The biggest seller of EVs here is the salary sacrifice schemes that give a huge discount to high earners, especially those with kids.
Imagine you're on taxable income of £120k and have two chidlren in nursery. Currently you get no help with childcare costs from the government. From my own experience it's ~£6000 subsidy per child.
You can currently take out an EV salary sacrifice scheme for ~£600 per month (pre tax), and that brings your taxable income down by £7200. Put another £13k in pension. Boom, you're now getting £13k in pension p/a, and your car is effectively free, because you get £12k back in childcare subsidies.
But how long until those children are no longer in nursery and you are not subsedised for it? In ~2 years you will no longer have this help, you will be paying through the nose for the outstanding amount on your new car, and your take home will be significantly less each month.
Yeah, but you're still taxed at 72% between £100 and £125k if you have a student loan (as most people in that age bracket will be), so even in that case the hit to your take home isn't that much.
There is no need to go that high in salary (a lucky very small minority). The higher income tax band (40%) kicks in at 50k. Salary sacrifice schemes offer huge savings to many people.
What I mean is that if salary sacrifice schemes on EV were only used, and very good deals, for people over 100k then it would be extremely niche as we're talking about the top 4% of earners whereas about 16% are higher band taxpayers...
Imagine how much faster electric car adoption would be if incumbent auto makers weren’t using them as dumping grounds for experimental, half-baked, and unsafe design experiments?
We never wanted their “electric cars” … we wanted their cars, but electric.
The Achilles heel of EV adoption, and why I think Tesla has had such a leg up, is that your classic dealership really doesn't like selling EVs.
The salesman aren't knowledgeable about them, they don't have ownership experience with them, and EV's generate dramatically fewer lifetime "service" visits and parts sales.
This was common with the f150 lightning, where salesman were pretty much "If you want it I can do the paper work, but let me show you the regular F150's we have here if you like to drive places without headaches."
This oil crisis was a huge boon for EVs. In Brazil, despite the "hate" most people have against EVs, BYD went from breaking into the top 10 in March to taking the #1 spot in consumer sales for the first time ever.
Yeah, money talks. And every time you drop another $100 bill into the fuel tank, maybe you start to wonder what it is like to not pay that. Or to not drive to a gas station at all. Then you drive one and become one of the vast majority of people who suddenly have the epiphany "I will never go back, I like this way too much."
> The increase reflects a rebound from an unusually weak April last year, when buyers pulled purchases forward to March to beat incoming vehicle tax increases
I am so confused by the categorisation of cars: BEV, HEV, PHEV and so on. I think the industry insiders who write some of these articles don't realise how hard it is for some of their readers to keep track.
To be fair, the article is written on a website for the auto industry, so it's reasonable for them to assume their target audience is familiar with these terms. I argue the onus is on OP for explaining these since they're sharing it to a different audience than it was written for.
> Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home
And, in practice, the battery tends to be much, much bigger. Some PHEVs are basically mediocre-range electric cars which happen to have a petrol generator.
In theory, a PHEV is the perfect middle ground for someone that wants to drive electric but has major range anxiety about road trips.
Something with a 60 mile electric range will likely satisfy all of their day-to-day driving. The generator means they don't have to charge though, so they can still take road trips without worrying about electric range.
In practice though, they're somewhat impractical. You still need an entire ICE drivetrain AND a moderately sized battery and electric motor, driving the price up.
Most people don't end up charging their battery because it still has an ICE so why bother? So now they have the worst of both worlds. Complex ICE machinery that needs regular service and heavy battery that doesn't end up being used.
...and apparently most owners never plug them in, so people just burn expensive fuel to charge their battery, while offering little or no savings over a hybrid or just the gas version.
I wouldn't be sure if that's often the case, most PHEVs are just minor upgrades over existing hybrids. The electric motors on most hybrids, except the Nissan system, tend to only cover zero to city speeds. They need the gas engine connected to handle highway and ramp situations.
A colleague drives a BMW 3something hybrid and as far as i know has a 14kWh battery..
Thats good for about a 100km, but i very much wouldn't consider that a "fully" electric car by any means (edit: did you edit your post? couldve sworn you said "fully electric" instead of "mediocre range"?)...
Also, what most people don't realize: if you're only (or mostly) driving it electric, you're putting many more cycles onto that tiny battery.
...which usually costs as much as a "regular" EV battery, x times the size.
The latest Honda Civic Hybrid (and its Prelude cousin). The ICE is a generator under most use cases - it's decoupled from the drivetrain most of the time. That said, the battery capacity isn't great - you aren't going to complete many trips out of your immediate neighborhood on EV power alone.
> PH = Plug-in hybrid (Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home)
You can, but in practice most people don't. And I can understand why -- it's inconvenient to have to plug in after every short trip, and the short electric range of most PHEV's means you do have to plug in after every short trip.
I plug in my EV around once a week, and it's more convenient than going to the gas station, but I'm not sure I'd want to have to plug it in every time I come home from even a short trip to the supermarket.
> 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
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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
> In California, PZEVs have their own administrative category for low-emission vehicles. The category was made in a bargain between automakers and the California Air Resources Board (CARB), so that automobile makers could delay making mandated zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs)—battery electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles.
It's actually dead simple: there are battery electric EVs and internal combustion cars. That's it.
ICE cars come with a variety of add-ons and schemes to improve efficiency: fuel injectors, ECUs, braking energy capture systems (aka hybrid), small batteries for short trips that no one plugs in (aka plug in hybrids), etc.
Most user agents allow you to trivially search from selection. Double-click unfamiliar word, right click, select "search" or on macOS there's also "lookup" but that really only works on dictionary words.
