By: Andrei Nedelea

· Not enough range and high prices may be keeping American buyers away from plug-in hybrid vehicles.

· More buyers are choosing regular non-plug-in hybrids or are going completely electric.

· PHEVs are more popular in Europe, but it's pretty much the same story with a lot higher hybrid and EV sales.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles seem like a great halfway solution between combustion and electric vehicles—a steppingstone from one to the other. 

They offer a lot more range than standard non-plug-in hybrids, more performance when running in electric mode, and their ability to recharge their battery from an external source allows owners who plan to hardly ever have to power on the vehicles’ combustion engine. However, buyers don’t seem to be rushing to buy them. And a new J.D. Power study quoted by Automotive News tries to explain why. It found that owners were less satisfied with their PHEVs than people who owned fully electric vehicles.

According to Brent Gruber, the Managing Director of the Electric Vehicle Experience at J.D. Power, “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,” but the situation “really isn't favorable in comparison to battery-electric vehicles.” “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.”

The main reason PHEV owners are not as satisfied as they could have been the vehicles’ relatively low electric range. It's just about 25 miles on average (although there are PHEVs that go further than that, some as much as an early EV). Just 1.9% of all new car sales in August were PHEVs, compared to 9.4% BEVs and 10.7% hybrids.

Price is another big factor keeping car buyers away from PHEVs. J.D. Power data found that the average transaction price for a new compact crossover with a plug-in hybrid powertrain was $48,700 versus $37,700 for one with non-plug-in hybrid power and $36,900 for an EV in the same category.

Buyers are still not well informed about what PHEVs and their potential advantages are, and many owners aren’t using them properly, driving them like regular hybrids that don’t need to be plugged. There also seems to be a lot of skepticism regarding PHEVs in the U.S., and many electrified vehicle buyers get a non-plug-in hybrid. Or they take the plunge into the unknown and go for a full EV.

Portraying the PHEV as the transitional vehicle designed to ween modern motorists off gasoline and ease them into a sort of EV experience lite with a gas engine safety net hasn’t struck a chord with Americans—they provide a less satisfying ownership experience.

European buyers seem to have resonated more with this narrative, with over 7% of new cars registered so far this year in the European Union being PHEVs, although that’s still a lot less than the 31.3% market share owned by regular hybrids and even less than diesels, according to ACEA.

Top Comments

CWT_001

"Aren't Yet Convinced" — They should NOT be convinced. Small batteries in hybrids will cycle many more times than large batteries, and they provide terrible EV range. Gas engines in hybrids need to stop/start many more times than regular ICE vehicles, leading to much more wear. So, you get high maintenance costs with sluggish performance, and for what? A typical EV is rate in the 100 mpg, where a hybrid is usually around 50 mpg!

Andreas Thaler

My Diesel engine in my plug-in hybrid car normally starts about ... once or twice a week, because I always put it in "EV mode" when I start the car. Not too often and does not put much wear on the engine.

Solarman2

So, you get high maintenance costs with sluggish performance, and for what? A typical EV is rate in the 100 mpg, where a hybrid is usually around 50 mpg! Suspicious EPA based ramblings. 100 mpg is a 55% highway operation with a 45% in town speed limit operation. Then add the "consideration" of operating a BEV in Phoenix Arizona in the summer heat and A/C vampire loads drop that 100 mpg down substantially, for "pre-conditioning" the cabin before entering for the 'drive home', to longer commutes.

Same with operating a BEV in Michigan in the wintertime. Then there's this "best practices" of BEV "normal" operations of a battery pack from 20% SoC to 80% SoC to curtail the actual range between charge sessions. Using that criteria, one can see during hot spells or cold spells will curtail the 100 mpg to 'nothing burger' on any given drive on any given day.

[email protected]

I think those who can charge at home are going full BEV. If you can't charge at home, then a classic gas/electric hybrid is the way to go.

Dave Rothgery

That's basically why PHEVs are niche vehicles for people who can charge at home/work but take road trips to places with poor charging on the route or do long-haul towing enough that they want their regular car to handle it (or just have a lot of range anxiety). If PHEVs were significantly cheaper than similar pure BEVs, they'd have a lot more value (because getting lots of people's daily driver miles on electricity would be a good thing), but right now they're just not.

Jeffrey Todd

Also depends on your driving profile.

Cary Chevrolet

I just noticed Engineering Explained has a two-day old piece on the extra wear issues that are presented for hybrid ICE engines. Basically, a lot of start/stop cycles which are problematic on any engine, but which are probably less on a PHEV than a full hybrid, and the oil temp tending too low too often as the engine cycles off and on (water and fuel in oil issues). And apparently Mobil One (a sponsor), makes a hybrid motor oil to deal with the water issues--I didn't know that.

He also explained what I always assumed--just getting your oil over 212 doesn't get rid of the water immediately. That's been a concern of mine because my truck's engine's oil runs too cold, IMHO, only about 180-190 typically. Towing it would only get over 212 going over a pass in warmer weather, so not long enough to get rid of much water at all. I have an old Ranger that is exactly the opposite--its oil runs very hot.

Solarman2

This depends on how one wants to "metric fence" considerations when 'selecting facts'. You state the engine oil on your truck runs 180-190 'typically', first thing to do is try to determine if the oil temperature sensor is working properly, second if in YOUR case the truck has an engine oil cooler, put in a bypass hose.

You may not need this where you operate your vehicle, but a block heater you plug into the wall is another option. Then there's a decades old 'trick' drag racers have been using, engine "pre-oiling" before starting up. One could install an electric oil pump from the oil pan to the oil line into the motor. With the amount of 'technology' and programming in the so-called SDVs today, it wouldn't be that much to program an oil circulation cycle into the motor before starting up, just saying'.

Tom99

If those were actually major issues, I would think that the reliability data for the Prius would look substantially worse than it does.