Battery electric vehicles lose their spark in Europe as hybrids steal the show
Germans cooling on proper EVs, according to auto industry group
Important to know that real-world testing shows that PHEVs are rarely plugged in and just burn oil much of the time
That’s a shame. I love my PHEV because it’s an EV for driving around the city, but I can still use gas stations on road trips. I plug it in everywhere I can.
Same here, and I am hoping that as battery density increases I may be able to extend the range on mine when the car gets old enough for a rebuild.
They still get way better gas mileage. They also don't cost $15,000 when the battery goes bad. I replaced my 12 year old prius battery myself in like two hours after buying a brand new $2,900 replacement from the Toyota dealership. Could have just bought and replaced the bad cell in it, but in a 12 year old battery I'd probably have another to replace within a year and just have to keep going in and replacing one after the other, which would be a pain.
Thanks for sharing this. Very interesting and a little surprising. I love my phev and keep it charged as much as possible because I notice acceleration benefits, pre-conditioning benefits, and obvious fuel savings, as well as time saving not having to gas up. I also have no fears of battery discharge like I would with full electric. I live in the states and charging stations are still pretty rare outside major metro areas and a lot of things are pretty spread out here so I still find full EV unfortunately a bit impractical. I CN imagine anyone not charging their phev whenever the opportunity presents.
That makes no sense. The entire point of a PHEV is that you can just plug it in at your house and drive to work for virtually free, well still being able to visit people who live a decent distance away on the weekends.
The average real-world electric driving share is about 45%–49% for private (phev) cars and about 11%–15% for company cars
45-49% on privately owned cars isn't rarely, but 10-15% on the corporate side totally is. However I can also understand employees not wanting to give their company free electricity every night, while simultaneously companies do not have plans in place for employees to charge at work.
Company purchasing managers would be better off just buying regular hybrids if they're not going to set up a plan to keep these charged, otherwise they'll never get the financial benefits that sold them on the phev in the first place.
This was a problem with government owned Volts, they reimbursed for gas as this was already happening for the rest of the ICE fleet but had no way to reimburse for charging. Would not be surprised if this trend is the same for many company fleets too. Fix that and you would probably see similar numbers to private ownership.
And burn even more than pure ICEs since they also carry the added weight from the electric stuff. At a time where we need much less cars overall, including EVs.
That's news to me considering the EPA-rated fuel economy of vehicles with both hybrid and pure ICE drivetrains is universally higher for the hybrid versions.
An ICE vehicle needs a much larger engine than is truly necessary due to the inefficiencies and limitations of mechanical transmissions, whereas a hybrid can have a much smaller, more efficient engine.
A hybrid can potentially act like a 'perfect' transmission, capable of taking in power from an engine running at its single most efficient RPM and, with the aid of battery storage, produce any combination of speed and torque that has an average power less than the output of the ICE.
This is a bit surprising to me tbh, Europe seems like the perfect place for little 100 mile range EV’s to kick ass. Over here in North America I can see hybrids being the current hot ticket because people regularly drive hundreds of miles for trips and work. Seems less common there but I may be wrong
It’s an issue of charging. Europe has cities that are very old. Streets are narrower than North America. Many apartments don’t have underground parking. Cars are parked on the street. There’s nowhere to plugin the EV overnight.
People still go on holiday once or twice a year, snd many travel by car and always prefer their own car over rental. A 100 mile range EV being good for 95% of your use cases doesn't help you much with the other 5%.
Cagers have this argument of "but what if I want to do this cross country trip to bumfucknowhere" ... Similar to when asked why they can't give up their car "what if I want to transport a washing machine" ... As if those people load up their cars with 5 tons of bulky cargo and be driving around the world on a daily basis and there not being any other ways to handle such edge cases.
To be fair, this could be an argument. I don't have a car now, and when I do buy it - the usecase would be long road trips to where public transport is bad or carrying cargo to my vacation house. Only half of that would be easily doable with an EV's range. For city commutes, public transport is preferred, and trips to the vacation house without cargo could be made on electric trains faster.
What’s a cager? I can’t give up my car because I can’t bike to work, buses go way too fast on the highway which is dangerous and illegal, and I don’t earn enough to buy an EV or to relocate near my job.
You must understand that poor people can’t live in the EV utopia right now. Car makers will have to sell small and cheap EVs.
I was buying new (used) car half a year ago. There were two reasons why I ended with ICE again.
Everyone around me is very EV-skeptical and old fashioned. I'm not and I'm cheering for EVs. So I really wanted to switch, but hell it wasn't making any sense yet.
Batteries are expensive, range causes anxiety, a small battery is possible in a hybrid thus price is lower
Nah. Anxiety is something you have for first month owning your first EV. Once you adjust to the different way of using the car you realize you drive the same way as petroleum car. One important thing is being able to charge at home IMO. Even from just a socket (16A) is sufficient for most daily cases.
