It’s always fraught when I talk about Chinese vehicles here at The Morning Dump or, really, anywhere. There’s an impossibility to divorcing all that comes with where the product is built from what the product is, and I’m generally ok with not divorcing it. However, today, I want to talk about a product I think would do well here and, yet, a product no one can sell me.
Just this week, Chinese automaker BYD launched its Super Hybrid ATTO 2 DM-i in Europe with a flashy drive in Barcelona, Spain. The reviews of it seem generally positive, but what I am missing is the fact that this is a PHEV with actual range, which is something that few companies seem interested in building.
Ford is very interested in continuing to build its F-150 because that’s how it makes money, but the plant that helps process aluminium for its trucks caught fire. Again. No one was hurt, which is a blessing. The same can’t be said for pedestrians, who are being killed at an alarming rate. At least the Department of Transportation is starting to roll out female test dummies, which is as overdue as my copy of Northinger Abbey.
Check Out The BYD Super Hybrid ATTO 2 DM-i
I think we’re fairly clear on our belief that plug-in hybrids are a good thing, as are EREVs (the difference being that a PHEV can power the vehicle with the engine and, in an EREV, the engine only acts as a generator). The shift in interest toward EREVs seems to come from the fact that most of America’s PHEVs kinda suck.
The reason is the battery. There’s just not enough range for most PHEVs, with the new RAV4 finally sneaking above 50 miles of range to provide enough distance for day-to-day commuting. Most are like the Outlander, with under 40 miles from a small battery. That’s not enough!
Again, the new RAV4 PHEV and Prius PHEV are a step in the right direction, but the RAV4 is a bit on the pricier side as it’s a larger vehicle. What I’d love to see is something more Corolla Cross/Honda HR-V-sized with a PHEV option and a larger battery.
Europe is about to get this in the form of the Atto 2 DM-i, which is a boring name for a crossover with a boring derivative design, from not-so-boring Chinese automaker BYD. The company is quickly supplanting Tesla in European markets as an automaker by offering cheaper EVs and cars with engines, which Tesla is unlikely to ever do.
The specs (WLTP) on the Atto 2 are great, with the vehicle offering 56 miles of EV-only range from an 18.3kWH blade battery. [Update: Just to address the WLTP of it all, it’s not possible to know the EPA range of this product exactly, but if you look at the Outlander PHEV in Europe, it gets around 80 km/50 miles WLTP range compared to 38 miles EPA. By comparison, the Atto gets 89 km/56 miles of range. At the same exchange, that’s 43 miles for the BYD. The Outlander PHEV seems to perform worse than the average, so my guess is the BYD would be closer to 44-45 miles. -MH]
Total weighted fuel economy, if you keep it plugged in, is 156 miles. This means a total range of about 620 miles under ideal conditions. Like the Honda system, the motor is mostly acting in series, providing power to the batteries. As necessary, the 1.5-liter gas engine can power the wheels in parallel.
What’s it like? Here’s what Autocar had to say:
Take these numbers with a pinch of salt, considering my test conditions weren’t totally representative of day-to-day suburban drudgery, but over the course of a demanding 90-minute loop comprising busy motorways, tight mountain passes and stop-start inner-city arteries in Spain, I drained around half the battery (circa 9kWh of energy) and took no more than a few sips out of the fuel tank.
That equated to electricity consumption of 9.12mpkWh and fuel economy of 157mpg, which the car told me represented combined consumption in traditional terms of 76.3mpg. But that’s contingent on having a full battery to start with. We will need a few days on UK roads to really crunch the numbers.
Pricing is also competitive, with the larger-batteries Boost model coming in around £28,000 in the UK, compared to a starting price of £32,250 for an HR-V Hybrid.
For many obvious reasons, it’s unlikely a BYD Atto or any other Chinese brand will come to the United States in the near future. Instead of PHEVs with big batteries, we’re probably just going to get hybrids.
Ford Really Needs To Find More Aluminum Suppliers
If you were curious, yes, we did just write about how a big fire at the Novelis plant in lovely Oswego, New York, was so bad that it might have prematurely killed the F-150 Lightning, and was otherwise making life hard for an automaker that is seriously reliant on F-150 sales.