Is that extended range? I was reading about them the other day. A small ICE engine in the car but it only charges the battery, right? Basically the opposite of a Toyota hybrid.
Yes, also known as a series hybrid, though EREV has become the dominant term in my experience. Nearly all hybrids on the market today or at any time in the past have been parallel hybrids, where the electric and gas motors both attach to the drivetrain. BMW did make an EREV version of the i3. Chevy made the Volt, which was almost a series hybrid, but in the end still parallel.
The new Civic hybrid is a series hybrid. It puts down 200hp and does 0-60 in 6 seconds, all while getting 50mpg. It combines the torque of an electric motor with an Atkinson cycle engine, which is known for better efficiency but worse torque, as a generator. And it clocks in around 3200lb, a bit more than a classic Civic, but far lower than any BEV.
The slight compromise is at constant highway cruising speeds, it may let the engine take over, since the efficiency calculus likely is more favorable in those conditions. It uses a clutch to do this, and only has a single gear ratio, rather than the messy setup of typical parallel hybrids.
I would still call that a parallel hybrid, because it has the mechanical bits to connect the gas motor to the wheels, even if only when on the highway. I would guess that Toyota enthusiasts would be quick to point out that the Toyota parallel hybrid design is pretty elegant and ends up being more reliable, not less. But I'm not a Toyota enthusiast.
I've driven one. Zipcar UK (RIP!) had a few Fiat 500 Hybrids and I ended up with one once when every other nearby Zipcar was booked and I had a last minute need for a car.
Given they are a relatively gutless car to begin with (1 litre 3 cylinder 70hp tinpot engine) I did wonder what the zigzag/lightning icon was on the dash so I googled it.
Turns out the system uses a 11Ah lithium battery that lives under the driver/passenger seat that charges through regenerative braking. It gives a small boost during acceleration (mostly at low speeds so it's more for stop-start urban driving), I think it's not much more than a glorified belt around the crankshaft giving a few extra hp.
No appreciable benefit to it that I could feel, but if it's helping us burn fewer dinosaurs then that's all good. (It's still a car but much better than a massive wankpanzer.)
Agreed, though I was disheartened to find that we are now forcing electric cars to be loud because won't someone think of the pedestrians. There was a moment when EVs were quiet, and now there are some which drive by my house (residential neighborhood, so around 20 mph) that are louder than a well maintained ICEV would be at the same speed. The worst offenders are hybrids (looking at you, Toyota, with that unholy screech you make...)
A fifth of these last year were paid for by the government scheme that buys people cars - Motability. I wonder how many of these current ones are like that.
Motability is not 'a Government scheme that buys people cars'
People use the mobility part of their PIP payments to lease a car from Motability which is an independent company, they could use the mobility payment to pay for taxi instead.
It's also misleading to treat it just like another independent private company too (not just because Motability consists of both a limited company and a charity (or two, IIRC)). The limited company reinvests revenues or transfers to its charity, not to private shareholders. Its origin was a charity.
But the only reason it exists is because of government funds and government policy.
The scheme would collapse if the government stopped allowing benefit money to be used for Motability leases. The banks lent them money under the reassurance of the government funding.
But yes, they lease the vehicles, they don't sell them.
> And you can claim you have anxiety in order to get a brand new Audi.
You're gonna have to cite sources on that one, but I would sincerely doubt that £77 a week will allow you to lease an Audi.
Also the pip claimant has to be probed by a panel every three years to keep getting the benefit, unlike say a state pension (but I paid for that I mean possibly you did, its still a non means tested benefit, unlike PIP)
The UK is well suited to wind power, already has many wind turbines, and continues to install more. We have a good amount of solar panels too. Renewables provide the majority of electrical power when conditions are good and the share will only increase. Electric vehicles avoid the biggest weakness of renewables (unreliable base load), because they can be set to charge unattended when cheap electricity is available. Electricity suppliers offer variable rate tariffs specifically for electric vehicles.
Maybe, in the best case, your gas engine is maybe 45% fuel efficient, but realistically, you're probably getting closer to 20-25%. By contrast, a combined cycle power plant gets over 60%.
But that's assuming we're just running power plants off of petrol and fuels. Coal is much cheaper than petroleum in some cases. There's also a lot of people who get their power from nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind. In many cases, your electric prices are not at all affected by the increases in petrullium prices, because most of your electricity is coming from something else. In fact, I doubt there's any place in the world that all your electricity is coming from petroleum fuels. Even if that's the major input, there are almost undoubtedly other sources in the mix.
That depends entirely on where you are. In Ontario electricity is mostly hydro, nuclear, and renewables. But also, compared to burning gas directly, EVs are still more efficient and require less gas if you burn the gas to charge the EV.
Somewhat. But price rises for electricity aren't remotely on the same scale as price rises for diesel and petrol, and fuel/electricity was a smaller part of the TCO to _start_ with for electric cars.
If you charge at home, and you don't have a car tariff, it'll be ~25-30p per kwhr
If you get a car charging tariff then you'll be paying ~9p a kwhr.
if you are brave then you can use an agile prices which depends on the weather you can be paid to charge (my record was -11p a unit) however in winter it can be a lot high, like 45p a unit.
Charging on the street can be around 50p a kwhr up to 98p a kwhr
Electricity generation is already diversified. Nuclear, coal, gas, solar, wood, witches, etc. The fuel mix can be tweaked as the economics change. ICE vehicle fleet is stuck with one energy source.
Electric price in the uk on an off peak tariff overnight is about 7p/kWh, or about 2p/mile, so charging your car overnight with the average electric mileage (10,000 miles a year - higher than the average mileage) costs £200, about £1300 a year less than petrol.