It seems to be a misleading title.
It mentions a European associations data but then they only point to the German Market, that Germans are cooling on electric.
I see no numbers for that being the case in say in Denmark where I live, where even people with hybrids are switching to electric due to legislation placing hybrids in the same category as CE cars. No body here is "cooling on electric" and we have a much higher rate of adoption than Germany, easily veried by a small trip over the border.
Europeans are not cooling on electric, maybe Germans are, but Germans are Europes "Murica" when it comes to cars. They require huge German SUVs with a minimum speed of 200 kmh on the autobahn...
Also isnt is because subsides on electric cars ended so either A everyone bought while you could get them cheaper so the demand has fallen of B they are more expensive so naturaly pepole are picking cheaper car. It doesnt really matter if car will save you 30000 thousands euro throught it lifetime on fuel if you dont have 30000 more to spend.
Ultimately we will see in a year whetewer electric cars just went to its natural equlibrium without subsidies and its share will continue to rise once again or its an actual trend.
Not sure what you mean :)
My point was that the article was making false assumptions about Europeans are cooling on EVs as a whole based on one dataset which cherry picked Germany.
I will make a few assumptions of my own based on what I see: 1: Germany Auto industry have been show to make good EVS, they do huge hybrids 2: Germany have a culture of huge German SUV and Sedan cars (much like macho culture of Americans with trucks). 3: Germans love buying German cars 4: Germany subsidies it's own cars more than imported cars (whatever the fuel type)
All that I would think would have a much higher effect on German buying trends than whatever EV vs CE vs Hybrid debate they try to pin the data on.
Again they have to show me legit data across Europe if you wanna show "a trend" in Europe, not one country which have a huge vested interest in not adopting imported EVs which are better/cheaper than their German counterparts.
It's sad to see the oil industry's propaganda campaign working so well.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
According to figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), BEVs accounted for 12.5 percent of the EU car market, a drop from 13.8 percent a year ago.
Electric vehicles in the EU tend to be more expensive than their traditionally powered siblings, and charging infrastructure in the region requires investment if the EU's CO2 reduction targets are to be met.
Another survey [PDF] found the top three challenges facing BEVs were price, a lack of availability of private recharging, and too few public recharging points.
A recent report found that at the end of 2023, the EU had 632,423 public charging points, serving around 3 million BEVs.
According to the UK's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the BEV market share in the UK for the year to May 2024 stood at 16.1 percent, slightly up from the same period last year, when the figure was 15.7 percent.
A survey with more than 19,000 respondents – of which just over 2,000 were BEV drivers – by the European Alternative Fuels Observatory found that just over half of non-electric car drivers (57 percent) were considering an electric car purchase, but nearly two-thirds of all respondents considered cost as a barrier.
The original article contains 392 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 49%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
but nearly two-thirds of all respondents considered cost as a barrier.
That's really the only thing preventing mass adaptation, but as long as they're so expensive (which they likely will be until we see a new battery technology) they simply aren't a viable choice for many people.
Many of the people who are willing to spend a fortune on a vehicle already get an EV in the last few years (which they still are using rn), resulting in declining sales. It is time to cater to a broader market: more budget conscious people!
It’s infrastructure. Too inconvenient to find a spot to charge, the apartments where you live probably don’t have chargers, your workplace doesn’t either…
In France installing a charger in appartement building is mandatory if the resident asks for it, even if they're renting.
Hybrids: the worst of both worlds.
If you want to keep relying on gasoline then just buy an ICE car
In the US they're the best of both worlds, especially if you get a plugin electric car. Charging infrastructure sucks for longer trips (fast charging is often broken or missing), and Americans like longer trips, so gas is preferred. But around town, it's nice to not need to fill up.
That may not be the case in Europe, idk.
Where I am the charging infrastructure is terrible and electricity prices are bad. I was considering a hybrid but I guess if it's no better I'll just grab a regular ICE
It's sort of a flawed opinion. If you're never charging at home and doing a lot of driving, a hybrid won't make much difference and might cost more. If you're conscientious about charging when you can and mostly drive within range of your battery's capacity, it can be almost as effective as full electric. Stats indicate most PHEV owners use the the same way you would use an ICE, car, which is more expensive and a bit of a waste.
More than the charging infrastructure it is the city infrastructure: when you have condos built without any planning 50 or more years ago, even if you pass a law that every home need to have a charging station in these condos it is physically impossible to do it. Charging infrastructure comes after you solve the problem where to put 70 or more charging station for every condo in the district.
Hybrids: the worst of both worlds.
If you want to keep relying on gasoline then just buy an ICE car
Maybe I can use a hydrid: short trip (to the train station/mall/small affairs in the vicinity) go in electric, longer trip use gasoline.
Not everyone has a charging station at home and in many places you cannot install it, be because forbidden by some old laws or because there is not the physical option.