It happened again, according to CNBC:
Novelis in October said it planned to restart operations at the affected part of the plant by the end of December, an acceleration from its previous projection of resuming by the first quarter of 2026. A Novelis spokesperson said it was too soon to say if Thursday’s fire would delay that timeline.
“A fire started at Novelis’ Oswego, New York, plant this morning. Everyone working at the plant was safely evacuated. Multiple local fire departments responded, and the fire is now under control. Crews are still on site to ensure it is fully extinguished,” the spokesperson said.
Maybe, uh, look into making sure that part of the plant isn’t catching on fire all the time? Just a thought. With huge tariffs on imported aluminum, it’s not exactly a fun time to be trying to source automotive-grade aluminum from anywhere else.
The Most Dangerous Roads In America Feel Very Familiar To Me
View this post on Instagram
There’s a kind of terrifying article in The Washington Post this week that calls out the deadliest roads in America for pedestrians, and I used to live by two of them.
This is always a much-debated position, and there’s always a lot of fingers pointed at big SUVs with low standards for pedestrians. That’s a real thing, as is distracted driving, but as a person who studied some of this in college a million years ago, my belief is that road design and transit accessibility are way bigger factors. And it’s personal to me, because Houston sure comes off as one of the worst places for this.
The Instagram post above has a graphic, and it shows Houston’s Westheimer Road as the road with the most deaths in America between 2021 and 2023. Not far off is Houston’s FM 1960, which is a road I spent a lot of my youth along. Both are terrible places to be pedestrians.
From the WaPo:
Wide roads and fast-moving vehicles — especially when combined with signs of poverty, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, and a lack of pedestrian-focused roadway improvements — produced a pattern of death-by-vehicle that is uniquely American, according to the investigation.
The national data shows how the design of such roads is closely linked to the fatality rate: Those with three lanes or more are by far the most dangerous, because they enable higher speeds. Above 30 mph, fatality risk increases sharply. At 50 mph, someone’s chance of survival when struck is less than 1 in 5.
More people in these areas lack cars and are forced to walk, while many of those killed tended to be impaired and were taking risks trying to cross, the review found.
Most of that conforms to my memories of both Westheimer and FM 1960. While making cars more pedestrian-friendly in accidents and lowering speeds are obvious solutions, the road design of both corridors has always been terrible.
NHTSA Endorses A Female Test Dummy
Here’s some good old bipartisan government action, which is missing these days. Both Republicans and Democrats have come out in support of female test dummies. Why? Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a head-on collision and have higher fatality rates, yet not all dummies reflect that.
U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska, and Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, both released statements welcoming the female crash test dummy announcement.
“Any progress here is good because there’s simply no good reason why women are more likely to be injured or die in car crashes,” Duckworth said.
Fischer introduced legislation, the She Drives Act, that would require the most advanced testing devices available, including a female crash test dummy. Duckworth is a co-sponsor.
“It’s far past time to make these testing standards permanent, which will help save thousands of lives and make America’s roads safer for all drivers,” Fischer said.
The goal here is to get automakers to start using these dummies, which conform more to how actual human beings are built (versus the existing “Hybrid III,” a smaller dummy based on the male). I’m sure former Real World: Boston co-star and current Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy will embrace this moment of bipartisanship in a professional way in the DOT’s press release on the subject:
“The Left doesn’t want to hear it, but the science is clear: there are only two sexes – male and female. That biological fact isn’t just a talking point – it’s an important safety consideration when designing cars,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy.
This is a strange statement from the DOT, which serves all Americans — even weirder than Duffy’s recent statement that the way to make travel better this Thanksgiving is to dress nicer at the airport. (I’m not averse to the idea of people dressing up at the airport if they like, as it does add some romance to traveling, but if you look at the math, planes have gotten safer as flyers have gotten more casual…).
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Here’s Willie Nelson, in the best t-shirt you’ve ever seen in your whole life, doing “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” featuring Julio Iglesias, performing at the CMAs in 1983.
[Ed Note: Last month, a celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Back To The Future happened at a mall that was featured in the movie, located in the city of Industry. Friend-of-the-site Tiziano Niero went out and shot this, which I figured I’d share:
Man I lave a DeLorean DMC-12! -DT]
The Big Question
Are we wrong about PHEVs?
