> PH = Plug-in hybrid (Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home)

Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"

The only energy input for a "hybrid" is from petrol. It's slightly more efficient. A Toyota Yaris 1.5 hubrid gets about 65mpg rather than the 45mpg on a Skoda Kamiq

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/skoda/kamiq-2023

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/toyota/yaris-cross-2021

▲

LeoPanthera a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"

Not really. The petrol drivetrain takes up so much room there's no space for a large battery, so the much smaller battery will only take you a short distance if you used it alone, plus now it's much less efficient because you're carrying around a heavy engine with you.

▲

swiftcoder a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"

They put tiny batteries in a lot of plug-in hybrids. Unless you live very close to work, you’ll struggle to use it as primarily an EV

▲

vkou a day ago | parent [-]

Commuter[1] PHEVs start at 30 miles EV range.

Which is ~enough to cover the vast majority of commutes, and the majority of US commutes.

Keep in mind that even if 20% of your commute is done on petrol, the other 80% isn't.

---

[1] Yes, there are PHEVs with shorter ranges, but those tend to be weird luxury models that for some compliance reason have a battery strapped to them.

▲

dalyons 19 hours ago | parent [-]

the short ranges make them impractical and annoying to charge all the time, so people just dont in the real world

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

▲

tzs 17 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

▲

dalyons 13 hours ago | parent [-]

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

▲

tzs 6 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

[1] https://theicct.org/publication/european-market-monitor-cars...

[2] https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/car-industry-news/2022/05/3...

	▲	dalyons 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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. [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/eu-regulation-... [2] https://www.acea.auto/files/Press_release_car_registrations_... [3] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/eu-regulation-...

▲

alistairSH 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sort of...

IIRC, the latest Honda Civic Hybrid has the ICE decoupled from the drivetrain most of the time (even if it is running to generate power), but it can couple to the drivetrain under some conditions?

▲

rootusrootus 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That sounds like what the Chevy Volt did back in the day. Turns out that it just was not feasible to achieve higher efficiency through the generator when cruising on the highway than just direct driving the wheels.

Almost certainly why nearly all hybrids have been parallel hybrids up to now. What is changing, I think, is that a significant number of people are warming to the idea of a BEV, and want all of the benefits of that, but want to fall back on gasoline in a pinch. Thus EREV, or series hybrid, which provides that crutch. Expensive, though.

▲

traderj0e 20 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm curious why exactly they haven't made 2-3 speed trans typical in EVs already, like Porsche did. Single gear is too inefficient at freeway speeds. Tesla supposedly solved this with dual-motor models where the second motor has a different final drive ratio, but I feel like that's more expensive than 2WD w/ trans, which doesn't need to be nearly as advanced as the ICE-driven kind.

	▲	rootusrootus 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To my understanding the increase in efficiency is marginal at best, highway efficiency is completely dominated by wind resistance in either case. It would never come anywhere near paying for the increased cost or complexity of implementing the transmission. It may not be quite as complex as a five or six speed ICE transmission, but my bet is that it is much closer to that end of the scale than it is to a single speed reduction gearbox.

▲

numpad0 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's just a regular transverse FF with the clutch sandwiched by a pair of motors...

▲

rootusrootus a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"

No, that would be an EREV.

▲

benj111 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

45 to 65mpg is a near 50% increase. I would say that's "slight"

▲

bluGill a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Depends on how you use it. Some never plug in. Some always do. I save a ton of money without worrying about range since there is always gas when I make a roadtrip