Can you actually get different tariffs in the UK for residential?
In Canada most of that is pretty opaque. Electricity tariffs are not really something that most households would worry about. Businesses and Industrial usage do though
Yes, there are multiple competing providers - all the electricity comes from a single grid but competition in how you are billed for usage.
Many people choose a single fixed or variable rate tariff, but there are also off-peak tariffs that are very cheap at night but slightly more expensive in the day (designed for EV users), or even tariffs where the rate changes every 30 minutes depending on what is being generated - in this case when there is excess solar and wind generation then sometimes the rate even goes negative and you are paid to use the excess power.
Yes, the newer suppliers have EV and solar friendly domestic tariffs. Plug it in overnight, and the supplier determines when the charge happens and charges at the reduced rate.
Again if you put in a £5k 10kWh battery you are golden, as you put 8kWh into your car and 8kWh into your battery every night, dropping your electric cost to £38 a month (plus the standing charge, which is far higher)
At some stage I wonder if the UK will need to regulate the charger industry. The price gouging is wild in places. If we look at the energy content of petrol, a litre of gas contains about 9kwh of energy, or at average pump prices 1.58/9 = ~18 pence a kwh.
For sure, EVs are far more efficient at converting a kwh of energy into forward motion, but if we assume 35 mpg (9.25 miles/litre) for the gas car, we need about 970wh to travel 1 mile. A modern EV can manage a mile on ~260wh, almost a quarter of the gas requirement.
There are public charging networks in the UK averaging 92p/kwh - we know we need much less energy to move the more efficient EV, but even with this adjustment fuel cost per mile looks like:
petrol at UK average today: 17p/mi
Electric at very expensive public charger: ~24p/mi !!
At many chargers, there are no savings at all. For comparisons sake, that 92p kwh would be just 28.6p on the most expensive domestic electricity supply, and charging at home would be ~8p per mile on the worst possible tariffs.
I've probably done some bad math somewhere here, but I think the broad picture is correct.
Of course, thats why I've been clear all my assumptions are for 260wh/mi, which I think is a very fair middle ground figure to compare to a 35mpg car - one can pick far more fuel efficient gas cars for this comparison too, the possibilities are endless.
I think your numbers still illustrate the same point though; if you can't charge at home, an EV is not necessarily cheaper to fuel, and the gap between the public charger price and the cost to a private consumer with home charging is still far too big. 98p vs 15p is staggering.
The market should sort this out by itself, not saying regulators shouldn’t watch closely, but competition should be enough to do its thing. Cartel formation especially should be watched for vigilantly.
But compared to the US home charging via a mains outlet is much more viable because it's 240v vs 110v. If you plug you car overnight you'll typically have enough charge to last you the next day.
Almost everyone I know with an EV charging at home just reused the 240v dryer socket to avoid paying for a dedicated fast charger. It's often cheaper too to have an electrician fit a new 240v socket instead of the dedicated charger as well.
Home chargers with dedicated sockets is three phase 400v actually over here in the EU and every single home, and even relatively new apartments have that because of induction stoves.
Three phase power is definitely not 100% in the EU. Not even in Germany, though adoption does tend to be higher than neighboring countries.
And FWIW, I find that my induction cooktop works wonderfully on plain old 240V 40A, so I do not think it is a requirement to get three-phase for that ;-).
The US is 240V. We split it into two 120V legs for some sockets, and not for others. Some people do choose to get by on 120V, true, but they are the minority. Usually people who do not drive often.
Most? You mean all. 240V [0] as been the standard in the US basically since electrification started in the late 19th century. 120V has for all practical purposes never been a thing, it has always been an artifact of split-phase 240V. A deliberate choice to offer two voltages to every consumer.
[0] Okay, technically 240V did not become official until around 1967, but the split-phase design was there from the beginning. They capped it at 240V to stop the creeping up that had been going on in the earlier part of the century. This is why you still have a lot of people (not all of them old enough to have been alive in 1967, oddly enough) that refer to 240V as 220.
Even in Wales, 25% can't. This isn't a figure you can ignore.
And that's a hypothetical, it relies on landlords playing ball etc. then there's the social issues. On the north of England we have lots of terraces built for mill workers, these aren't owned by the richest on society. So then you're in the situation of charging the poorest more for transport. And these are necessarily on towns with good transport links (think 1 bus and hour).
That is an interesting perspective. We do not forget how good we have it, because we choose not to put high taxes on gasoline and diesel. Do drivers in the UK tend to forget that taxes are more than half the retail price they pay at the pump? Sometimes way over half. That is a policy decision.
Yes well people like to complain, and people have a short memory. If it were really a massive problem you would see a lot more smaller cars, rather than Range Rovers and BMWs.
We will see exactly the same thing again in a few years when people are 'shocked' that prices are rising again. And then expect the government to step in, even though on the interim they've bought a massive car on PCP rather than take some personal responsibility and buy a car that they can afford when inevitably something goes wrong.
The id.Polo starts at 22k GBP. The ordinary, petrol-driven Polo also starts at 22k. You can see how massive increases in the price of petrol and diesel might influence purchasing behaviour there...
Minor point: The id.Polo isn't released in the UK yet and prices are not confirmed. VW are not shy about price rises either I believe, so I wouldn't imagine the £21.7k figure in the media lasting more than a year if that price-point does happen.
Also, my god, £22k for a petrol base Polo! That's about £4k above inflation-adjusted prices from ~15 years ago
EVs aren’t exactly new; there’s a deep, accessble secondhand market by now. I’ve been using a 2019 Nissan Leaf as a primary family car for two years now, that I picked up off Gumtree for around £3k. It’s been one of the best (little) cars I’ve ever owned.
