Would you be willing to pay $10,000 over a gasoline vehicle for a 50 mile PHEV?

Certainly there are some people that are. It's the intersection of people in situations like yours and those who are willing to pay to do their part for the environment. But that's a pretty small set of people. A large minority of people are in the first bracket and a small minority in the second bracket. The intersected set is pretty small.

With incentives like CAFE reducing that $10,000 number the market was much larger.

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AtlasBarfed a day ago | parent [-]

Huh, funny, is that how much a PHEV costs relative to an EV?

No?

Because a PHEV is basically the same as an EV, except you take 4/5s of the battery out (and make four more PHEVs from that supply).

THEN, you put a nice compact rotary engine that runs at one optimized speed and an alternator. Does that sound like it costs $10,000? Does your lawnmower cost $10,000?

"It's a pretty small set of people" Dude, you live in on the West Coast, it is so blindingly obvious. There's about, what, 40 states between the two coasts? Right, NOBODY lives there.

	▲	bryanlarsen a day ago \| parent [-]
		> No? No, relative to a gasoline car. Reread my comment. > "It's a pretty small set of people" Second time you misread my comment. I said a "large minority" of people are in your situation. IOW, slightly less than half the population. But how many people are in your situation AND are willing to pay a significant premium for PHEV? That's the small set. I drive an electric in Saskatchewan, which is likely far more hostile to electric than wherever you live. Most people there won't spend $3000 extra for a PHEV vs a gasoline car, let alone significantly more than that.