Top photo: BYD
The number of unruly passenger incidents is now more than double what it was pre-pandemic.
My reading of the request was to not wear offensive clothing. I don’t want to see your “fuck Joe Biden” shirt or something equally vulgar directed at Trump.
By the way, I’m writing this while riding the Amtrak Empire Builder heading into Montana. Wearing an old fleece jacket and cotton cargo pants.
I’m dressed like I did 40 years ago when I was flying to machinery installs.
Empire Builder! It’s on my list, how is it?
My brother in Mexico was about to purchase a VW Taos for about $27K OTD but I told him go and take a look at the BYD Song Pro (Very similar specs like the one in this article). The monthly payment is like an extra $50USD but I told him you will save that in gas immediatly just driving in electric for a week. (Gas is like $4.5 USD per gallon over there)
He is so happy with it, I am so jealous we dont get BYD in this country, their EV and PHEV lineup is very good.
Unfortunately for the US, Sean Duffy and every other current-admin-appointed department head only serve the president, who only cares about at most half of the citizens of the US. I know we try to not be partisan around here, but are willing to acknowledge how politics and cars intersect, and I greatly appreciate that. What I want to say is that this sort of aggressive politicization of every single agency is exhausting and deeply problematic. The Transportation secretary actively complaining about “the left” and his gender philosophy does absolutely nothing to further safer, more efficient transportation. Trump is mentioned five times in that DOT press release. This is not how the government is intend to function, this is not right. It makes my blood boil that a department doing the actual right thing becomes a political talking point and us vs them argument. Do your damn job and do what is best for all people.
Thanks for a great well written take here.
These people are so damn disgusting, every take, comment, etc. has to be delivered with a lunatic type slant to the public.
This shit can’t stop soon enough for most of us.
When MTG becomes the voice of reason, it becomes even more apparent.
Turns out that woke has been responsible for fatal car crashes all this time, too.
I think you are more likely to crash if you are unwoke.
About the PHEVs, units matter. Sorry to be pedantic, but that 56 miles range is WLTP. The Outlander WLTP is 53 miles. So under US measurements, that Atto is going to score around 40 miles or so.
I agree more range would be nice, but commutes still fit under even the 40 mile window. And even if it’s close, kicking the gas on for a bit is no big deal. Really, the issue is charging infrastructure. PHEVs are great for home owners, but renters rarely have the infrastructure in place to take advantage. THAT is the issue, adding more battery is just a band-aid for the symptom, not a cure for the cause.
The nice thing about phevs with the smaller battery is you can top them off using a common 120v level one charge cable. That makes overnight charging or maybe charging at work a bit more accessible.
Duffy’s recent statement:
“Here are the things Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wants travelers to ask themselves next time they fly:
Are you helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with placing their bags in the overhead bin?
Are you dressing with respect?
Are you keeping control of your children and helping them through the airport?
Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants?
Are you saying please and thank you in general?”
I’ll add these:
Are you being properly shamed by the airline into not having paid more for first class like your betters did*?
Are you being squeezed into a tiny seat for the good chunk of a day? Preferably between two grossly overweight passengers who haven’t showed in a month, behind a passenger whom insists on fully reclining and in front of a kicker?
Are you being given 20 minutes by the airline to make a 30 minute minimum gate transfer so the airline can blame you for failing to make that transfer even though they knew full well you couldn’t, give away your seat and release themselves from any liability for your accommodations?
Are you being polite to the TSA even though they serve no real purpose but to waste your time and money?
Are you still there, waiting at the gate for your delayed flight?
*https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1521727113
lmao
I should have added:
Are you wearing fresh underwear for the false alarm TSA search?
Well, I was when I left, but after 24 hours of alternately sitting in a tin can and hard vinyl seats that don’t breathe, you might want to grab a gas mask. 😛
“Are you receiving a full refund immediately in your original form of payment if the airline cancels your flight? Oh you are? Shit, is that Biden-era rule still in place? Well, that’s cancelled now, the airlines get to keep your money.”
Gosh, I wonder why Ford can’t get reasonably priced Aluminum.
It’s almost as if there’s some kind of reason, independent of that single factory’s fire, that limits their ability to find sources of that metal quickly/cheaply.