Not saying new EVs aren’t pricey, but if you want into electric on a budget (i.e. because you don’t feel like you can afford to fill up on diesel) it can absolutely be done.
Diesel was traditionally the fuel of people who did high miles. Ie not the people that can't have an EV 'just in case they need to do 300 miles on a day's, because they probably legitimately are.
You kind of spoil that point by pull £80k out of your arse without looking at comparable diesels though.
The id.Polo is apparently starting at 22k GBP in the UK; the VW Polo's always been a pretty popular car (and also starts at about 22k). I'd expect those to sell very well.
Since this is a discussion, I would suggest it would be most helpful if you just provided your opinions explicitly. And you are welcome to post links to back up assertions that involve facts, of course!
Why is the most unsaid part out of all of this fuel nonsense is that there are less cars dumping emissions into the air. The Iran war may be the best driver we've had for air quality. Bring more EVs, they're overdue by a decade.
Donald Trump and Beniamin Netanyahu in a single year did more to curb emissions than all green activists since the inception of green activism. Nobel Peace Prize worthy if you ask me!
Interesting how that doesn't seem to be a front where Europe wants to isolate itself from foreign influence; the models mentioned in the link seem to be Chinese in origin, not European.
The biggest seller of EVs here is the salary sacrifice schemes that give a huge discount to high earners, especially those with kids.
Imagine you're on taxable income of £120k and have two chidlren in nursery. Currently you get no help with childcare costs from the government. From my own experience it's ~£6000 subsidy per child.
You can currently take out an EV salary sacrifice scheme for ~£600 per month (pre tax), and that brings your taxable income down by £7200. Put another £13k in pension. Boom, you're now getting £13k in pension p/a, and your car is effectively free, because you get £12k back in childcare subsidies.
But how long until those children are no longer in nursery and you are not subsedised for it? In ~2 years you will no longer have this help, you will be paying through the nose for the outstanding amount on your new car, and your take home will be significantly less each month.
Yeah, but you're still taxed at 72% between £100 and £125k if you have a student loan (as most people in that age bracket will be), so even in that case the hit to your take home isn't that much.
Yeah, but you'll have a new car.
Obviously if you don't need a new car, it's a really bad financial decision to buy one.
And even if you do, it might be a bad financial decision to buy one.
Obviously if you don't need a new car, it's a really bad financial decision to buy one.
It's almost always a bad financial decision to buy a new car. The first-year depreciation is unreal.
We just bought a 1 year old Audi Q5 in the US for ~30% discount over new. And with the Audi CPO program, the warranty is just as long as a new model.
> Obviously if you don't need a new car, it's a really bad financial decision to buy one.
I dunno ....
At least two EV manufacturers offer a 7 year warranty on new cars on all parts INCLUDING the battery.
There is no need to go that high in salary (a lucky very small minority). The higher income tax band (40%) kicks in at 50k. Salary sacrifice schemes offer huge savings to many people.
true it does kick in at 50k but only for stuff over 50k. so its not a cliff like 100k or if you're at the other end on universal credit.
What I mean is that if salary sacrifice schemes on EV were only used, and very good deals, for people over 100k then it would be extremely niche as we're talking about the top 4% of earners whereas about 16% are higher band taxpayers...
Imagine how much faster electric car adoption would be if incumbent auto makers weren’t using them as dumping grounds for experimental, half-baked, and unsafe design experiments?
We never wanted their “electric cars” … we wanted their cars, but electric.
The Achilles heel of EV adoption, and why I think Tesla has had such a leg up, is that your classic dealership really doesn't like selling EVs.
The salesman aren't knowledgeable about them, they don't have ownership experience with them, and EV's generate dramatically fewer lifetime "service" visits and parts sales.
This was common with the f150 lightning, where salesman were pretty much "If you want it I can do the paper work, but let me show you the regular F150's we have here if you like to drive places without headaches."
We don't have dealerships in the UK like the US has.
A true blessing. Ironically the US dealership scheme was hatched as a way to protect consumers...
Yes and no. The F-150 Lightning did a lot more poorly than expected and it’s the best selling vehicle in the US.
It is interesting with the current oil shock what will happen to US automakers that have all but abandoned fuel efficient cars.
This oil crisis was a huge boon for EVs. In Brazil, despite the "hate" most people have against EVs, BYD went from breaking into the top 10 in March to taking the #1 spot in consumer sales for the first time ever.
Yeah, money talks. And every time you drop another $100 bill into the fuel tank, maybe you start to wonder what it is like to not pay that. Or to not drive to a gas station at all. Then you drive one and become one of the vast majority of people who suddenly have the epiphany "I will never go back, I like this way too much."
> BYD sold 14,911 units in April 2026
> total vehicle sales in March 2026 was 269,483 units
So BYD market share is 5.5% in Brazil.
But how many BYD units were sold relative to other units?
According to this, 14911 were BYD, VW were 80 behind.
https://www.globalchinaev.com/post/byd-edges-out-vw-to-becom...
> The increase reflects a rebound from an unusually weak April last year, when buyers pulled purchases forward to March to beat incoming vehicle tax increases
Yeah, all but diesel is up a lot. Electric only slightly more than gas as percentage
Diesel is down YoY https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/
I am so confused by the categorisation of cars: BEV, HEV, PHEV and so on. I think the industry insiders who write some of these articles don't realise how hard it is for some of their readers to keep track.
To be fair, the article is written on a website for the auto industry, so it's reasonable for them to assume their target audience is familiar with these terms. I argue the onus is on OP for explaining these since they're sharing it to a different audience than it was written for.
Ignore the "EV" part.
