Now that EVs can go 200+ miles, do we still need hybrids?

Even if EVs become more affordable, hybrids still have a special kind of flexibility. In a way, most of our cars are already hybrid. You can drive on the gas engine, but you can run most of the accessories from battery power with the engine turned off. The next step up is a Prius, which can cruise around the neighborhood on electric power. Then you have plug ins with full electric capability. As long as electric vehicles and ICE vehicles exist at the same time, I think there will always be someone who is best served by some combination of the two.

In reply to alfadriver :

The Leaf is also probably the worst case scenario as IIRC it's the production EV that probably suffered most from battery degradation.

Ransom said:

I think, with regard to the original question and agreeing with an earlier mostly-unreferenced post by STM317, there is still a strong use case for a plug in hybrid.

I can't stop thinking about the fact that a hybrid with 30 miles of electric range would do the VAST majority of my daily errands entirely on electric power.

And while I'm still wrestling with myself over the question of just how much I would dislike having to find a charger and wait for a charge on road trips (still recovering from Leaf ownership in the infrastructure of 2014), the real win is in terms of only needing 30 miles worth of expensive battery. Because for now, the other 170-270 miles of battery range is more expensive than an ICE, isn't it?

I wonder how quickly that will change.

This all Canadian dollars. 

Kia Niro hybrid $25,495

Kia Niro PHEV $33,965

Kia Niro EV $44,995

that's the same vehicle in three flavours

Leafs (Leaves?) are not the most common EV out there, but they're probably the biggest volume low resale one. There are about 114k Leafs in the US. The Model S has sold more than that, and the Model 3 moved that many cars in the US from June-Dec 2019.

This is not picking nits, but more of an illustration of how fast the Tesla sales are going - it's a sales curve you don't usually see in the automotive space. This animated chart really shows how Nissan lost a pretty commanding lead in the space. It's mostly just interesting, not completely germane to the conversation.

More germane is the fall in Prius sales. Less than 70k in the US last year for all variants. Add in the Rav4 Hybrid (21% of Rav4 sales) and those two are almost a dead heat with the Model 3 for 2019.

A couple of questions, or discussion points, from a guy who holds no ill will towards electrics, but just isn't sure they are right for him:

Is battery life badly affected by supercharging?  I presume temperature control is paramount in the battery pack, and you can only cram so many electrons in a battery before it gets too hot.  Also, when it's Saskatchewan cold, the battery pack has to be warmed up before it will accept charge.

How is your local electrical utility doing?  If its like here, if 25% of the people in the city got pure electrics, we'd be out of power.  It's not that easy to build a new reactor or hydro dam, and you'd need a pretty good roof worth of solar cells to run a fast charger, I'd imagine.

As an aside to the second point, building a series of charging points at the Petro-Can station seems simple, but there would be a healthy hidden infrastructure involving some pretty big copper wires.

Lastly, I was questioning a conventional wisdom a month or so ago, when someone trotted out the old, "Just charge it at night, when the load is lower on the grid."  "No", I thought, not in my town, so I went and looked .  Here, all the record high electrical consumption happens on cold nights, when every furnace in the city is burning.  I presume as you get further south, the A/C electrical load drops off as the sun sets, but street lights come on, house lights... Is it really a useful argument?

Yes, repeated fast charging will degrade batteries over time. Tesla offered free Supercharging to a group of S owners and there's data out there on how much. It's not massive, but it's real.

And yes, the battery pack has to be warmed to take the charge. At least some EVs will prepare the battery for a fast charge if they know it's coming - Teslas and Taycans at least.

You can schedule charging times easily enough. I find it surprising that 3AM would have greater grid use than 3PM, but I haven't looked at the numbers for Sask. Even then, the cars aren't charging constantly.

Funny you should mention Petro-Can, you'll never guess what they're doing...
https://www.petro-canada.ca/en/personal/fuel/ev-fast-charge-network 
 

Again, remember that Supercharging or charging away from home is the exception rather than the rule. It's what everyone gravitates towards because it's what we know about gas cars, but it turns out that in day to day use charging just isn't a thing. It's only a factor when your use over the course of a day is greater than your range. I will admit I hadn't fully groked this before we got an EV.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

It wouldn't have to be a fast charger installed. Most EVs will charge fully on a 240v outlet overnight. It's like running an electric dryer or stove for 6-10 hours. And they don't all have to charge fully every night. If you've got a car with 250 miles of range, and you drive 50 miles per day, then you use about 20% of the battery capacity per day (plus whatever is used for HVAC, wipers, etc.) So you could charge to "top off" the battery with that extra 20-30% every night (taking a couple of hours on a 240v outlet), or you can skip charging for a few days until you're almost empty, and then charge it all at once. Either way, it's not like all EVs will be charging all night, every night.

