... drive 240 km/hr an use a charging station when you have to. how does a PHEV plugging in to a charging station "rob" from an EV? first come, first serve, and with a small battery, how long does it take to charge?

What are you telling? I plug and charge my BMW 330e hybrid everyday and drive 100% electric when commuting to work. And so do a lot of my colleagues at BMW in Munich.

I do not like PHEVs. Two power trains is very inefficient. You still have the maintenance nightmare of an ice vehicle. Take the batteries from 5 PHEVs and produce one good BEV.

Kyle, spit out your gum before recording a video. Looks horrible.

PHEV is a waste of time. They will stop producing them very soon anyways. I would just wait for a good deal pure electric.

Completely anecdotal but one time I was using a motorway service station to recharge my leaf. There were two DC rapid chargers and two parking bays to go with them, plus a bonus AC charging post between the two bays. It's a nice day for travel so there's rapid turnover, maybe some queueing. A BMW PHEV turns up and parks in the second bay then hooks up to the AC post and goes for lunch. Baffling, at most they'll get maybe 25 miles of range in an hour but they've blocked the DC charger for folk who really need it and can get 200 miles in an hour. The real solution is moving the AC post of course.

At what point should I start feeling bad for charging my Volt at an L2? Haha

Seems pretty clear to me that most people don't want evs. The hybrids are a classic example: get one for the tax break otherwise no.

I run an Outlander PHEV which was barely used 18 months old with 6k on the clock in 2016. It was one of 5 at the dealer so probably was a lease car that never got plugged in. I also had a 2012 Imiev as a first BEV. I have now upgraded the Imiev to a MG5 and kept the PHEV for local trips and am getting around 300mpg. It still allows an occasional long trip on petrol and 4wd for winter.

There are a lot of hybrid taxis where I live and if you talk to the drivers they mostly love them due to the reliability (the EV components reduce workload on the ice components) and much better fuel economy vs an ICE taxis. The same applies for PHEV’s except the batteries are larger. But even unplugged they still get better avg mileage than an ICE counterpart because energy is recaptured. So maybe the “problem” Is being looked at the wrong way. These car owners likely transitioned from a pure ICE vehicle so they are now burning less gas than before. That is the goal, isn’t it? Would an EV be better? Maybe - but maybe a pure EV didn’t suit the buyers.

I think PHEV is what is needed in the Midwestern USA. But I want to see a minimum of 50 miles of full EV mode. We have very few chargers compared to the coasts. Also I think PHEV makes sense for trucks that tow sometimes.

What I'm concerned about here in the US is that the new EV tax-credit legislation as modified by Manchin and looking likely to pass will essentially remove almost all tax credits available to Americans buying new EVs, because of the mandate (starting 2024 Jan. 1?) that 40% of all battery components must be from the US or from free-trade partners of the US (and this rises to 100% by 2029). Good idea in principal, but there needs to be a more gradual phase-in to allow American manufacturers to get battery components made/mined in the US; the 2024 start date will kill off any federal tax credits for nearly all EVs sold in America, and will seriously delay (I think) the widespread buying of EVs in America. PHEVs in America are probably more expensive on average than BEVs right now, but without robust public-charging infrastructure, PHEVs are likely to be bought more during the rest of the 2020s than are BEVs (the latter mainly for those who don't plan to drive them more than 100-150 miles from home). As such, I think that your channel should continue to cover all PHEVs (and do range tests as well as reviews for all PHEVs available in the US), as well as BEVs.

Our first EV was a 2018 Volt that we bought used. It came from California and had 22k on the clock. Over 17k of that was ICE mileage. Obviously tgese folks bought the car for HOV passes in Cali. We put another 20k, almost all electric on the car before trading it for a new Bolt. We plugged in every day with the Volt and often at destination L2 machines. Oddly enough, the original owner had a L2 Aeroenvironment EVSE in the trunk which we inherited when we bought the car. Considering they drove all but 3,000 of there 22,000 miles using ICE, I find it interesting that they had a hard wired L2 EVSE .

I have the Honda Clarity and live in NJ and for me I use 90% electric and the 10% gas usage is for long distant driving on road trips. PHEV would be suitable for the US mostly because it gives people best of both worlds along side being more fuel efficient. Until we get charging stations that are cheap and available everywhere, PHEV seems like the great transition till we can go full EV for most ppl. Btw, I love my Clarity and wish Honda would have kept it going with new features.