B = Battery
H = Hybrid
PH = Plug-in hybrid (Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home)
> Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home
And, in practice, the battery tends to be much, much bigger. Some PHEVs are basically mediocre-range electric cars which happen to have a petrol generator.
In theory, a PHEV is the perfect middle ground for someone that wants to drive electric but has major range anxiety about road trips.
Something with a 60 mile electric range will likely satisfy all of their day-to-day driving. The generator means they don't have to charge though, so they can still take road trips without worrying about electric range.
In practice though, they're somewhat impractical. You still need an entire ICE drivetrain AND a moderately sized battery and electric motor, driving the price up.
Not only somewhat impractical.
Most people don't end up charging their battery because it still has an ICE so why bother? So now they have the worst of both worlds. Complex ICE machinery that needs regular service and heavy battery that doesn't end up being used.
...and apparently most owners never plug them in, so people just burn expensive fuel to charge their battery, while offering little or no savings over a hybrid or just the gas version.
I wouldn't be sure if that's often the case, most PHEVs are just minor upgrades over existing hybrids. The electric motors on most hybrids, except the Nissan system, tend to only cover zero to city speeds. They need the gas engine connected to handle highway and ramp situations.
Which ones?
A colleague drives a BMW 3something hybrid and as far as i know has a 14kWh battery..
Thats good for about a 100km, but i very much wouldn't consider that a "fully" electric car by any means (edit: did you edit your post? couldve sworn you said "fully electric" instead of "mediocre range"?)...
Also, what most people don't realize: if you're only (or mostly) driving it electric, you're putting many more cycles onto that tiny battery.
...which usually costs as much as a "regular" EV battery, x times the size.
https://evclinic.eu/2024/09/05/bmw-hybrid-repeated-battery-f... for example...
The latest Honda Civic Hybrid (and its Prelude cousin). The ICE is a generator under most use cases - it's decoupled from the drivetrain most of the time. That said, the battery capacity isn't great - you aren't going to complete many trips out of your immediate neighborhood on EV power alone.
2026 Denza D9 has 66.48 kWh plug-in hybrid battery pack
https://carnewschina.com/2026/05/01/byd-deploys-new-heyuan-h...
> PH = Plug-in hybrid (Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home)
You can, but in practice most people don't. And I can understand why -- it's inconvenient to have to plug in after every short trip, and the short electric range of most PHEV's means you do have to plug in after every short trip.
I plug in my EV around once a week, and it's more convenient than going to the gas station, but I'm not sure I'd want to have to plug it in every time I come home from even a short trip to the supermarket.
I plug in my EV almost every time I get home. The charger is hanging right next to my driver door in my driveway.
I own an EV. If I had a phev I'd sure love to plug it in rather than pay more for gas and have to go to the station.
> 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
> 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.
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?
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.
It's just a regular transverse FF with the clutch sandwiched by a pair of motors...
> 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
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.
> Surely that's the "same as a battery but you can use petrol on long journeys"
No, that would be an EREV.
45 to 65mpg is a near 50% increase. I would say that's "slight"
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
Don’t forget PZEV (Partial Zero-Emissions Vehicle) which isn’t even an EV at all!
What horrible acronym/concept are those.
It seems to be a US thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_zero-emissions_vehicle
> In California, PZEVs have their own administrative category for low-emission vehicles. The category was made in a bargain between automakers and the California Air Resources Board (CARB), so that automobile makers could delay making mandated zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs)—battery electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles.
It's actually dead simple: there are battery electric EVs and internal combustion cars. That's it.
ICE cars come with a variety of add-ons and schemes to improve efficiency: fuel injectors, ECUs, braking energy capture systems (aka hybrid), small batteries for short trips that no one plugs in (aka plug in hybrids), etc.
You forgot EVs that come with an add-on that generates electricity by burning fuel!
This is actually something I think is a pretty big failing in a lot of internet publishing
You could easily turn those terms in the article into hyperlinks to definitions.
You could even have the links go to definitions hosted on your own website to boost page reads and ad counts if you really wanted to
Most user agents allow you to trivially search from selection. Double-click unfamiliar word, right click, select "search" or on macOS there's also "lookup" but that really only works on dictionary words.
There is also MHEV
"Mild" hybrid electric vehicle which is just using a oversized starter to break and then drive any accessories instead of the motor.
And EREV, the only hybrid that makes sense.
Is that extended range? I was reading about them the other day. A small ICE engine in the car but it only charges the battery, right? Basically the opposite of a Toyota hybrid.
Yes, also known as a series hybrid, though EREV has become the dominant term in my experience. Nearly all hybrids on the market today or at any time in the past have been parallel hybrids, where the electric and gas motors both attach to the drivetrain. BMW did make an EREV version of the i3. Chevy made the Volt, which was almost a series hybrid, but in the end still parallel.
The new Civic hybrid is a series hybrid. It puts down 200hp and does 0-60 in 6 seconds, all while getting 50mpg. It combines the torque of an electric motor with an Atkinson cycle engine, which is known for better efficiency but worse torque, as a generator. And it clocks in around 3200lb, a bit more than a classic Civic, but far lower than any BEV.
The slight compromise is at constant highway cruising speeds, it may let the engine take over, since the efficiency calculus likely is more favorable in those conditions. It uses a clutch to do this, and only has a single gear ratio, rather than the messy setup of typical parallel hybrids.
I would still call that a parallel hybrid, because it has the mechanical bits to connect the gas motor to the wheels, even if only when on the highway. I would guess that Toyota enthusiasts would be quick to point out that the Toyota parallel hybrid design is pretty elegant and ends up being more reliable, not less. But I'm not a Toyota enthusiast.
where ER = Extended Range EV
That’s like Pedal Assist I…
Mild Hybrid… pfffft.
