Does this really happen with prius PHEV owners ??

Can't access it because it doesn't like my ad-blockers.
I can tell you she's misinformed. I plug-in every chance I get too when:
Power plug is free and I'm going to be at that location for at least an hour. I know my gas to electricity breakeven point and I rarely pay for a charge; unless it's wayyy cheaper than gasoline - that's really easy to do here in California. I've seen some charger charge as high as $0.50 a Kwh plus hook-up charge and timed parking charge. You might as well pay $8 a gallon for gas without waiting for the electron top-off. Don't even get me started on those EV trucks that get less than 2-miles/Kwh. Especially now that gas is just above $2 a gallon in most states.

 

"They don't plug them in" is a sound bite condensation of the fact people aren't plugging in as much as was expected. There are at least two members here that don't have home charging for their Prime, which leads to less charging than those with home charging.
https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf

Then incentives could skew sales to people that shouldn't be getting a PHEV. People did buy the PiP and Volt with no intention of charging cause incentives pushed the price below the hybrid's or for HOV access.

 

HOV access was/is temporary to incentivize adoption. No big deal for someone who leases. The car gets replaced/traded before the HOV sticker expires. They (government) are incorporating more cameras, sensors and plate readers to get those people out of those lanes, because they've found that drivers are not as law abiding as they think. At least in my state.

 

My understanding of this issue is that the Europeans found out that PHEVs were emitting more CO2 than expected. The data for actual emissions were transmitted from the vehicles themselves. One reason is thought to be that people are not plugging in their PHEVs. However, this article says it's because European car manufacturers are gaming the system on how expected emissions are calculated: https://insideevs.com/news/771963/phev-emissions-five-times-higher-official/. I can't say I fully understand the issue.

 

^I tend to agree. For whatever reason, some people greatly under-utilize the plug-in feature. The Euro study above, a more recent China study: Your Plug-In Hybrid Is Polluting More If You Aren't Charging It Up

It is strange. Spend more money (in general) for a feature you don't utilize.............

 

Weather and extension cords are a factor for owners who don't park in a garage.

People are too lazy to plugin a Prime when gas is under $3.

Around here my last gas purchase was Exxon at $2.13. Which was not even the cheapest gas - Sam's Club was $1.98.

Meanwhile full size trucks averaging 20 mpg continue to sell fast and are commuter vehicles in most states like Texas. No hybrid or plugin advantage, $50k-85k upfront and high yearly miles are driven.

 

IMHO; most people are just too lazy to do the math, don't have critical thinking skills, and just listen to 'sound-bites'. I've talked my sister out of buying an EV or hybrid because of where she is and how she currently uses her car. Mississippi is one of those places where gas is cheap and it would be very difficult to find a capable mechanics to fix it - neither she or her husband wrenches. There's a lot of DIY'ers out there and most of them are very bad. She's found that out the hard way, from small projects she hired out to get done. The financial side would require 15+ years to recover, so the only other benefit is being environmentally green while everyone around them drove pickup trucks spewing black smoke out of their tail pipes.
I drive a Prime because it makes more economical sense for me to do so; then again I could be driving a 10+ year old econobox, spend the depreciation cost on gasoline, and come out in about the same place - though my weekends would be spent wrenching on the econobox. I've got better things to do.....

YMMV

 

I, Random Guy on the Internet, have a grim assessment for General Motors: "Who cares? It's not like you guys even make cars anymore."

 

they make some decent ev's. it sounds like she's deflecting, because they don't have any.
however, if she provided proof, who can argue? but I can't find much in the article

 

the only thing that matters to automakers is what is selling at what profit margin.
investing for the future is expensive, and along with the whims of the fickle public, they have to deal with political whims.
legacy automakers trying to read all these winds took the easiest route, which was straight to Ev's, at least in n/a.
while extremely costly, probably less costly than hybrid and phev systems.
more recently, they said they were going to bring hybrids to the us market. that remains to be seen.
plug in hybrid sales proxy aren't attractive enough, even though gm already has a phev equinox in china, it is likely all or mostly Chinese.gms-ceo-just-admitted-uncomfortable-001443060.html

 

I certainly don't use my EV mode for as large a fraction of miles as most studies assume, primarily because I'm now retired and no longer drive near-daily.

Most of my trip segments and driving days are all-EV, but most driving distance is still gasoline. Those 300-500 mile gasoline days, chained together on long road trips, offset a huge number of home all-EV days.

She was not referring to you specifically, but to the market as a whole.

In my region, "free" energy is shrinking as more places transition their previous "free" amenity outlets to fee-based networks, usually at higher prices than par with gasoline -- and I live in a region where gas prices are high! Most places still offering free charging, have become over-subscribed. Home charging here is under half the cost of gasoline.

Most places I visit, still don't offer EV charging at any price. Numerous that do, have only SuperChargers, not usable by my PHEV.

