What’s Better: A Fully Electric Car Or A Plug-In Hybrid EV?

back up generator?

 

Everyone has different needs, and wether a PHEV or BEV works best for them will depend upon those individual needs.

As for the logistical issues you ran into, that varies by car maker. Most long trips in a Tesla work great. The location and availability of chargers is built right into the navigation.

As for power outages, when I have one my solar panels keep working. So in my case, I continue to charge at home, just limited to sunny days.
Gas stations also don’t operate without electricity (sunny or not).

 

Is electric really great for commuting? When I read that, my first thought was the 20,110 cars per hour that flow through our valley from the cheap housing in the central valley of California to the Silicon Valley jobs. It's easily over 100,000 cars per day that make that commute. Do we want to encourage them, or should we instead convince them to find local employment ?

I saw a 2017 census that said that 2.5 percent of those cars are traveling between 2.5 and 3.5 hours EACH WAY from the area around Merced which is 125 miles each way. Wow!

But then there are more normal commutes, which would result in less than 20 miles per day total mileage. In those cases, a PHEV and BEV are essentially the same, assuming that you charge the car each day. The scales may tip towards the PHEV in that case, since they have the dual fuel capability and can spend most of it's time in EV mode.

 

So, Bisco is saying that a PHEV is the solution, but the HV part is disguised as a separate unit that burns gas and you plug the car into.

 

Driving a Prime 600 miles on EV? Even if there were L2 chargers every 20-25 miles, you'd better pack a lunch. Let's see, 600/25 miles would be 24 charges at two hours each. (If you can manage 25 miles/charge on the Interstate.) That's 48 hours charging time, plus driving time and other incidentals. LOL! I charge at home and at work, and on rare occasions at my destination.

Unless you have solar power that works when the grid is down, you don't charge in a power outage. And, you don't buy gas either unless the gas station happens to have a backup generator. A portable generator might work on a Prime in a pinch, but the owner's manual warns that it could cause damage. I wouldn't do it.

 

fortunately, other than a major storm, we don't have too many power outages around here. not sure about other geographic areas.
but if i were concerned, i would charge before the storm and get far enough away where it wouldn't be affected by the outage.

yes, a much more elegant solution than dragging a boat anchor around most of the time. and you could power your house as well.

 

Right now I think for most two car families, one PHEV and one EV will have you covered.

 

Is great for me since my commute is 110 miles a day. I only pay $0.06/kWh to charge overnight. I don't have to go to gas stations weekly. I don't need to change the oil 3-4 times a year. Can't be beat for commuting.

 

My wife has a regular 2017 Prius that does almost as well on trips as my Prime and has more luggage space. I'm giving very serious thought to trading the Prime for a Tesla Model 3 next year and we can use her Prius for road trips that go to out-of-the-way places. I still really like the PHEV concept and it works well in the Prime, but I'm coming around to the notion that an EV and a hybrid are a better mix than a PHEV and a hybrid. The hybrid wins over the PHEV in our case because it has more luggage space and the wife likes her Prius better than my Prime. (Also, her's has BSM and my Prime doesn't.)

 

If you can get the functionality you want out of them, absolutely. Right now we're a minivan + Gen2 Prius family. The Prius does the bulk of the mileage but we're not ready to give up minivan functionality. Just used it to move my daughter into her college apartment and really can't beat the hauling capacity. Prius Prime is our next car and I think we'll keep the Gen2 for the kids (whichever one needs it first). I wouldn't want an EV over the PP yet given range anxiety and cost premium.

 

I have a combination of a relatively short commute to work with occasional driving kids and all their stuff to college. The Prius Prime is ideal for the first because it is mostly electric and this car is one of the most efficient EVs on the market. It works well for the long drives too--I can drive from San Jose to LA in one shot with excellent mileage, though it doesn't always carry everything we want for the college drive, plus occasional errands (carrying stuff for working on the house, etc).

There's another aspect: 'What do you want to drive?'. I've really gotten the 'drive electric' bug. It first hit me when driving the gen 1 Prius and hearing absolute silence when stopped at a stoplight. The instant 'gas pedal' response as opposed to the slight delay for a gasoline car is also addicting (What is the pedal called in an EV? Electricity pedal?) It got so I dreaded when the gasoline engine kicked in. With the plug-in Prius and my short commute that doesn't happen so often.

So I'm in the position now where I'm thinking--I can give the Prius Prime to my son, who can then drive himself to/from college, plus he gets free charging at his college. Then I can go full electric with a car that holds more for driving my other kid to college and for other situations where I need to carry lots of stuff. The full electric means a stop or two on the way to LA, but it means I am driving full EV, which, as I mentioned, is how I just want to drive.

Since the Prius Prime is so efficient and my usual commute is short, going full EV won't necessarily be much better for the environment.

So it depends on what your driving and carrying requirements are and also what kind of car you want to drive. For me, that's pointing to an EV. Now the question is what kind of car can I afford, and what can I even get my hands on without waiting four months for a car.

 

If you've got home charging and can afford two cars in the $20-30K range, this is it.