"Must heve"?
"Mild Hybrid". Slight boost. I don't know of any on the market, but I'm sure they're there.
I've driven one. Zipcar UK (RIP!) had a few Fiat 500 Hybrids and I ended up with one once when every other nearby Zipcar was booked and I had a last minute need for a car.
Given they are a relatively gutless car to begin with (1 litre 3 cylinder 70hp tinpot engine) I did wonder what the zigzag/lightning icon was on the dash so I googled it.
Turns out the system uses a 11Ah lithium battery that lives under the driver/passenger seat that charges through regenerative braking. It gives a small boost during acceleration (mostly at low speeds so it's more for stop-start urban driving), I think it's not much more than a glorified belt around the crankshaft giving a few extra hp.
No appreciable benefit to it that I could feel, but if it's helping us burn fewer dinosaurs then that's all good. (It's still a car but much better than a massive wankpanzer.)
There's a mild hybrid Qashqai. A friend of mine hired one and drove it into a bus.
This thread is some deadpan comedy gold.
Ford Puma [1] is available as a mild hybrid.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Puma_(crossover)
Ram 1500 eTorque is one.
As a companion to this article these pages have good charts and data:
The road to electric - in charts and data - https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/choosing/road-to-e...
Electric car charging prices at public chargers - https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/charging/electric-...
I’m not surprised with fuel at like £1.80/L and electricity as low as 3.5p/kwh
Makes EVs quite appealing.
https://carcosttool.com/ev-vs-ice-breakeven
It also helps that they drive nice and are more convenient for most people.
They're also quiet and no combustion means no exhaust fumes.
> They're also quiet
As someone who lives near a busy road, I'm 100% all for them for this reason alone
The boy-racers doing 2x the speed limit with their loud exhausts and poppin can go do one
Agreed, though I was disheartened to find that we are now forcing electric cars to be loud because won't someone think of the pedestrians. There was a moment when EVs were quiet, and now there are some which drive by my house (residential neighborhood, so around 20 mph) that are louder than a well maintained ICEV would be at the same speed. The worst offenders are hybrids (looking at you, Toyota, with that unholy screech you make...)
A fifth of these last year were paid for by the government scheme that buys people cars - Motability. I wonder how many of these current ones are like that.
Motability is not 'a Government scheme that buys people cars'
People use the mobility part of their PIP payments to lease a car from Motability which is an independent company, they could use the mobility payment to pay for taxi instead.
The government heavily subsidises it. It's not a government scheme but it walks and talks like one.
It's also misleading to treat it just like another independent private company too (not just because Motability consists of both a limited company and a charity (or two, IIRC)). The limited company reinvests revenues or transfers to its charity, not to private shareholders. Its origin was a charity.
But the only reason it exists is because of government funds and government policy.
The scheme would collapse if the government stopped allowing benefit money to be used for Motability leases. The banks lent them money under the reassurance of the government funding.
But yes, they lease the vehicles, they don't sell them.
EDIT: my comment may have some minor inaccuracies. I just found https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmwo... - a very detailed description of the company, charities etc
And you can claim you have anxiety in order to get a brand new Audi. So it’s a government scheme which buys people cars.
It’s not independent, because it derives all of its income from the government and uses it to buy people brand new top of the range cars.
> And you can claim you have anxiety in order to get a brand new Audi.
You're gonna have to cite sources on that one, but I would sincerely doubt that £77 a week will allow you to lease an Audi.
Also the pip claimant has to be probed by a panel every three years to keep getting the benefit, unlike say a state pension (but I paid for that I mean possibly you did, its still a non means tested benefit, unlike PIP)
158p (about $8 a gallon) might be a pretty effective motivator, although electric prices need to stay reasonable for this to work.
Doesn’t increasing fuel price affect the electricity prices, which increases the charging cost?
The UK is well suited to wind power, already has many wind turbines, and continues to install more. We have a good amount of solar panels too. Renewables provide the majority of electrical power when conditions are good and the share will only increase. Electric vehicles avoid the biggest weakness of renewables (unreliable base load), because they can be set to charge unattended when cheap electricity is available. Electricity suppliers offer variable rate tariffs specifically for electric vehicles.
Maybe, in the best case, your gas engine is maybe 45% fuel efficient, but realistically, you're probably getting closer to 20-25%. By contrast, a combined cycle power plant gets over 60%.
But that's assuming we're just running power plants off of petrol and fuels. Coal is much cheaper than petroleum in some cases. There's also a lot of people who get their power from nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind. In many cases, your electric prices are not at all affected by the increases in petrullium prices, because most of your electricity is coming from something else. In fact, I doubt there's any place in the world that all your electricity is coming from petroleum fuels. Even if that's the major input, there are almost undoubtedly other sources in the mix.
FWIW, I don't think there are any oil or coal power plants left in the UK. Certainly none in general operation.
That depends entirely on where you are. In Ontario electricity is mostly hydro, nuclear, and renewables. But also, compared to burning gas directly, EVs are still more efficient and require less gas if you burn the gas to charge the EV.
Somewhat. But price rises for electricity aren't remotely on the same scale as price rises for diesel and petrol, and fuel/electricity was a smaller part of the TCO to _start_ with for electric cars.
Depends on how you charge and where.
If you charge at home, and you don't have a car tariff, it'll be ~25-30p per kwhr
If you get a car charging tariff then you'll be paying ~9p a kwhr.
if you are brave then you can use an agile prices which depends on the weather you can be paid to charge (my record was -11p a unit) however in winter it can be a lot high, like 45p a unit.