The price is the defining difference on the Chinese EVs/PHEVs/EREVs.
Just to compare apples to apples as to all electric range, the RAV4 gets 62 miles on the WLTP cycle https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/coming-soon/rav4 vs the BYD’s 56
Yeah, the RAV4 is the outlier here for sure, but it’s one segment larger than the BYD.
Wait, I’m confused on the BYD. You say 56 miles WLTP, but the subsequently maligned Outlander PHEV gets…53-54 miles WLTP. The RAV4 figure you cite is manufacturer range (but estimating using EPA no doubt), meaning it outstrips the BYD applying the usual WLTP to EPA conversion.
Now, the BYD is doing that on a smaller battery than the Outlander which is admirable, and the price is certainly low (to the consumer), but let’s not mix these things up if we can avoid it!
This is a huge recurring gripe of mine on these “look what we don’t get in the US” articles. You can make your point without being intellectually dishonest to boost your thesis by intentionally mixing apples and oranges!
Why do I say intentionally? Because its always done this way, using the larger WLTP number vs the shorter EPA number then saying “why don’t we get this?!”
I don’t think Matt is trying to intentionally mislead anyone, but you’re not wrong it’s distressingly common.
This being a commentariat of generally-informed and detail-oriented readers though, he’s getting dragged for messing it up. I’m sure he’ll correct the record 🙂
Its definitely easier to be an armchair expert than actually writing the articles! And I appreciate the coverage and discussion!! 🙂
I put this in the article, but just to address the WLTP of it all, it’s not possible to know the EPA range of this product exactly, but if you look at the Outlander PHEV in Europe, it gets around 80 km/50 miles WLTP range compared to 38 miles EPA. By comparison, the Atto gets 89 km/56 miles of range. At the same exchange, that’s 43 miles for the BYD. The Outlander PHEV seems to perform worse than the average, so my guess is the BYD would be closer to 44-45 miles. That’s great for Europe and, while the RAV4 has more range, it’s also a segment bigger. The combo of a large battery/larger range PHEV in a smaller platform simply doesn’t exist. The closest was the Renegade PHEV, but that only got a miserable 26 miles of WLTP range.
WLTP stands for Way Longer Than Possible
LOLOLOLOL
So like the current administration to take something like the need for female test dummies for auto safety testing and use it as a chance to bash their political opposition. The dystopia we live in is such that it makes me want to stay home even more than I already do.
And it’s such an idiotic statement, too. Like, is the argument here that the “woke left” wouldn’t allow anything but male crash dummies because they believe there are more than two genders? Wouldn’t they then be advocating for more than one dummy type?
The only solace we can take is that like common criminals, various persons in our government aren’t very smart. If their average intelligence were higher, things would surely be even worse than they are now.
I suspect that most US households with multiple vehicles would be best served with some sort of “family car” and a 100 mile range 2-seat EV commuter. But that’s not how Americans think.
Apropos of nothing, I like your username. 🙂
Well now I want egg salad for lunch.
Thank you both! Enjoy your sandwich.
Oh I will! Perhaps with a dash of smoked paprika.
A little bit of dijon mustard and finely chopped gherkins always nice too. 🙂
Give me a 2 seat EV that is also fun to drive and I’m in! I have a deposit in with Aptera, knowing full well that my car will never be produced and I’ll never get that money back, but man that thing seems like such a fantastic commuter!
I also have a deposit on an Aptera. I even bought a small amount of stocks. I think the design is amazing and the test vehicles seem to confirm the predicted performance. I wouldn’t say it will never be produced but the odds do seem to be diminishing.
I have been debating about grabbing a small amount of the stock, I probably should, just for fun. At $6, there’s not a whole lot of room to move down right???
I’m no mathematician, but I reckon there’s rougly $6 worth of room to move down.
But you coulda had a Fiero…
If it were closer I probably would’ve called in sick and had some fun haha. As is, it’s a bit too far to make it make sense.
I’m not sure what you’re referencing, but if GM could stuff a Bolt drivetrain into a modernized Fiero for about $27k, they might sell a whole bunch of them.
I toss our 23 Bolt EV around like it’s my Miata. It’s a blast with the instant torque, and they’re cheap! The23s have the updated battery and unlike the new one, these have CarPlay/AA.