Hybrids have their use cases.  They make excellent taxi cabs and courier vehicles, especially in cold climates.  They are extremely reliable and easy on brakes.  Good for people without home charge capability.  They drive very smoothly with seamless engine stop/start.

I likely my CT200h a lot, but really didn't drive enough miles to breakeven on it.  It was nice to be able to load it up and drive the 400 mile trip to cottage 2 or 3 times a year.  I rental for that trip would not be economical because they tend to cost a lot when you keep them for 2 to 3 weeks. 

A few $1000 rentals a year would blow your savings on gas for an electric.  Those free loaners from BMW made a lot of sense for that situation.

Time of use - this isn't Saskatchewan, but it's Ontario which can get a little cool in the winters. Here's the time-of-use pricing for summer and winter, which should reflect actual demand on the grid. Green is the time to charge your EV. You can see that there definitely is greater power use in the morning and evening in winter, but not at night.

Wicked93gs said:

I will continue to pass on EVs(Hybrid still makes sense). The laws of physics haven't changed in 100 years....gasoline still packs more specific energy per lb than batteries. I will reconsider if they ever make a battery with a better energy to weight ratio...but I just don't want to drive a 4000lb car regardless of how much torque it puts out, at least from a performance standpoint. From a daily commuter standpoint I might build a 150+ mile range(unlikely that I would buy a factory one) EV....probably more of a chance of that than buying a hybrid actually. I just don't feel EVs are worth anything as anything other than commuter cars....and under no circumstances would I ever own one as my only vehicle(just look at CA recent PG&E fire-preventing rolling blackouts as a perfect reason why...or blackouts in general)

You need a ride in a good EV. The brutal acceleration some of them have will really surprise you. 
200 miles round trip is enough to meet 98% of my driving needs now.  Not when I was on the road racking up 60-80,000 miles a year, but since that's no longer the issue I'd be happy to get an EV. 
For that occasion when 200 isn't enough, a nice alternate ( backup)  vehicle will do for me.  But the reality is as EV's start to dominate gas stations will lose out.  
Just like EV users have to plot charging stations now, Gas powered will need to plot out gas stations in the future.  

Keith Tanner said:

More germane is the fall in Prius sales. Less than 70k in the US last year for all variants. Add in the Rav4 Hybrid (21% of Rav4 sales) and those two are almost a dead heat with the Model 3 for 2019.

Didn't they cut at least one of the Prius variants for the current generation? They used to offer the Prius V wagon thing, the regular Prius, and then a little Prius Hatch. I think they're down to just the regular Prius now right? And the Rav 4, Corolla, and Highlander all have standard hybrid variants. The Rav even has a PHEV on the way. No reason to get an ugly Prius that shouts to the world that you're driving a hybrid when you can get a regular looking car in more flavors that does 98% of the same thing in a nicer looking wrapper.

STM317 said:

Keith Tanner said:

More germane is the fall in Prius sales. Less than 70k in the US last year for all variants. Add in the Rav4 Hybrid (21% of Rav4 sales) and those two are almost a dead heat with the Model 3 for 2019.

Didn't they cut at least one of the Prius variants for the current generation? They used to offer the Prius V wagon thing, the regular Prius, and then a little Prius Hatch. I think they're down to just the regular Prius now right? And the Rav 4, Corolla, and Highlander all have standard hybrid variants. The Rav even has a PHEV on the way. No reason to get an ugly Prius that shouts to the world that you're driving a hybrid when you can get a regular looking car in more flavors that does 98% of the same thing in a nicer looking wrapper.

Source: http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/toyota/toyota-prius/. They say "all variants" and mention the V and C as well as the normal Prius. And the Rav4 Hybrid does outsell them per a Car and Driver article. 