Made by sleepy politicians in the past. But that is history.

Same thing happened in the US. My first Chevy Volt was a lease return with 40,000+ miles, and I don't think it had EVER been plugged in before I purchased it.

That was well explained. I fear the hybrid problem will be imported to the US with the new EV incentives that will be passed in Congress soon. A hybrid will qualify for the same rebate as an EV. I'm guessing it was to please the car manufacturer lobby.

I think PHEV makes sense for a personal vehicle. The electric at home is cheaper than gas. It can be more convenient going out in the morning to an allowance of EV miles where in some cases you can go for weeks without filling up with fuel. However, like you pointed out, if it’s a company vehicle with a fuel card it doesn’t make “sense” to use your own electricity to charge the battery.

Hybrid cars are same functioning as diesel-electric submarine. You know , How headache in maintenance such machine. I suggest German should call this type of car a "U-Boat".

I had a Honda Clarity plug in hybrid. I rarely ever put ⛽️ in the 7 gallon fuel tank.

I had a Pacifica Hybrid which I REALLY liked. Plugging in was something I always did. If fact I had to figure out how to trick the car so that it wouldn't force the gas to burn--bought gas only every 6 months or so. Besides being a great vehicle experience, it taught me to love driving electric. Had very low mileage on the Pacifica and should not have tested a Tesla. Yeah, you know what happened!

I think a hybrid is the ultimate concept

One thing Kyle left out is that if these cars aren't plugging in to charge, they're using more gas and creating more carbon than their ICE counterparts. All of the additional weight for having a battery not in use is worse for everyone.

The Arteteon actually sells well in Europe, also PHEV work good here since most people do under 50km a day with a car. Public transport is also a thing and P+R places (cheap parking outside of the City and cheap public transport to work from there). And a lot company's also offer free AC charging stations for employees

For my usage my PHEV is a good compromise. The electric range is sufficient for daily driving, and everything is far once we hit the road and go out of town. I’ve spent som time to track down and use public chargers when we go on vacation and I don’t find the experience very encouraging, but I keep trying.

I have a Q5 plugin and I actually find it annoying when EVs are plugging into level 2s, especially when the charging is free. I like to run errands at places with chargers, even better if the charging is free for first 1-2hrs. It'll take me maybe 30-40 minutes to top off to a point where I can make it home, but more than often I'd see EV owners hog the chargers by unplugging and replugging, which restarts their free charging timer. I also see a R1T and many Teslas at a popular weekend-only free charging spot and they just camp there all day. My perspective is that EVs have a way bigger battery and can definitely make multiple round trips without breaking a sweat while I need to get a couple more miles in before I can make it back home on EV-mode. Level 2s should be like a charge-and-go type of charger, because that way it can serve more cars. There's no reason to deep charge at a level 2, unless you're in the middle of no where.

As a 2 gen Volt owner I agree that they shouldn’t have fast charging but L2 really shouldn’t be relied on for quick traveling and so PHEVs using them is fine as long as they are charging (as anyone should leave the spot available when they aren’t using it to charge their car anyway.) The problem with PHEVs in general is that the definition is so broad as to allow tiny battery/electric motor vehicles that are just basically plain hybrids. So the benefit to the PHEV owner of that charger is very small. I get 53+ miles of electric in my Volt without any gas. I drive like an EV driver and have the same needs as one for L2 purposes. Especially since my battery only has 14kw usable and so AlwaysBeCharging can be important. If you really need to get somewhere fast and you can only use electricity you should be using DCFC. Blame the infrastructure there instead of saying you might theoretically need to emergency charge at a L2 at my local library or supermarket so I shouldn’t use the capabilities of the vehicle I bought

I drive my Kia PHEV to work 20 miles (24 mike range) and then plug in at work. I have not put gas in the car for over two months! The only problem at work is this. We live in AZ and I have trouble charging at work (out in the direct sunlight) when it is over 100 degrees. Like setting your phone in the sun, it cuts out. Kia out here is totally clueless as to why. Blames the outlets, not their chargers. However, if I charge in my garage when it is 130 degrees in there during the day (not in the direct sun) it charges fine….

I have 3 Voltec based cars at the house, they are perfect for my family (and yes they all get plugged in) (2015 Volt, 2016 Volt and 2016 ELR) - they were perfect for their time if used correctly. The first owner of the ELR obviously NEVER plugged it in as the lifetime MPG was atrocious when I got it 4 years ago - now its MUCH MUCH better and I love it. Owners of PHEVs need a place to charge at home every night to get the benefit, if they can't I advise they just get a regular hybrid.

