After losing favor to EVs, plug-in hybrids gain ground
In late 2010, General Motors sought to seize the high ground from Toyota’s successful Prius hybrid with the Volt plug-in hybrid — a car that could drive short distances on only electricity and fire up a gasoline engine for long trips.
But the Volt and other cars like it struggled to win over drivers, as many early adopters opted for fully electric cars like Tesla’s Model S and the Nissan Leaf. GM quietly did away with the Volt in 2019 as it trained its sights on all-electric cars.
But a funny thing happened on the way to obsolescence: Plugin hybrid sales are climbing in the United States, in part because of the recent surge in gasoline prices. Automakers sold a record 176,000 such cars last year, according to Wards Intelligence, up from 69,000 in 2020. This year, sales of plug-in hybrids could reach 180,000, analysts said, even as the overall new-car market drops to 14.4 million from 15.3 million a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive.
All-electric cars have seized around 5 percent of the new-car market, and most analysts and industry executives expect them to eventually surpass hybrids as automakers commit to eliminating tailpipe emissions, a major contributor to climate change. But hybrids — led by a growing selection of plug-ins — still make up about 7 percent of sales, and that number could grow for at least a few years.
Automakers are struggling to ramp up electric vehicle production because the supply of batteries is not growing fast enough. Partly as a result, the average cost of a new electric car is now a steep $66,000. That provides an opening for plug-in hybrids.
Unlike conventional hybrids, which can be refueled only with gasoline and are dependent on engines, plug-in varieties can operate entirely on battery propulsion. And because these cars have smaller batteries than allelectric vehicles, they can be more affordable. The cars are also appealing because they do not have to be plugged in for many hours to be fully charged. On road trips, they can be refueled with gasoline, eliminating the range anxiety that keeps many people from buying electric cars.
“I think some automakers, including GM, have been far too quick to cast PHEVs aside in the face of all-electric vehicles,” said Karl Brauer, executive director of research at iSeeCars.com, a car research firm. “And I’m wondering if they are regretting that decision, given the supply chain issues and price hikes we’re now experiencing.”
Bauer and others also note that many car buyers are not ready to buy electric vehicles. A J.D. Power survey found that one of the biggest reasons people cite for not buying one is that there are not enough public charging stations in the United States. And charging an electric car at public stations for roughly 30 to 60 minutes — a typical rate for even the fastest chargers — or overnight at home is an inconvenience that many drivers are unwilling to tolerate.
Plug-in hybrids were designed as transitional technology that introduced people to the advantages of electric driving while easing their concerns about the technology. But when gasoline cost around $3 a gallon, the savings that these cars provided did not always add up.
Now, when gas fill-ups can cost $100 or more, some people are giving these cars a second look. It helps that buyers of some of the leading models, like the Toyota RAV4 Prime, Jeep Wrangler 4xe, BMW 330e, and Hyundai Santa Fe plug-in, can claim a federal income tax credit of up to $7,500.
Starting at $41,515, the RAV4 Prime officially travels 42 miles on electricity alone. Keep going, and the Prime drives like a familiar Toyota hybrid, with more oomph: The Prime is the fastest and most powerful RAV4, with three electric motors and 302 horsepower. In gas-electric hybrid mode, it sips fuel at 38 mpg. With a total range of about 600 miles, it can travel twice as far as many electric vehicles before needing to refuel.
The average American drives 29 miles a day, which the Prime can easily handle on electricity alone. Over a week of daily charges — the Prime’s battery can be replenished in about 2 1/2 hours on a home charger — the car can cover more than 280 miles without using a thimble of gasoline, at the equivalent of 94 mpg. The typical new car gets 27 mpg.
But critics of plug-in hybrids argue that these numbers and calculations are based on a presumption that the people who own them will plug them in regularly, taking full advantage of the environmental benefits of their electric motors and batteries. Some plug-in hybrid owners may never or rarely charge their cars, using them as they would a gasoline-powered vehicle. Plugin hybrids used in this way tend to achieve middling fuel economy and do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.