But the point is that if you take the two most popular hybrid families from the company that basically created hybrids and combine them, you have the same sales numbers as one EV. Not one EV manufacturer, one EV. I wouldn't have guessed that.

If we go back 20 years or so, the only practical options available to car buyers was Gasoline or Diesel. So choices were based on how much you wanted to spend for the brand, model and options.
Now that we have multiple options for not just fuel type, we can also buy pure EV or hybrid or plugin variations. On top of that, there are the regional incentives available that will help the buyer figure out what is best for their particular 'use case'. Lastly, with respect to incentives, most are time-sensitive, so the buyer has to consider that as well. 

For me, I decided to buy a 2018 Volt based on my requirements and in a large part based on knowing that the $14K incentive would soon be disappearing, due to an upcoming election that I knew would likely change things. (Which did happen). 
So in my opinion, there's still room for all types and the rise of pure EV isn't making the hybrid dead yet. But as time and tech moves forward we'll see more innovation and more change. That change will then be the input for us to make our purchase decision. 
 

TL/DR: I love my Chevy Volt.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

You make a good point there.  It's so engrained into my brain to not come home on empty, because living in the country,  I've got to ensure I have enough to go back out to get more gas. Of course this thought doesn't apply with the ability to charge at home. If you make it home, you're at the "gas staion".

I need to retrain my brain how cars work when every outlet is a fuel source....albiet slow ones. 

 Watched a couple youtube video's. With the tesla at least, there is 10 to 15 miles additional range after hitting zero miles remaining, just like a ICE vehicle when the low fuel light comes on and zero range remaining, that's somewhat comforting. People mention that being terrible for the battery. Also, if you shut the car off while in  this zero range remaining mode, it will not restart. Good to know.  

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to alfadriver :

The Leaf is also probably the worst case scenario as IIRC it's the production EV that probably suffered most from battery degradation.

It's also the most affordable one, and the actual first car to penetrate the lower income levels.  How that market deals with those cars will be a good indicator of the long term DIY ability of the public.

Keith Tanner said:

Leafs (Leaves?) are not the most common EV out there, but they're probably the biggest volume low resale one. There are about 114k Leafs in the US. The Model S has sold more than that, and the Model 3 moved that many cars in the US from June-Dec 2019.

This is not picking nits, but more of an illustration of how fast the Tesla sales are going - it's a sales curve you don't usually see in the automotive space. This animated chart really shows how Nissan lost a pretty commanding lead in the space. It's mostly just interesting, not completely germane to the conversation.

More germane is the fall in Prius sales. Less than 70k in the US last year for all variants. Add in the Rav4 Hybrid (21% of Rav4 sales) and those two are almost a dead heat with the Model 3 for 2019.

 

Fogive me for thinking that there isn't a Tesla that will actually be sold in the low income bracket for some time.  So for my point, the fact that a high priced luxury car outsold the cheap version really isn't that important.

Teslas may last longer, but they are considerably more expensive, and don't really represent a car that low income people will get as an option if their home rentals go up due to the landlord adding charging capability.

It's going to be a long time before there's an EV to compete with a $500 Accord, I agree. But the only way for there to be $500 Accords is for someone to buy new $30,000 Accords. Nobody's selling cars to that market directly. If the market shifts to primarily EVs, those  bottom feeder cars will be EVs. They may start as $45k Teslas or they may start as $31,500 Leafs.

If you don't need a charger, then you don't pay the premium for an apartment with a charger. This is a pretty blue-sky objection, of course. I suggested that there was a mechanism by which apartment dwellers might gain access to chargers, and somehow low income folks are completely disadvantaged. The point where all apartments have chargers and are more expensive because of it is probably no closer than the point where you can choose between a high mileage EV and a high mileage ICE on the buy here, pay here lot.

Reading this has me thinking about how an electric car would work for my current lifestyle. I live in an apartment with my fiancee, we own three cars, and have one uncovered parking space. That parking situation isn't terribly uncommon here in Portland (minus the cars>people part). Even if our apartment had outlets outside, we'd have to schedule ourselves charging times for each car. That alone might preclude someone like us from owning a pair. 

In reply to alfadriver :

It is interesting that old prius with worn-out batteries (which means the car does not work anymore) sell for super cheap, and actually make great low-budet cars, although not at the lowest budget level.   Perhaps even more interesting  is that the latest is stealing catalytic converters from them, and because in california you can't buy used ones, they must be bought from the dealer for like $1,200, and so now you can buy super cheap Prius that can't run the gas motor, but good batteries.  lol  I just bought two of them. for under $1,000.