FYI to the viewers, It's a gas vehicle in the US no plug in hybrid here in the states

In the Netherlands we had a huge wave of PHEVs when they hit the market. Especially the Mitsubishi Outlander, Golf GTE, etc. Many were never charged and only used to “evade taxes” because you payed less personal taxes on driving these. And if you’re going to all the trouble to charge it, why not go full electric? Maybe the hybrids are just a (complex and expensive) transition technology…

Amazing an American has to point out a European problem... Well done Kyle!

I saw an Arteon a few weeks ago in Boulder, CO. I didn't realize how rare of an event that was.

My wife had the Passat GTE for 4 years. Loved that car! More than 60% of the km. driven where electric. Now my wife went 100% electric, and I got a A3 Etron plug in hybride. My A3 Etron has driven 70% of it's km electric. Love it!

I think you nailed the problem... The UK had a similar issue, though the gov did introduce range-based tiering for PHEV a few years back - once > 210km then tax is same as EV, which made sense with, for example, the excellent i3 range (which I loved two of). But times changing, more EVs it's right these PHEV incentives go away A total aside - I notice you always refer to speeds/distances in km. I presume a decision for a more international audience? I totally support it. Wish we'd gone fully metric in UK, but I also tend to use km when I can (speed more of a pain .. due to signage!)

We will have the same problem in the USA with the new ev rebate program. It gives full rebate to any battery more than 7.5 kWh so everyone will be subsidized to buy plugins that they will never plug in diverting money to ICE vehicles that will have worse gas efficiency carrying empty batteries and taking away battery supply from BEV

I came across someone about 2 years ago, he was planning on selling his phev because the mpg was worse than his old car. So I asked the simple question, "do you plug it in?" "No" You can change car easy enough but changing bad habits will take a very long time

3:44 You did not understand the regulation. The 1%/0.5%/0.25% is not what an employee pays to his company - usually he gets the company car for free as part of his salary, and then may use it not only for business, but also for private use; while he should pay for the fuel himself on private drives, but this will not always be checked too strictly. But the employee has to pay TAX on this extra income equivalent from the private use of a car owned and paid by his company. And then he can either choose to account for every single private drive in detail, or - like most people do - accept the general rule of 1%/0.5%/0.25% of the list price as monthly extra income which is then taxed.

honda clarity here, close to 40k miles, 90% electric driving, great car , PHEV is the best way to transition to full electrification

Without a doubt, plug-in hybrids don’t make much sense unless plug them in daily, or even more than once per day. If you don’t, just buy a very-efficient plain-hybrid, like a Prius. In my particular case, “I do” so “I do”: I do plug-in my Prius Prime frequently, so I do get about 90% of my driving in-town on EV. Plus, in those comparatively rare times I take a road trip, it gets ~45MPG even at 75-80MPH-worth of wind resistance, and more like 55-60MPG on those rare times I drive on gas in town.

PHEV just don't address our needs, especially with mis-targeted tax incentives. A much better design, IMHO, is the Range Extender, which I have on my BMW i3. All-electric drive, with a small petrol generator topping up the main battery pack. I drive about 1000 miles a month, and maybe 200 of that is using the Rex. It gives me that electric vehicle experience, with fabulous regen braking, plus the flexibility of the petrol generator. What's not to like. We need to move to all-electric for cars, and Rex is a pragmatic stepping stone. PHEV is just plain daft.

On my 30 mi commute, my 5 yrs old phev drives exactly like an BEV. Quiet, emotor only. I nvr have range anxiety, while using only a 10 kwh 🔋. Allowing many more more to enjoy the benefits of electrification. Oh, it's not pure EV, everything in your life is hybrid, 99% fossil fuel... food, computers, health care....

Even without plugging it in a hybrid is a BIG difference during city driving. I am getting like 40% less l/100km value on my vehicle in city driving than an ICE version of my car. And your problem is getting to 240 km/h... Wow, just wow... And what is with Americans and the need of having 1000HP vehicles?! In Europe, the vehicle is a tool to take me from A to B in as much comfort as it can, it is a thing, not part of my family :D

I have a skoda octavia phev. Got a 5500€ incentive for it. I plug it a lot on public chargers. 90% of my city driving is electric. But as you mentioned mayority of drivers not charging at all.