I just wish the current semi affordable EVs were decent to drive. I don’t need it to run 10s in the 1/4 mile, I just want it to not be a penalty box toaster on wheels. If that was the case I’d probably have one since I commute at most 15 miles/day and have 240v in the garage. Instead, I will keep my tradition of hot hatches.
We’re fortunate enough to have a stable of vehicles.
For most trips…
A 23 Bolt EV that’s tiny and an absolute blast to drive around. Sport mode + one pedal driving. Highly recommended for a fun, cheap EV. It’s only downside for some is the slow level 3 dc charge rate for road trips. That’s a non issue for us as we only charge at home with our GM provided level 2 outlet and charger.
For road trips,, truck stuff, towing and/or AWD…
A 25 maverick hybrid lariat with 4k towing and all wheel drive. It stays mostly parked with a battery tender but if we’re planning road trips to see friends or family over 100 miles away it’s the Mav.
For top down, row your own, sports car fun…
Down to 1 Miata. A mostly stock 91 British racing green special edition with about 70k miles with the original top still in great shape. It’s also under cover most of the time waiting for me to take the wife out for a ride topless 🙂
IF we could only have 1 car it would be a PHEV or better, an EREV. We just picked up a 25 ford escape PHEV for our daughter that moves out in the spring. Hopefully she’ll land where she can plug,it in (120v) at night or at work. Best option if you can only have 1 vehicle, at least for the next few years.
I’ve had about 8 years of having a PHEV in the fleet. I had a 2014 Volt for about 5 years and have had a BMW 330e for about 3. Both had enough capacity for our daily commute on electric, but the 40 mile range in the Volt resulted in much better percentage of all electric use, and I typically used just 40 gallons of gasoline a year. With the much shorter electric range of the 330e, we fill it up about every 5 weeks on average, so I’m probably using closer to 80-90 gallons of gas a year. It’s still great for a short commute though. The wife has a 1 mile commute each way to work, so at least she’s not short cycling a gas engine anymore. That’s one of the big reasons we use a PHEV for her daily. I go about 8 miles each way, so I stick to Miata in the summer and the truck in the winter.
Over half of the Uber rides I took in Mexico City just recently were in Chinese EVs. It was very interesting riding in cars I’d never seen or heard of before. I think a lot of people in the US are going to be surprised to see just how far those cars have come if that news ever makes it to normies.
56 miles WLTP is much lower than the 50 mile range threshold that you claim is important…
PHEV, depends, your milage may vary. I think it’s a good concept and helps many get over range anxiety, especially one or two car households. I went with the really big battery solution (Silverado EV) to handle my 70 mile round trip commute, occasional 200-250 mile round trip visits to our other offices, and towing needs. I’d rather not maintain the IC motor in the daily driver, and the heat pump in the Chevy solves some of the winter range problem.
I think one important distinction (at least from my point of view) between PHEVs and EREVs that is normally glossed over is that PHEVs require engine power for full vehicle function, while EREVs do not, and only need the engine for extra range. Typically, PHEVs cannot provide even half of full power from the electric motor alone, so any sort of quick acceleration, etc even when the battery is full will require the engine to quickly start up and contribute power. This is bad for emissions (EU PHEVs are apparently particularly bad, with lower power electric motors), as a cold start on an engine going straight to high power is pretty much worst case scenario for the aftertreatment, and probably not great either for engine life.
What really needs to happen is that plug ins, whether categorized as PHEV or EREV, can provide full vehicle operation under electric power only, and not have the engine kicking on and off every time there is a need for an elevated amount of power. I don’t care if the EREV engine only charges the battery or powers the wheels directly, but I’d consider an EREV as any vehicle where the engine can be disabled/removed, and the vehicle still has full functionality and power as an EV, just reduced range. The PHEV requires the hybrid of electric and engine propulsion for full functionality.
Personally, I’d say the 40 vs 60 vs 100 mile electric range squabbling is secondary to this factor, as if the vehicle cannot hit that range without needing the engine for extra power at times, its not really pure EV range.
All the PHEV’s I’ve experienced had plenty of power in EV mode.
The Volt was no different between EV and Gas mode.