Until battery costs come way down (which we are promised every year, but has not yet happened), a hybrid remains viable technology.

When that equivalent of lithium vs lead thing happens with "zoid" batteries at 4x more capacity and 4x cheaper, then there will be big swap to EVs.  

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Leafs are $31,5?

No wonder I see ONE Leaf on a semi regular basis and a dozen or two Teslas per day.  The Leaf looks like it's a $15k car.  Teslas seem to have the refinement to justify their price even if they were a gasoline vehicle.

I think there's a lot of room for hybrids still.  Wish there were more PHEVs out there, we're probably going to get the RAV4 Prime to replace our CX-5.  Doing road trips in the rural midwest and camping with two little kids, I don't want to deal with trying to find a fast charger, and the significantly lower range in the cold, etc.  Also there isn't really a family hauler CUV  EV option out there.  Model Y will be the closest but still that silly swooping coupe style roofline.  That said, EV would work great for 97% of what we do.  Maybe I will replace the M3 with one down the line, drawback there is I do a couple track days a year with the M3 which is not really feasible with current EVs.  

alfadriver said:

Keith Tanner said:

Leafs (Leaves?) are not the most common EV out there, but they're probably the biggest volume low resale one. There are about 114k Leafs in the US. The Model S has sold more than that, and the Model 3 moved that many cars in the US from June-Dec 2019.

This is not picking nits, but more of an illustration of how fast the Tesla sales are going - it's a sales curve you don't usually see in the automotive space. This animated chart really shows how Nissan lost a pretty commanding lead in the space. It's mostly just interesting, not completely germane to the conversation.

More germane is the fall in Prius sales. Less than 70k in the US last year for all variants. Add in the Rav4 Hybrid (21% of Rav4 sales) and those two are almost a dead heat with the Model 3 for 2019.

 

Fogive me for thinking that there isn't a Tesla that will actually be sold in the low income bracket for some time.  So for my point, the fact that a high priced luxury car outsold the cheap version really isn't that important.

Teslas may last longer, but they are considerably more expensive, and don't really represent a car that low income people will get as an option if their home rentals go up due to the landlord adding charging capability.

Please forgive me for preaching.  Is it so horrible that something well made and developed. Something that has advanced technology and likely will last longer than a cheap disposable leaf  costs more?  
With interest rates at near the rate of inflation isn't it worth financing to gain its benefits now rather than waiting until it depreciates to the bottom?  Remember even if you repair it yourself that does not mean it's free. Aside from  parts, your time has costs to you and the the things you hold in value.  Your family, your career, your interests, hobbies and social interactions. 
The simple fact is you will need transportation the rest of your life.  Spend more now than the absolute minimum to ensure lower operating costs in the future. 
While the very wealthy already know and accept this, you might feel compelled to pay a lower price, OK there are leased ones coming off lease at a discount. Still in near new condition with little deterioration of batteries etc.  One final point. The history of its use should be able to be downloaded. So buying a used one is far less of a risk than buying a less sophisticated car  

Knurled. said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Leafs are $31,5?

 

No wonder I see ONE Leaf on a semi regular basis and a dozen or two Teslas per day.  The Leaf looks like it's a $15k car.  Teslas seem to have the refinement to justify their price even if they were a gasoline vehicle.

The Leaf MSRP is high, but a lot of these short-range EVs have artificially high residual values in order to bring the lease cost down.  Essentially the manfacturers are selling them because they're required to, but they know they won't sell at true cost and for some accounting reason it's better to move the losses into the lease area.

At one point, Fiat 500Es had a sticker in the mid 30s, were leasing for less than a hundred bucks a month with a grand down, and had nominal residual values of like $24K -- they were selling at auction for between $5K and $10K.

Yeah, I just went to Nissan USA and looked at minimum MSRP. Dealer may sell for less, yadda yadda :) Minimum MSRP for the Model 3 is something like $37k, but you won't get it for less and it's a special order that can only be placed in person. 

I see mention of a decline in Prius sales but has anyone noticed that Toyota now sells a Corolla hybrid? I had no idea but I saw one on the road recently.