This is just another Tesla promotional video spreading FUD about PHEV's. Even if you never plug in an PHEV, it is still far more efficient than a comparable ICE car. Overall, if never plugged in, they are not as efficient has hybrids, but both are far more efficient than EV's for the "average" driver yearly profile considering city and highway combined. The 330e vs 330i, for example, is 35% higher MPG's city if you never plug in the 330e. The 330e is about 10% more efficient highway, again, if you never plug it in vs the 330i. That's hugely more efficient, and if you plug it in forget about it. Zero time anxiety, cheaper up front, cheaper in the long run, and on and on. As electricity prices skyrocket and gas prices fall, this just gets worse and worse for EV's. PHEV's and hybrids work for everyone. EV's are the ones you have to make it work.

I agree with half of your video - yes, people drive the phev since they are cheaper as a company car. But what i don't agree is that they shouldn't have fast charging DC port. I think they rather should have fast charging capability. I used to test drive a Volvo V60 PHEV. And I hate the idea of unable to charge it fast. The 25 miles pure EV range takes 2.5 hours to charge up. No one could wait this long on a high way service station. Therefore, if they couldn't charge fast, the car driver simply won't bother charging it at all. And if you don't charge PHEV, as you said, it will be even less efficient than normal gas car since it carries more weight.

I have my heart set on getting a RAV4 Prime when they become available to buy in WA state. I am allotted one parking space in my condo garage, in which I'm allowed to install a charging station at my own expense. I live on an island (about 10 miles by 5 miles in size). I would love to use all-electric for my island driving, with the ability to do a lengthy annual road trip without range anxiety.

Yip, two problems with PHEVs in Europe: 1. Just like you said, a lot of countries give out generous incentives for *buying* PHEVs, so a lot of people buy them just for the incentives, then never plug them in. A better incentive would have been no subsidies for purchase, but then free charging (for PHEVs only, since they charge really quickly). 2. Their PHEV designs are rather inefficient just as hybrids, so when you drive them in hybrid mode, they burn a lot of fuel carrying their big batteries around. My Prius Prime (PHEV) actually gets very slightly *better* MPG than it’s closest non-plug-in Prius variant, most likely because it can regenerate more in most cases (also its battery weighs only about 200lbs and they compensated for about 1/3 of that by giving it a carbon-fiber hatch).

I never saw the con in the America new tax bill that PHEVs will also qualify for the tax credit which isn't bad if people do use the battery who do buy a PHEV. However if they just drive on fuel only even 95% of the time then Federal Government will be subsidizing an ICE car marked as a PHEV. I want to one day own a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV. Never mind the non available DC fast chartering network at the moment. There are also zero Level 2 AC public chargers for slow charging. This is still a problem with all types of Electric vehicles there is no public charging networks available on in a 5 mile range on most areas outside large cities. Even the local in-town dealerships don't have a charging available for owners that don't have driveways,carports, and garages. Now Nissian dealership does but that's just one CHADemO charger for the Leaf. I think this where Roman from TFL on the Talk show hit the nail on the head should the Federal Government even be subsidize EVs, EUVs and PHEVs in the first place?

Long discussion. PHEVs as company cars are just being used because of the lower taxation, but as private cars they still make much sense. At least you still get more car formats as a PHEV than as BEV. Having said that, I would never change my wagon by a PHEV wagon, but the so called ID.Aero wagon is very tempting, and I can wait till it comes out. BTW, that Arteon still has the 1.4l engine. 😎

PHEVs will be too expensive to repair in few years and EVs will become cheaper. Overall, hybrids and PHEVs have the highest CO2 footprint, including manufacturing, running and recycling.

To me this is one fantastic car! Love the station wag…. Ooops…. “Shooting brake”. Yes, I philosophically hate PHEVs (and hybrids). But it’s hard to argue with the practicality when charging isn’t particularly convenient. The case you described- that’s the unintended consequence which kinda blows it all to hell. Still, I suspect it’ll be a transition vehicle here in the US, and I believe that’s exactly what Toyota et al are betting on!

