The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

PHEV means two drive trains, more parts and in turn more weight.

Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?

That's more than enough to cover the average worker's commute, especially as most of the time is spent stuck in traffic.

> Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?

30' are enough to go to work, where I can recharge during the day for the return leg. 30' are enough for any daily errand, too, so that would not be a problem.

Finally, for long trips, I'd use it as a "real" car with its internal combustion engine.

That's not true, it's barely enough to get the average worker to their job https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...

> Do you really want a plugin car that loses its charge in 30 minutes?

Yes? Probably half of all my drives are 30 minutes or less, round trip. Some get closer to 40ish minutes of driving on battery, which would cover more like 90% of my drives.

AFAIK it's not (usually?) two drive trains, it's one electric drive train and a generator that's way smaller than a normal gasoline engine.

Yes, I've owned one for 4 years now and I genuienly believe this is what all cars should be, it's just such an obvious idea in hindsight it's crazy that this isn't what everyone is pivoting to. I do all of my daily driving on EV power using zero fuel and the car costs me close to nothing to drive(charging nightly on a cheap tariff), and when I need to drive across the continent to visit family I just put in fuel and go, no bother with charging on the way. And on slightly longer drives the entire system improves efficiency a lot - just did a 100 mile drive this weekend to a holiday cottage, averaged 45mpg both ways, and that's in a 2.2 tonne SUV with 400bhp. That's the kind of number you'd see out of a diesel normally.

I own a PHEV, for almost a year now, as my daily drive. It's not as good a BEV as a true BEV (range is ~20% of one) and it's not as good a HEV as a true HEV (gas mileage on hybrid mode is worse than my in-laws Prius'). But it perfectly fits our current life. We can do all of our normal daily routine (commute/school drop offs) on one charge, and when we head out of town I don't have to worry about it (I live in a Western US state with long drives between population centers- I can get range anxiety just on gasoline as I did not grow up like this). So we've driven it for 18,000 km, and 14,000 of those have been fully electric, just a couple of weekend getaways and one week-long trip around the country have been on gas.

Getting all of that capability in one car is very convenient. We replaced an 11 year old gas vehicle, and I don't expect that this PHEV one will last us as long. But it was the right car for us in our current situation.

Since 90% of my car trips are under 30 minutes, yes that would be worthwhile.

The other 10% are beyond any practical battery range, so a BEV isn't an option.

Is it two drive trains? I thought ideally PHEV would be like diesel-electric with electric motors supplying traction and a gas power plant supplying power.

"30 minutes" is pretty misleading, because it's not like the batteries are discharging at a constant rate.

It might be thirty minutes on the highway, as new PHEV cars have ranges in the 30-40 miles range. But if you're driving in the city, 30 miles is enough to get you basically anywhere you want to go and back, even if traffic makes it a 2 hour trip.

I own one and would prefer if my next car purchase was another one. Unfortunately, while the model I've picked for my next car has a PHEV option, they don't make very many, and don't take orders, so if you really want it, you probably need to put your name down at all the dealerships, and the wait for regular hybrid is already long and the vehicle to be replaced was sold in summer. PHEV would be nicer, and we've made due longer than I thought we would, but when our regular hybrid comes in, that will be good enough.

PHEVs are lovely to drive, and availability of gas stations means almost no planning is needed. Fuel low, stop in for 5 minutes and good to go for hundreds of miles (current one does 500-600/tank depending on conditions)

> Among this group, those leaving between 6:00 a.m. and 6:29 a.m. reported the longest average travel time to work at 32.8 minutes.

So, if "30 minutes" was actually how you measured range (and not in miles), the average worker in the longest group would burn fuel for 3 minutes, instead of 33 minutes. This is 90% less fuel than a traditional hybrid car would use in the same time.

I think you exaggerate about BEVs. I have a friend of mine who has a Boston condo and commutes with his Tesla to his house in Northern Vermont most weekends. I think he charges once along the way and then at home on both ends. That said I'm going to Maine next week and I would certainly have to track down convenient and reliable chargers. And there would probably be some trips--even in the Northeast--where they wouldn't be practical.

(I on the other hand drive into a city about 60+ minutes away so I don't know what the percentage is but I do a fair number of trips an hour+ away.)

Travel time != travel distance. When you're stuck in traffic, an electric or hybrid car will not consume any energy except for fans/heating/AC. An ICE-only car will have to keep its engine running.

That works, but EV chargers are rare enough that you can't just see the charge meter getting to low and get off at the next exit for a fill up like you can with a gas charge. If you don't pay attention you can end up with not enough charge make it to any charging station. People run out of gas too, but most cars the gas light comes at with 40 miles of range left - 40 miles of range won't always get you to any EV charger (and with different charging standards you cannot be sure your car can charge at them all though this is getting better and will likely be solved in a few years as we move to NACS).

Gears are more efficient (assuming you are not stupid in design) than an electric generator and motor. We cannot make gears that will do the job for a train - they wouldn't fit between the wheels while also doing the needed 90 degree turn to the engine. Once in a while someone makes such a car, but it is generally better to use a transmission.