Featured PHEVs are by far the least reliable vehicles, Consumer Reports says

This smells of poorly written clickbait. The wording is unusual and suspect:

"The official data shows that 122 people died in fatal collisions involving hybrid cars last year, compared with 777 deaths in crashes involving petrol-only vehicles."

Does this mean that in multi-vehicle collisions between hybrid and petrol-only vehicles, all deaths are attributed to hybrids, none to non-hybrids? Over what region and time period?

Then this:

"Despite the worrying data, official crash-test performance on many hybrid vehicles remains broadly positive. The Ford Kuga plug-in, for example, has achieved strong occupant protection scores in Euro NCAP testing, with a five-star overall rating.

Experts also warned that raw fatality figures without adjusting for exposure, age, usage and mechanical variances, meant the statistics offered only a starting point for discussion rather than a definitive assessment of risk."

For that UK stuff, I'll wait until they break down fatality rates by specific vehicle model. The US already has plenty of such data, and I haven't seen hybrids pop out as a particular problem here.

 

Valid criticisms best resolved by getting the details from each fatality and fleet data. The UK may have both readily available. The USA has the data but from different, uncoordinated and ‘fee’ based holders.

Bob Wilson

 

and you can't know the individual drivers competency, crash conditions, driving style, other drivers fault, vehicle condition, etc.