In Germany for normal ICE company cars you add 1% of the full sales price and 0.03% per kilometer between your home and workplace to your salary, then taxes and social security deductions are calculated from that and then that amount is taken out of your salary again, thus with 30 distance between home and workplace, a 60000 Euro car adds 1200 Euro to your salary, then taxes and social security deductions are calculated and then the 1200 Euro get deducted again. For a PHEV it's 0.5% but still 0.03% for every kilometer distance. For an EV below 60000 Euro it goes down to 0.25% and 0.0075% for every kilometer distance between workplace and home - so that 30km commute in a 60000 Euro EV only adds 300 Euro to your salary which then is used to calculate taxes, for an average income that comes down to having to pay between 100-150 Euro for the company car - and that usually includes insurance, charging, service - all things except for fines...

When the technology goes forward, this problem would become lighter. For example, the new 2022 Mercedes C300e has 25.4kwh battery which delivers about 60 miles of electric only range, and way better electric only or combined performance out of the electric engine alone. The first generation of every new "thing" is the problem. So, it makes sense to get dc fast charging and it won't take that much time to put in a 50-60% to the battery. Also, it makes way more sense for us in Europe, as we can do a big commute (distance-wise or timewise) without reaching speeds of over 50-60km/h. It does "worth more", if you use this amount of battery in start-stop traffic and low speed cruising, than using a fossil engine. No one will charge to take advantage of it on the trip. They will charge to go from the village to the sea, to their uncles etc etc. With the c300e as an example, even if you do go for example 200km away, it still is a big advantage to drive electric only on start, hybrid in-between (speeds>120km/h), with regen downhill, and electric only again in the end. I'm sure that the total consumption of such trip would be lower than 4L/100km.

You bring it to the point. Waste of resources, combustion engines drag batteries and electric motors, PEHVs with single-phase charging block the charging stations for 4 hours to fill up your 12kW battery and then cover a maximum of 50km. Some of the cables for leasing returns are still in their original packaging. A support for the (particularly the German) car industry to sell there heavy and high-powered SUVs with a green washing label. The Auto Lobby in Brussels and Berlin pushed this through. Purchase promotion bonus of €4,500. Crazy. After the purchase, the end customer has even more technology in the car that he has to have serviced.

Well this view is not new and partially it is true, especially for people who need to drive around all the time long distance for their company. Over all, like already written, all these cars will end up in 1-2 years on the used market and a private owner will charge and have the use case were a PHEV makes sense. I own a Seat Tarraco PHEV with the same drive train as the Arteon PHEV. Just drove yesterday to the Netherlands 600km. 6.6l E10 fully load including 4 adults. (Travel Assistance on). Over 16000km I average now at 2.5-3l. Now in the Netherlands I will use the many chargers as much as possible. Another point which is said again and again that PHEV (empty battery) use more gas than a standard gas car. This not true, the Tarraco has an average consumption with out PHEV of 9.5l. If I driving without charging I end up with less than 7l. On exception might be full speed on the Autobahn at over 200kmh but this is not the use case for 90% of the users. Another point is more range for PHEV. Well 60km makes sense but more not because the engine needs to run at least once a month. If your range is so high you will end up with a damaged motor. In daily use the 40-50km of the Tarraco already bring me into the dilemma to use gas just to run the engine at times. Overall PHEV's are a step forward but the future is BEV.

The cost of 1kwh of electricity will shortly be £0.56 in the UK. This effectively removes the cost advantage of charging your hybrid, ever. 15kwh to get 30miles (50km) range would buy enough petrol (gas) to give 40miles (65km).

My Kia Optima PHEV is better than this. Up to 80km on pure electric. A 2 litre hyper economical petrol engine up front. And both the electric and petrol engine mechanically connected to the DCT gearbox. Hellishly complex but Kia made it work. Supreme levels of comfort and refinement. And I plug it in all the time so 90% of my daily driving is on pure electric, which I charge at work. I have a fuel card. I just don’t abuse it.

Historically similar in UK where tax benefit of leasing a vehicle stratified by CO2 emissions. this resulted in majority of leases being PHEVs or even “self charging hybrids” that have lower CO2 emissions. Govt changed scale as of last year so hybrids treated almost the same as ICE vehicles and massively dropped benefit in kind tax on EVs. Work car park is filling up with Teslas, I-paces, qtrons and other EVs now.

i have a 308 gt hybrid, personal car, electricity is cheaper than in germany (0.17€/kw), i use the Gti mode in mountain (winter season)when i need max power to overtake on short straight lines, otherwise, i m on electric mode during the week ( personal garage with a 8A plug) and the hybrid mode is used on longer trip, so far on the past 9k km, i m at 3.2L/100. i dont charge on trips (too slow) , just at destination if i can. mainly enterprise PHEV are not recharged because , like u said, they have a petrol card so ..why bother.... and it leads to the PHEV problem .

