Plug in hybrid vehicles are the worst of both worlds. Touted as an idea middle of the road between ICE and BEVs are not what is advertised.
In fact, these are going to be catastrophic failures.
At the core of this push is "range anxiety". In some areas, this is valid. Hybrids do serve a particular market: those who live in apartments are condominiums. These are difficult for BEVs since people do not have charging at home.
Outside of that, the utility is not as advertised.
PHEVs Are Not The Transition To EVs
Surveys are starting to reflect what many within the BEV industry has long stated. PHEVs are not what they are promoted as.
“There’s been a lot of focus on creating intermediary steps for consumers who may not be ready to fully adopt a battery-electric vehicle yet,” Brent Gruber, executive director of the EV practice at J.D. power, told Automotive News. But the experience of plug-in hybrid owners “really isn’t favorable in comparison to battery-electric vehicles.”
Overall satisfaction on a 1,000-point scale with PHEVs is 669 while mass-market satisfaction with BEVs is 716, according to J.D. Power consumer satisfaction data. Satisfaction with premium EVs is 738 on a 1,000-point scale.
“Plug-in hybrids have their merits for certain people, but when you look at that ownership experience, it’s certainly not as positive as battery-electric vehicle ownership experiences,” Gruber said.
Part of the push into hybrids comes from dealerships. We have to keep in mind that dealers make a ton of money on service. In fact, many do not make money on the sale of the cars themselves, outside of some financing cuts. Service is the golden goose.
Hybrids do have service. Actually, some believe, long term, there will be even more service with hybrids as compared to ICE. With BEVs, the service isn't there.
Another issue is many manufacturers have jumped into hybrids. There is still a deficit of BEVs, especially in the economy segment. The largest BEV manufacturer, globally, is Tesla and they have zero models in that category.
The companies that serve this market are the Chinese. For the West, this is a non-starter since both the US and EU had pushed heavy tariffs on the Chinese manufacturers. The result is that these areas have few lower priced BEVs.
What Is The Future?
This is a simple question: it is BEVs.
Many still contest this yet the trend is already in place in the largest market. China is over 30% of new automotive sales being BEV. We need to keep in mind this is the largest market in the world, by a large margin.
A much harder question is who is going to win the race?
To me, the turtles are legacy auto. They have done nothing to really push into EV nor have they built any autonomy. We are going to see being moves in this areas over the next two years.
For legacy, this is bad news.
But what about the Chinese?
Here is where geo-politics enter. Personally I think it is going to be impossible to keep the Chinese out. Eventually, they will get in. However, as with most things in the political world, things can drag.
That said, the Chinese are going to see massive consolidation. There are a couple hundred companies still making electric vehicles. Naturally, not all of them can be profitable. It is most reasonable to expect around 10 decent sized companies to survive. There will always some niche companies but they will not command a large market share.