Charging on the street can be around 50p a kwhr up to 98p a kwhr
Electricity generation is already diversified. Nuclear, coal, gas, solar, wood, witches, etc. The fuel mix can be tweaked as the economics change. ICE vehicle fleet is stuck with one energy source.
Even then, EVs are still cheaper to operate.
Electric price in the uk on an off peak tariff overnight is about 7p/kWh, or about 2p/mile, so charging your car overnight with the average electric mileage (10,000 miles a year - higher than the average mileage) costs £200, about £1300 a year less than petrol.
Thanks, I didn’t know about variable tariffs. But can this be residential or has to be on designated charging points?
Residential. Very common in the UK to have a separate night rate, even before smart meters.
Can you actually get different tariffs in the UK for residential?
In Canada most of that is pretty opaque. Electricity tariffs are not really something that most households would worry about. Businesses and Industrial usage do though
Yes, there are multiple competing providers - all the electricity comes from a single grid but competition in how you are billed for usage.
Many people choose a single fixed or variable rate tariff, but there are also off-peak tariffs that are very cheap at night but slightly more expensive in the day (designed for EV users), or even tariffs where the rate changes every 30 minutes depending on what is being generated - in this case when there is excess solar and wind generation then sometimes the rate even goes negative and you are paid to use the excess power.
Yes, the newer suppliers have EV and solar friendly domestic tariffs. Plug it in overnight, and the supplier determines when the charge happens and charges at the reduced rate.
Sure
You can base it on the wholesale price, great if you have battery storage
https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/
Or just an overnight rate
https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/
Again if you put in a £5k 10kWh battery you are golden, as you put 8kWh into your car and 8kWh into your battery every night, dropping your electric cost to £38 a month (plus the standing charge, which is far higher)
Fuel (diesel, specifically) in the UK is getting towards $10/gallon, so not surprising really!
A lot of fast chargers are over $1 per kwh so unless you have access to home charging there isn't much room for savings.
At some stage I wonder if the UK will need to regulate the charger industry. The price gouging is wild in places. If we look at the energy content of petrol, a litre of gas contains about 9kwh of energy, or at average pump prices 1.58/9 = ~18 pence a kwh.
For sure, EVs are far more efficient at converting a kwh of energy into forward motion, but if we assume 35 mpg (9.25 miles/litre) for the gas car, we need about 970wh to travel 1 mile. A modern EV can manage a mile on ~260wh, almost a quarter of the gas requirement.
There are public charging networks in the UK averaging 92p/kwh - we know we need much less energy to move the more efficient EV, but even with this adjustment fuel cost per mile looks like:
petrol at UK average today: 17p/mi
Electric at very expensive public charger: ~24p/mi !!
At many chargers, there are no savings at all. For comparisons sake, that 92p kwh would be just 28.6p on the most expensive domestic electricity supply, and charging at home would be ~8p per mile on the worst possible tariffs.
I've probably done some bad math somewhere here, but I think the broad picture is correct.
dpeends on the car. My Zoe does 4.8 miles per kwhr, my old car does 35 miles per gallon (or 7.6 miles per litre) petrol is currently £1.6 a litre.
Which is 21p per mile, for my petrol car
at 98p a kwhr its 20p per mile.
but in practice the electric car is 3 pence a mile for me (average car charging price for me is 15p a kwhr)
> dpeends on the car
Of course, thats why I've been clear all my assumptions are for 260wh/mi, which I think is a very fair middle ground figure to compare to a 35mpg car - one can pick far more fuel efficient gas cars for this comparison too, the possibilities are endless.
I think your numbers still illustrate the same point though; if you can't charge at home, an EV is not necessarily cheaper to fuel, and the gap between the public charger price and the cost to a private consumer with home charging is still far too big. 98p vs 15p is staggering.
oh yeah sorry it was meant to illustrate your point, that some of those fast chargers are massive piss takes.
The market should sort this out by itself, not saying regulators shouldn’t watch closely, but competition should be enough to do its thing. Cartel formation especially should be watched for vigilantly.
But compared to the US home charging via a mains outlet is much more viable because it's 240v vs 110v. If you plug you car overnight you'll typically have enough charge to last you the next day.
This isn't as big an advantage as you might think, as a huge number of US homes have 240v sockets to power the clothes dryer:
> https://getneocharge.com/a/blog/identifying-your-240v-dryer-...
Almost everyone I know with an EV charging at home just reused the 240v dryer socket to avoid paying for a dedicated fast charger. It's often cheaper too to have an electrician fit a new 240v socket instead of the dedicated charger as well.
Home chargers with dedicated sockets is three phase 400v actually over here in the EU and every single home, and even relatively new apartments have that because of induction stoves.
> every single home
Let me guess, you live in Germany? :)
Three phase power is definitely not 100% in the EU. Not even in Germany, though adoption does tend to be higher than neighboring countries.
And FWIW, I find that my induction cooktop works wonderfully on plain old 240V 40A, so I do not think it is a requirement to get three-phase for that ;-).
The US is 240V. We split it into two 120V legs for some sockets, and not for others. Some people do choose to get by on 120V, true, but they are the minority. Usually people who do not drive often.
I've been doing level 1 charging for the past 3 years or so. It is fine even in cold Calgary (albeit in an unheated garage)
Unless you are regularly doing upwards of 150 km/ day, it's fine.
Most homes in US built after 1980s(?) have electrical panels with 240V.
It's used for dryer, stove etc.
Most? You mean all. 240V [0] as been the standard in the US basically since electrification started in the late 19th century. 120V has for all practical purposes never been a thing, it has always been an artifact of split-phase 240V. A deliberate choice to offer two voltages to every consumer.