What a weird confusing rant. You highlight the stupidity of giving people free money to buy cars and then use them however they want (which, by the way, they have a right to, and do not deserve your moral judgement) You complain that PHEVs are plugging in too much, because you think BEV owners should be entitled to priority over PHEV owners in this case? Why? You complain about PHEVs having DCFC because you think PHEV owners shouldn’t get to have fast charging capabilities? Why? You complain that the Arteon has to use all of its power systems to achieve full power - sounds to me like the system was sized correctly, and you are just sad it doesn’t have an excess of power for your own preferences. Look at the positive - a bunch of people bought PHEVs in stead of gas cars. They will flood the used market and give poorer folks the opportunity to buy them on discount and use them as intended.

Well, then the other reason no one plugs them in is that the stupid engineers were intelligent enough to add a good charger. Who wants to wait 3 hours to charge a plug-in Hybrid because hey have 3,6kw or 7kw chargers. What the fuck. I mean VW and its stupid subs are only having 11kw AC charging since some short time. Before they even only had 7kw AC charging. These stupid unusable cars were blocking charging spots for twice as long as others would. So as a home owner I now have to wait exceptionally long to charge up my car. Whats the point? Save 100 bucks on material costs to annoy thousands of people? For gods sake add a 22kw AC charger as a bare minimum. Be it Plug-in Hybrid or BEV car, 22kw AC charging should be legal obligation for all OEMs. Renault has that also done with the Megane E-Tech and also Tesla has it. German topnotch engineering? It can not be farther away than that. They did still not understand how BEV should work and are mass brainwashing the people with their crap.

The only PHEV that could possibly make sense is one with an ethanol engine: an entirely clean fuel, and it's zero emissions if you do not consider the logistics for distribution, until electric trucks are available. But any PHEV will be a half solution, because they are not efficient, and the cost (TCO) is higher: they will disappear in less than ten years.

The main reason I decided on a fully Electric instead of a PHEV here in Germany was because just viewed logically, the PHEV should be the least efficient of all 3 options (Electric, PHEV or Petrol/Diesel). You are always carrying around useless weight: If you are driving in electric mode, the fossil fuel engine and the petrol system are deadweight, if you are driving in fossil mode, the electric motor and the batteries are deadweight. Either way, it weighs more, has less space inside (The batteries usually take away part of the boot (trunk in simplified English :p ) space).

Most people in major cities in Europe live in buildings without parking. I would think that this will really limit the demand for plug-ins. We just bought a regular hybird because we rent a space in a building and there's no accommodation for charging stations. I just spent a month in Los Angeles with a Tesla. I didn't have a charging station and found it extremely inconvenient. Also...little known fact: In the US, EVUs account for approximately 1% of the vehicles on the road. In California, the power companies are starting to limit charging hours in order to prevent brown-outs. If, all of the sudden, we have 5% of Electric Vehicles on the road, we're going to start seeing massive grid failure.

The problem with PHEV is that they are company cars, not that they're PHEVs. The same thing applies to Italy. Nobody (people responsible for cars in companies) are thinking about the real advantages about PHEVs...

Yes I don't see the point to DC fast charging a PHEV, what's that like 9 minutes or less ? Our Niro PHEV is only 2 hours on a 3KW charger, I can get a full recharge in about 2 hours at home or at work. On road trips I don't bother to charge since on the freeway you could go though the whole range in 30 minutes or less, that's the point of a phev.

I don't think they should remove the incentives on PHEV's. They should just set a electric range demand on them to push the technology forwards. Say 75km, or 100km of electric range. It's pretty dumb that if they took a Tesla, cut the battery in half and added a small ICE as a range extender, it would still be taxed as a PHEV. Even though it would still be a good EV.

The reason it has a 6 speed DSG Wet Clutch is the amount of torque it has to handle. They even have to limit the torque as not to damage that clutch. PHEV is working okay in Europe as far as I can see. You can charge a PHEV with your 3 pin plug at home on a EV tariff. I’m always weary when the word guess pops up if you had information directly from PHEV driver surveys fair enough. It sounds to me you just don’t like PHEV’s.