Our 330e is down on power in EV mode, but still plenty fast for everyday traffic. I think it’s rated at like 11 seconds 0-60, but like most EV’s, for city driving, it’s faster than most cars to 40 mph. If you select electric mode, it will not turn on the gas engine, even if you floor it. It will go 85 mph in electric mode. Yeah if you put it in Sport plus, it will do 0-60 in the low 5 seconds, but I rarely use that mode because I don’t need to accelerate that fast in normal traffic.
My parents CT6 PHEV had a spot in the pedal travel that kicked the engine on, but it was reasonably easy to keep the engine off.
I like that definition a lot. Being able to fully power the vehicle also means you’re going to have a fairly large battery, as getting power out of the battery fast enough is much harder than having a motor big enough to use it.
Personally, I consider it a bonus if the engine can provide direct power to the wheels more efficiently than powering a generator and providing electricity to the motors. Even if it’s a vehicle with 100+ miles EV range, if it’s destined to see a lot of highway use, the efficiency could pay off. Especially in a package like this, where the only logical place to put the engine is parallel with a set of wheels.
Having the engine direct driving the wheels is definitely a bonus if the packaging allows and the engine can be running near peak efficiency, especially since basically the entire purpose of the engine would be for long highway drives. It seems like it should be possible to not need a separate generator as well, and just clutch it in to the geartrain to the wheels.
In my personal experience, I basically never trigger the ICE when accelerating in my Escape PHEV, which should make ~118hp out of its 210hp total in EV mode. I agree that there could be some minimum standard for EV mode acceleration, like a maximum EV mode 0-60 time of ~10 seconds. Maybe the requirement could scale up for vehicles with higher total power so that something like an M5 isn’t stuck with 90hp in EV mode.
i think the PHEV range debate is mostly driven by the ability to plug it in every night and can it run on pure gas without compromise. If you can (and it can), then 30-40 miles is more than enough to offset 90% of most peoples fuel usage. If you can’t and you are using it more as an electric car with a gas backup then 100+ miles of EV range would be necessary to avoid going to a charger on a regular basis.
I knew Westheimer was going to be it. Lived off that road for years, and spent a good amount of time bar hopping in Montrose. I’m surprised its not worse than it is.
I disagree with the rationale that US PHEVs do not have sufficient range. The average US commute is 17 miles one way. 50 miles EV-only range should be enough to make the daily commute on battery alone. Would more be better? Sure! But it is not needed.
50 will get you there, but only just in adverse conditions. That 50 drops to probably 35 when it’s cold and you have the heater cranked, which is still enough, but only just. So to me 50 should be the minimum, and when you look at most PHEVs, they are only rated in the 30s or less. It’s crazy to me when I see a PHEV that can only do like 18 miles, that barely even counts!
“That 50 drops to probably 35 when it’s cold and you have the heater cranked, which is still enough, but only just”
That’s exactly the conditions where I think an EREV would shine. Give it JUST enough peak efficiency ICE power to move the car down the freeway while also bringing the cabin and battery to a nice, toasty temperature with waste heat.
Yeah I would still want something that can get be to and from work without needing the ICE, but my plan is to go Slate next year so we’ll see how that goes.
I’m very curious to know how those Slates work out too.
The caveat is that an EREV wouldn’t want to run its engine very hard when the battery is full, thus slowing warmup when cabin heat is most needed. It’ll deffo help on the freeway on longer trips like you mentioned. If there’s sufficient available battery capacity, it’s still overall more efficient to just use the battery to heat the cabin even with simple heating elements, even more so with a heat pump.
It doesn’t need to run very hard. Even the most efficient engines turn less than half of the energy of gasoline into useable work, the rest is lost as heat. Even harnessing a small portion of that heat is way more than needed to keep the folks inside happy.
“If there’s sufficient available battery capacity, it’s still overall more efficient to just use the battery to heat the cabin even with simple heating elements, even more so with a heat pump.”
Not necessarily. In my area its actually cheaper to run on gas than electricity and that’s before the “free” heat and factoring any charging losses.
Agree – 50 should be the minimum and the standard should be around 100. Enough to cover commuting needs/car preconditioning all winter. When its cold, warming up the car is something that just happens. Do I twitch every time I do it? Yes, but when you have a bunch of kids trying to get out the door to head out on the school run, that car being warm is pretty much a necessity lol.