[0] Okay, technically 240V did not become official until around 1967, but the split-phase design was there from the beginning. They capped it at 240V to stop the creeping up that had been going on in the earlier part of the century. This is why you still have a lot of people (not all of them old enough to have been alive in 1967, oddly enough) that refer to 240V as 220.
Given that the majority of people in the uk have or can have access to home charging it's not a major problem
https://www.racfoundation.org/research/mobility/still-standi...
Wales – 75% of households have – or could have – off-street parking and EV charging England – 68% Scotland – 63%
In London, sure, most homes don't have off-street parking and ev charging, but then only half the households in London have a car
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-2024-car-ownersh...
I think you're somewhat underselling the problem.
Even in Wales, 25% can't. This isn't a figure you can ignore.
And that's a hypothetical, it relies on landlords playing ball etc. then there's the social issues. On the north of England we have lots of terraces built for mill workers, these aren't owned by the richest on society. So then you're in the situation of charging the poorest more for transport. And these are necessarily on towns with good transport links (think 1 bus and hour).
Fuel in the UK is £1.58 a litre (£1.48 at one garage I passed today, £1.61 at another, some garages are certainly profiteering)
In 2022 is was £1.89 a litre and spent most of the year over £1.60 a litre
Adjusted for inflation that would be most of the year at £1.85, and a high of £2.18 a litre
https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time
From 2011 to 2014 petrol was about £1.30 a litre. Adjusted for inflation terms that's £1.80-£2 a litre -- far less than current "highs".
The average UK car does 8000 miles and about 45mpg (uk gallons), or about 10 miles per litre. It thus costs 800 litres, or £1,260 a year.
Last year petrol was £1.35 a litre, and thus £184 a year less for the average car.
Fuel is insanely cheap in the UK in historic terms, just not as cheap as it was last year.
Eh, last year I was paying the equivalent of £0.38 per liter over here in the States ($2 a gallon gas, $3.30 or so for diesel).
"Insanely cheap" for the UK to feels really strange for those of us way over here who tend to forget how good we have it.
> tend to forget how good we have it
That is an interesting perspective. We do not forget how good we have it, because we choose not to put high taxes on gasoline and diesel. Do drivers in the UK tend to forget that taxes are more than half the retail price they pay at the pump? Sometimes way over half. That is a policy decision.
Yes well people like to complain, and people have a short memory. If it were really a massive problem you would see a lot more smaller cars, rather than Range Rovers and BMWs.
We will see exactly the same thing again in a few years when people are 'shocked' that prices are rising again. And then expect the government to step in, even though on the interim they've bought a massive car on PCP rather than take some personal responsibility and buy a car that they can afford when inevitably something goes wrong.
People who can't afford diesel are not running out to buy an £80,000 EV I assure you.
The id.Polo starts at 22k GBP. The ordinary, petrol-driven Polo also starts at 22k. You can see how massive increases in the price of petrol and diesel might influence purchasing behaviour there...
Minor point: The id.Polo isn't released in the UK yet and prices are not confirmed. VW are not shy about price rises either I believe, so I wouldn't imagine the £21.7k figure in the media lasting more than a year if that price-point does happen.
Also, my god, £22k for a petrol base Polo! That's about £4k above inflation-adjusted prices from ~15 years ago
EVs aren’t exactly new; there’s a deep, accessble secondhand market by now. I’ve been using a 2019 Nissan Leaf as a primary family car for two years now, that I picked up off Gumtree for around £3k. It’s been one of the best (little) cars I’ve ever owned.
Not saying new EVs aren’t pricey, but if you want into electric on a budget (i.e. because you don’t feel like you can afford to fill up on diesel) it can absolutely be done.
This is a good site for seeing the differents UK models, and their prices, that are on the market or coming onto the market.
These are all models under £20,000 - https://ev-database.org/uk/#group=vehicle-group&av-1=1&av-23...
There's also a large number of used EVs available. Here's a selection of 2024+ models between £8000-£10000
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?channel=cars&fuel-ty...
Price sensitivity doesn’t spring into existence at the point something becomes unaffordable.
You have half a point here.
Diesel was traditionally the fuel of people who did high miles. Ie not the people that can't have an EV 'just in case they need to do 300 miles on a day's, because they probably legitimately are.
You kind of spoil that point by pull £80k out of your arse without looking at comparable diesels though.
There are new 30k euros EVs on the marker right now.
23k even in some markets, ok, small low range cars. But yeah, the 30k ones start getting good.
The id.Polo is apparently starting at 22k GBP in the UK; the VW Polo's always been a pretty popular car (and also starts at about 22k). I'd expect those to sell very well.
I expect , data such as ... would be illuminating here ...
Electric cars registered in countries with large land mass?
"..Electric car adoption , ranked by value of government incentives.."?
Eventually I just searched for
I have not posted links, not sure if its allowed.Since this is a discussion, I would suggest it would be most helpful if you just provided your opinions explicitly. And you are welcome to post links to back up assertions that involve facts, of course!
Why is the most unsaid part out of all of this fuel nonsense is that there are less cars dumping emissions into the air. The Iran war may be the best driver we've had for air quality. Bring more EVs, they're overdue by a decade.
Donald Trump and Beniamin Netanyahu in a single year did more to curb emissions than all green activists since the inception of green activism. Nobel Peace Prize worthy if you ask me!
Reverse psychology works very well on Trump but probably not Netanyahu.
Interesting how that doesn't seem to be a front where Europe wants to isolate itself from foreign influence; the models mentioned in the link seem to be Chinese in origin, not European.
This has a breakdown of the numbers by fuel type, brand etc.
https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/