Most of our breaks are at places without charging. And for too short to get much charge at those places do offer it. Lunches are usually in-car as the person in the passenger seat eats between driving shifts. Aging eyes, not yet ready for cataract surgery, have forced me to limit night driving, and up north here, winter daylight is too short to waste on meal breaks during our ski trips.

Overnight is a different story. The first year was successful about two-thirds of the time, but this second year has been less successful. Multiple places used to allow it, but have since ceased. Others simply don't have (unlocked) outdoor outlets, or have them only in places that would block traffic or be serious trip hazards.

 

I use my Prime mostly as an EV; electricity where I live in Canada is very cheap in off-peak hours and gasoline is relatively expensive.

A 50 mile (80 km) EV trip costs me about $0.60 USD

The same journey running the car as a hybrid would cost about $4 USD

The last tank of gas lasted me 3 months. Basically I only use gas on long trips or a little bit around home in colder weather.

 

Regulators had to make an assumption on how many miles a PHEV will do on EVfor emission and fuel economy testing; that's the utility factor. Compared to how much EV is actually used*, it was too high. The plan is phase in lower utility factors. The manufacturers are lobbying against that on the grounds of being competitive with China. Note that part of the higher emissions reported is due to the WLTP still being a bit optimistic compared to actual.

*Europe's, now cancelled, PHEV incentives also play a part. The one for businesses to buy a PHEV were popular. The business would then give it to an employee without concern for whether they could charge it or not. Then many businesses would only reimburse employees for gas/diesel costs and not charging.

Article had a link to this study, https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf

A PHEV needs a working hybrid system. Then you have to do the emission and fuel economy testing for EV and HV mode. Add in the incentives(price discounts, CAFE bonuses) for PHEVs not being as generous for the PHEV as for a BEV, it made sense to focus more on the BEVs.

GM was selling PHEVs using the system from the Volt in China, perhaps they still do. Toyota might go with BYD's PHEV system.

 

The HOV sticker angle was real. A lot of Prius Prime buyers in California specifically bought because of carpool lane access, not necessarily to reduce fuel use. That program ended September 30, 2025, when the federal authorization expired. The same thing happened in New York, Georgia, Virginia, and several other states at the same time. The buying motivation is completely gone now.

 

My nearby dealership often has a glut of the plug-ins, and ‘“maybe” one hybrid.

 

Most of those surmations were only applicable before 2014 in a small part of the country.

The reality is that actual people in the us plugged in every chance they could get.

Europe is a different matter as is China.

Corporate and .gov owners did everything in their power to make sure you couldn’t plug in if you wanted to.

but normal users weren’t allowed to plug in as much as they wanted to, I was blessed that I could occasionally plug in at work but on the road very few places had places to charge l1 let alone l2.
AKA Everyone I have ever known plugged in their PHEV as much as possible, which is usually only at home which is why people own PHEVs .

in my mind .gov, corp and outside the us don’t count.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing apartment dwellers can at least plug in some of the time as opposed to never.
PHEV allows apartment dwellers to L1 much more often than EV due to EV being harder to use without public charging.

So The belief that private owners would buy a PHEV with no intention to charge is laughable in 99% of the us.
If .gov and corp can’t find their way to figure out charging, f them, it’s not our problem.
Same for Europe, if they can’t figure out charging a PHEV f them it doesn’t affect the domestic market here.

many PHEVs lost access sometime around 2015, the number of new PHEVs with access continually decreased and used dropped off after expiration which was long before 2025.

Regionally 99% of the country gained no benefit from the hov schemes, mostly limited to folks in and around specific cities

.

Probably a pricing issue with a little of
“Knowing your audience “

 

most plug ins will eventually find owners who want to and will plug in. they are good programs, besieged by propaganda from the oil lobby

 

And yet there were posters here during the PiP and Volt releasing saying they had no intention to plug in.

Which is all irrelevant to what the OP topic. Which is that EV use of PHEVs is lower than what government and industry expected.

"Real-world electric drive share may be 26%–56% lower and real-world fuel consumption may be 42%–67% higher than assumed within EPA’s labeling program for light duty vehicles."
-REAL WORLD USAGE OF PLUG-IN HYBRID VEHICLES IN THE UNITED STATES
https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf
ICCT is the group that caught VW cheating diesel emissions.

Those regions with HOV schemes were big markets for hybrids and plug ins.
Then there were states and areas without those schemes, but did have have other incentives to buy a plug in. I think Colorado had a larger cash incentive than California at one time. Combine that with the federal and manufacturer incentives, and most of the populous regions of the country could get a Prius Prime for less than the hybrid.

Was it propaganda to got people not considering a plug in Prius to buy one over the hybrid for a lower price?

Yes, PHEVs are a good solution, but their flexibility in fuel source that makes them appealing to users makes them troublesome for company product planners and regulators. it is the same basic conundrum as was in place with flexfuel cars and E85. An incentive to sell such wasn't a guarantee buyers would use the alternate fuel.