Yeah I don’t even have covered parking, so that seems like such a crazy luxury that I can’t even really comprehend it haha
This is applying pure EV thinking to PHEVs, which is the wrong approach. The whole advantage of a PHEV is that when it runs out of battery you just switch to gas and still get where you’re going. You don’t need 100% EV coverage of all possible scenarios. If the weather sucks, you burn a little gas and move on with your life. The other 99% of the time you get nice clean electric propulsion.
My antiquated 2017 Ford hybrid with its pitiful 7 KWh battery and 15-20 mile EV range is good enough to have averaged 65 mpg lifetime. That’s the only stat that matters to me. I couldn’t care less whether the battery is big enough to do all my daily driving, because I get no financial or environmental prizes for returning home with a cold, unused engine. If you must drive without using any gas, get an EV.
“…with the new RAV4 finally sneaking above 50 miles of range to provide enough distance for day-to-day commuting. Most are like the Outlander, with under 40 miles from a small battery. That’s not enough!”
A 50 mile round-trip commute is equal to 12,500 miles a year – without going to the grocery store, out for dinner, kids to school, doggos to vet, etc.
40 miles round trip is still 10,000 miles a year.
“Are we wrong about PHEVs?”
Yeah – You’re wrong.
Most people don’t commute that far.
However if your commute is 50 miles and your E-only range is 40 – you’re still only using @ 1/3 gallon of fuel a day instead of @ 2 gallons a day (based on 25-30mpg)
So instead of paying $2000/year for fuel (based on $4/gallon) you’re only paying $300/year for your uncommonly-long commute.
Came here to say the same thing. Most of the time the extra battery capacity and range is wasted because a PHEV will likely be charged nightly, and most days will not exceed the EV-only range that current PHEVs offer.
Yup 40 or so is fine for most people.
Preach! 50 is plenty. I’d never buy a PHEV because the ICE portion of the drivetrain would get used MAYBE 4 times a year.
Ford has nothing to worry about. It’s not like the Midwest aluminum premium is the highest it’s ever been (for those not in the know Americans pay the aluminum price on the London Metals Exchange plus the Midwest premium)
Aluminium Premium Duty paid US Midwest Chart – Investing.com
USA! USA! USA!
“Nothing to see here”
Telling that local vendors raise their price when competition is stifled.
I don’t disagree with you, but it feel like by adding in the “million years ago” you are undercutting your own argument. The SUVs got bigger and cell phones more common in the last million years. Probably. I’m not sure I have a citation on that, but I’m sure it’s true. Though I like the idea of a dinosaur (maybe in an Escalade!) looking down at their phone instead of the road.
Nerd alert! Dinosaurs were long gone by 1 million years ago.
Gone where?
Washington DC?
OK, a mastodon driving a super duty scrolling through their phone.
I think you’re wrong only in the sense of complaining about 40-50 mile electric ranges on US market PHEVs while praising the claimed 56 mile range (on the super optimistic WLTP cycle no less) of the BYD. In real world conditions, I don’t really think there’s a significant difference.
Total range is also a poor metric to me for anything that can be refueled in 5 minutes anywhere in the country. The reason we care about range on pure EVs is because recharging is still an ordeal. 620 miles is great, but not really the same kind of achievement as a 620 mile EV would be. You’re maybe saving 5 minutes on a long trip rather than 30-60.
WLTP is one of the most nonsense metrics that I encounter regularly
Nowhere near as bad as the CLTC though. WLTP is 15-25% optimistic compared to EPA ratings, and CLTC is easily 30-50% optimistic over EPA, if not more. What makes me most frustrated is just about every single news source sees a Chinese EV’s range rating and parrots it out in coverage. “See how good this car is? It can do 450 miles on a charge!” when that 450 CLTC is equitable to a 285 EPA rating. For example, a Model 3 RWD Long Range gets a 363 mile EPA rating, and an absurd 516 CLTC rating, and gets maybe 330 real world. That’s a CLTC of 42% higher than EPA. just insane.
“represented combined consumption in traditional terms of 76.3mpg”
Imperial gallons I assume.
Metric Gallons, actually
Metric gallons? Are those like ale gallons?
Long live the 568ml pint.
It’s the best pint!