Featured Corolla Hybrid 2019 ad - any comments?

Two reasons:

1. It's cheap.
Toyota isn't doing the BEV thing right now. EVangelists therefore are not buying Toyotas, or at least that very small segment of Toyota's customer base that WOULD buy a BEV if they could afford one, which is what HYBRID commercials are aimed at. They are at least consoling themselves that they're going the bunny-huggy thing at the level that they can afford, and that sacrifices have to be made by the one-percenters that are now funding BEVs that they do not have to concern themselves with at this time.

The rest of Toyota's customers are buying trucks.


B. It's easy.
You take cheap shots because you CAN.
Nobody makes jokes about BEVs being slow.....cause they're not.
Not many make jokes about them being ugly, because for the most part, they're not.
The drivetrains also (for the most part, and for now) seem also to be fairly dependable, so nobody is picking on them for being hangar queens - although T3's are experiencing teething pains in the Q/A department because they're trying to build the new airplane in mid-flight.


If charging isn't a 'thing' then people wouldn't be sensitive about it.
Example: ICE'd parking spaces.

I'm sure that if social media had been around back in the late 1800's, then a different cohort of millennials would be overly sensitive about all of the growing pains surrounding that new-fangled horseless buggy thing....or perhaps when sail gave way to steam.

Personally?
I believe that people had a little thicker skin back then, but that's me being me again.....

 

Off topic. On a show about pioneer cabins, the host make a comment about the care and craftsmanship people back then put into their homes. I thought that if nails were cheaper, and chainsaws were available, the pioneers would use them.

 

If you look at the pounds of CO2 emitted per BTU of energy for the various fuels you'll see a fairly narrow range

Environment - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

To save you the trouble...
NG = 117 lbs/mBTU
coal = 210
gasoline = 157

Now most cars get a thermal efficiency of about 20-25%, with the Prius around 35% (maybe 40?). But this is "peak" not average
Power plants range from about 35% (coal) to 60% (NG) and are almost always at peak. (they don't warm up for every 3 mile trip).
Everyone who has driven a Prius knows about the warmup period. But even non-hybrids need to warm up to get their best mpg.
Prius is just the best example of an ICE car.
Most grid power is a mixture of coal and NG (and cleaner sources) which averaged is pretty close to the same as gasoline or better.

So, yes, MPGe is a pretty good proxy for GHG emissions. Certainly within a factor of 1.5 or 2 in the worst case for the grid.
In many places the grid is even cleaner. And most EVs are 100+ MPEGe.

AND, a gas car will never get cleaner during its lifetime. It is possible, even likely, for an EV to get cleaner as the grid gets cleaner over the life of the car. The average age of cars on the road is over 11 years! Most cars, once built will be on the road for 15 - 20 years if they don't get in a bad wreck.

Mike