Why aren’t there more hybrid vehicles before we go to all electric cars & trucks?
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the hybrid tax. it costs more for the hybrid version of a car vs the non hybrid version. most people can barely afford cars as it is, so they choose the lower upfront cost. also, manufacturers can simply choose to not make hybrids if they don’t want to. why make incremental laws, just go straight for pure EV instead.
Hybrids aren’t perfect, even as a stopgap. There are disadvantages to them
For one, while they have high city efficiency, highway efficiency is similar, or often worse than comparable ICE vehicles, while still being, on average, more expensive.
Hybrids are generally more expensive up front. Have more *potential* for expensive maintenance. And are generally lower performance vehicles.
They do get wildly better gas mileage though.
To touch on the three reasons:
1. More expensive upfront. It’s got an ICE engine, and gearbox, so it’s still got all the costs of a regular car. But now add a powerful electric motor(s) and a big ass battery and now you’ve got a lot of the expenses of an electric car. It’s the cost of both.
2. Touching on the same thing. The more moving parts you have, the more variety of parts that will wear out over time. Now we put a lot of effort into preventing that. But it will *eventually* happen to everything. Hybrids have a lot more moving parts (see being 1/2 ICE and 1/2 electric) . So there’s a pretty significant risk of more frequent or more common repairs.
3. They had to shrink the engine so they could fit the motor and battery. They had to shrink the motor and battery to fit in with the engine. It’s not as powerful as an electric or an ICE of the same size. Which some people like to have good acceleration in their cars.
To mention something I haven’t seen yet: Hybrids were the viable option until we got better EV infrastructure. When every car runs on gas, it’s business suicide to make an EV that people can’t charge unless you’re going to also fund the infrastructure needed. Hybrids partially circumvent that. With the rise of hybrids, more charging stations popped up, allowing for EVs to be aore realistic option. Now that the country is moving toward electrification, we’re (planning on) building the infrastructure that can support EVs. No need to phase into it.
Hybrids are too convenient for the middle class. Engineers can make hybrids get 150+ mpg. In fact, this has been achieved for decades. But the approved ones for consumers are intentionally being limited to 55+- mpg. Mass producing hybrids at 150+ mpg would be too disruptive and too convenient for the middle class.
Honestly I gotta say even though it’s a prototype from Hyundai the N76 shows the power of a hybrid albeit using a hydrogen fuel cell instead of petroleum. The fuel cell can pump out 95 kW to help power the motors or recharge the battery. So it can recharge the battery after you run out of charge if need be. Seems pretty ideal for the US during our petrochemical phase out to utilize similar methods for gasoline.
The US cental banks federal reserve note was the only internationally legal petro dollar until recent actions by other nations and be it as it may it’s losing ground not only due to such noncompliance, it would be foolish to cold turkey the basis of our US monetary notes by backing out to rapidly, especially considering our vehicle exports are almost if not completely exclusively to nations that comply with Federal Reserve Notes being the standard petrodollar.
That being said petroleum needs to go the way of the dinosaurs if we stand a chance living here long enough before other options are truly viable. Well, that and cows were close to cracking the methane problem’s code.
Mountains
Wait what?
Yep, mountains. An ideal hybrid has a tiny engine – perhaps 0.3L and 25hp of power. The small engine is light, cheap, efficient and relatively easy to make the emissions clean.
To make the car drivable you have a decent sized electric motor which does the acceleration.
The engine has just enough power to keep the battery topped up while cruising, so you only need a relatively small battery.
All in all, like this, it shouldn’t work out much more expensive than a normal car.
This formula works well in most places – except where there’s a large mountain and the design falls apart. The engine is too weak to make it up a hill without motor assistance, and the battery is too small to do this for more than a few miles. A car that reports 400 miles of range which suddenly drops to 5-10 miles when faced with a mountain isn’t really acceptable and is pretty dangerous. (I think there are legal/safety requirements too).
So to solve the problem you do one of the following (or a combination)
1. Make the battery larger – you need conventional EV sized battery
2. Make the engine larger – you need a conventional car sized engine
Most manufacturers choose #2, by fitting an engine that can make it up the mountain by itself. This is cheaper than fitting a huge battery and means the manufacturer doesn’t need to find space somewhere on the car for a large battery and doesn’t add too much extra weight – but it does significantly detract from the advantages of a hybrid. It ends up more expensive than a conventional car, and isn’t as efficient as a hybrid could be. This means for a lot of people, a hybrid just isn’t that attractive a solution.
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