And, you can make much lighter and lower range electric cars without all those heavy batteries, and boost the range with diesel when needed. Very attractive in principle. Most cars are not using their full range all the time, for a lot of people a 50 mile range car would be more than enough 98% of the time, but that remaining 2% means that people end up buying 200 mile range cars instead.

But then, do you end up removing enough battery weight to offset the weight of a whole ICE?

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pmg101 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I thought about PHEV but in the end went full EV simply because it seemed to me with two whole power trains that's 2x the components to go wrong/need maintenance.

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kube-system 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's a common misconception, but hybrids are almost never as complicated as an ICE powertrain plus an EV powertrain. E.g. most hybrids are able to eliminate many parts that ICE vehicles require, like, starters, drive belts, multi-ratio transmissions, alternators, etc. Because of this, many hybrids surpass ICE-only vehicles in reliability.

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m_fayer 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That same insight applies to regular hybrids, and yet Toyota’s hybrids are legendary for their durability. There’s a reason half the cabs where I live are Prius station wagons, and it’s not their efficiency, judging by how they’re driven.

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bryanlarsen 2 days ago | parent [-]

Consumer reports found that HEV's were the most reliable, and PHEV"s the least reliable. That's nonsensical, there's little difference between the two.

Toyota is the biggest seller of HEV's, Stellantis of PHEV. That's the difference. EV's on paper should be the most reliable, but Tesla is the biggest seller of those. If you want reliability, choose by brand rather than engine type.

	▲	pmg101 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I was comparing a Hyundai Ioniq EV with a Hyundai Ioniq PHEV and was surprised to find more problems reported by the owners of the Ioniq EV. Mostly issues with 12V battery, it seemed like. In the end I bought a Stellantis EV so I probably deserve everything I get - but they are cheap!
	▲	kube-system 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>Consumer reports found that HEV's were the most reliable, and PHEV"s the least reliable. That's nonsensical, there's little difference between the two. Eh, it's not so much nonsensical, as it is that you're just misinterpreting the data. This conversation here is specifically about powertrain reliability, but that isn't what consumer reports measures. They measure complaints about any feature on the vehicle, including ancillary accessories unrelated to the vehicle's ability to transport people. But also as you point out, shitty engineering (Stellantis's specialty) is a bigger issue than any particular drivetrain type.

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eldaisfish 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Toyota's success with the Prius proves that this fear is unfounded. You will regularly find second hand prius models for sale with 500,000 km on the odometer.

Just think - if two drivetrains were less reliable, wouldn't you see that with the Prius?

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Mawr 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're right in principle, but it's important to remember that tradeoffs exist. You can very much trade off engineering effort and time to improve reliability.

Commercial aviation is a great example of taming extreme inherent unsafety of aircraft by applying a lot of resources to the engineering side. Another is space programs.

And car power trains have nothing on those ;) As Toyota has shown, it's totally possible to make reliable hybrid cars with enough engineering thrown at the problem.

So if all things were equal, you'd absolutely expect an EV to be more reliable than a hybrid, but all things are rarely equal.

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teamonkey 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In some ways it’s more complicated. The battery management and cooling is a point of failure. It’s also heavier and so wear and tear on suspension is greater.

On the other hand, a Toyota hybrid doesn’t have a gearbox at all, not even a CVT. Instead it has something similar to a differential, it’s mechanically simple and very reliable. It uses the electric motor in place of a turbo, so that’s another common failure point removed. It doesn’t have a starter motor, and the Atkinson cycle engine should suffer less stress than an equivalent petrol.

Practically the biggest problem is finding a 3rd party garage who will inspect the hybrid parts as part of a service.

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happyPersonR 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This. This times 100x . Also, it’s not like each powertrain has an independent failure mode. If either break, your car is a brick until it’s fixed.

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silverquiet 2 days ago | parent [-]

I have a friend who drives a Chevy Volt with a dead ICE engine; she just charges the battery and uses it as a (rather short range) pure EV vehicle. Not ideal, but it works for her until she gets something else.

	▲	throwawaylaptop 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		If she was in California she wouldn't be able to pass smog at her next inspection, which is a funny problem considering she drives in pure EV mode now.

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mort96 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Oh I agree completely. I'm driving an old diesel now but I have no desire to get a hybrid, I'd get a pure EV if I were to buy a new car. But there are some tempting things in principle about plug-in hybrids

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lotsofpulp 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Smaller cars have always been available, but people have shown a preference for bigger cars where they can sit higher up, even though it costs them more.

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mort96 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not talking about size, I'm talking about range and weight. You can have a huge car or a smaller car, going from a 90kWh battery pack to a 30kWh battery pack is gonna have the same weight saving in both

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andrepd 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe they should be at least charged for the catastrophic externalities that that "preference" results in.

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eldaisfish 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

does "preference" equate to endless, manipulative advertising from car manufacturers? Or, perhaps, the "preference" of higher profit margins from larger cars, pushing manufacturers to entirely abandon reasonably sized cars?

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potato3732842 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

"Everyone who doesn't want what I want them to want has been brainwashed by corporate interests" is not a robust assertion under even the most casual scrutiny.

I hate to break it to you but something like a Rogue or HRV does circles around an Altima or Civic when it comes to daily flexibility and utility for a fairly paltry additional cost. It doesn't take a degree in rocket surgery to figure out why they fly off the shelves. For the average person they're a good combination of attributes.

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eldaisfish 2 days ago | parent [-]

The North American market now only includes a handful of sedans. Meanwhile, Hyundai and Toyota somehow manage to sell “tiny” cars in Korea, Japan and lots of developing countries.

A practical car is a station wagon, not an SUV, many of which have less storage space.

Please, cut the needless snark. People do buy vehicles for edge cases but the lack of smaller, practical vehicles is driven is large part by manufacturer profit.

	▲	potato3732842 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Many of those tiny foreign cars are unfortunately not economically useful to sell in the regulated markets of the rich west, and even when they are they often aren't without the developing nation sales volume to amortize a lot of the fixed costs over. I agree that there's a lot of stupidity going on when it comes to station wagons vs crossovers vs compact SUVs and the OEMs really do SUV-ify a lot of things that ought not to be. The shape of these vehicles is fairly preordained by the nature of the fuel economy regulations and wind resistance and other regulations that apply equally to all of them. You're not gonna find "more space" in something like a Subaru Outback by squashing it on the vertical axis unless you stretch it in another dimension or find somewhere else to find space. Maybe you might be able to eek out a slightly better angle on the hatch or something but it ain't gonna be much. Fuel economy regulations make cars with thicc asses like the big sedans and station wagons of yesterday nonsensical. The snark is not needless. It is tautologically impossible for the overwhelming majority of people do be "doing it wrong" on a matter that is in large part a subjective one of preference. If someone wants to assert that then I will talk down to them. People buy these small SUVs left and right because they're seemingly the best option when it comes to well rounded boring A to B vehicles.
	▲	silverquiet 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I think the crossover is pretty much the modern station wagon. I suppose they get marketed as SUV's but they're basically just a bit longer and taller car vs what I'd consider a "real" SUV; an enclosed truck chassis.

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elyobo 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

also once everybody else is obstructing your view with a bigger car it becomes necessary to have a bigger one, it's a race to the metaphorical bototm