The decade of the hybrid is upon us. Falling sales of EVs in America, bolstered by the disappearance of federal incentives, mean people are turning to hybrids more than ever. It makes sense; hybrids, especially plug-ins and range-extended EVs, deliver the best of the electric experience, without any of the range anxiety of owning a pure EV.
That’s not the only benefit of owning a hybrid. According to a big survey published last week by Consumer Reports, hybrids are, on average, actually 15% more reliable than purely gas-powered cars, too.
Volkswagen, which has struggled with selling its two pure electric cars and hasn’t offered a hybrid model in nearly a decade, is reportedly starting to realize just how important the hybrid market is becoming.
Finally, Some Sense Around Here
According to a Bloomberg report published this morning, Volkswagen AG—that is, the parent company of all of VW’s brands, including Audi and Porsche—is looking at the idea of adding range-extended EVs to its lineup, according to “people familiar with the company’s thinking.” From the report:
The German manufacturer is studying adding range extenders to its high-selling sport utility vehicles and sedans, the people said, declining to be named discussing internal matters. Popular in China, the technology is not yet widely available in Western markets.
Volkswagen is monitoring market developments and has reserved the range extender concept for its future vehicle platform, the company said. “If and when this technology will be available in Europe and the US depends on customer demand,” it added. The carmaker is currently drawing up its next five-year investment plan, with a decision possible after a supervisory board meeting later Thursday.
Volkswagen famously went headfirst into the electric vehicle space after its Dieselgate fiasco, largely avoiding the development of hybrids altogether. That seemed like a smart idea five years ago, when it felt like the EU was going to ban all gas-powered cars by 2035. Now, though, it seems like that might be walked back to the point where range-extended hybrids could exist beyond that date, leaving VW on its back foot.
It’s About Time
The Volkswagen brand doesn’t sell any hybrids—plug-in or otherwise—in the U.S. right now. It announced earlier this year plans to add hybrid models to two of its volume sellers, but those won’t be plug-ins, and are likely unrelated to this Bloomberg news.
It’s not like VW is totally unfamiliar with plug-ins. It’s been selling the Skoda Kodiaq iV, a plug-in hybrid with 75 miles of pure electric range, in Europe since last year. And according to Bloomberg, it’s already planning to sell extended-range EVs in China as soon as next year.
And let’s not forget Scout Motors. In addition to pure electric models of its upcoming Terra truck and Travler SUV, the VW subsidiary plans to sell versions with range extenders mounted in the back under the floor. Once buyers learned of this plan, orders of the range-extended version quickly outpaced the EVs, forcing Scout to delay the EV models to focus on the hybrids.
That market reaction is why I believe Bloomberg’s reporting here. It’s entirely possible VW Group saw the huge delta in demand for Scout’s hybrid models versus the EVs, and figured the rest of its cars should probably take a similar approach. Electric SUVs with 1,139 horsepower are cool and all, but it’s not what the masses pine for.
Top graphic images: Volkswagen; DepositPhotos.com
About damn time. Serial VW owner here, and after seeing how the Chinese manufacturers were doing with EREV cars, my first thought was why VW doesn’t look at this as the step from the TDI?
This is blasphemy, but I want a VW series hybrid with a tiny turbo-diesel engine and a dieselgate tune. Can you image what kind of MPG’s you’d get with a tiny turbodiesel that always runs in its most efficient RPM?
I mean, it’s wrong and bad for the environment and shouldn’t be made. But I’m curious what kind of efficiency numbers it could put out.
Just add SCR and you get everything you mentioned without the environmental issue.
With the diesel running in ideal conditions (lean, high load, high temp, no transients) as a generator you shouldn’t have issues with heavy particulates or the need to regenerate.
So, literally the best of all worlds fuel economy and as long as SCR is handling the NOx very low emissions.
They’ve been selling PHEV:s in my side of the pond for over decade. Passat GTE and Golf GTE (sedan, hatch and wagon forms).
I’ve been pondering about next car solution. The Passat (or Skoda Superb which is same but bigger trunk) would be nice, but FWD only. And we kinda need 2 cars. V90 would be nice, but hybrid system is bag of shit to drive. And we kinda need two cars. So after our current PHEV lease ends, I think we buy it and get older gasoline awd wagon for road trips. In Finnish winter road trips the Enyaq 80x (AWD ID4 with less capacitive crap) has not been great.
My main gripe with PHEVs in cold climate is that greasy bits suffer from lack of driving and battery only driving kills those about 3000 cycles that battery lasts quite quickly. with 50km/charge that’s about 150000tkm of EV only range. And in winter very few if any models can archive that range. And then depending how the hybrid system is done, the cold starts dilute the oil with gasoline (which in self its already bad) and insides rust due moisture from the ethanol and condensation. It’s been a bit of an epidemic here in finland, with issues on all german brands.
Volkswagen, After Accidentally On Purpose Sabotaging It’s Court Mandated EV Charging Network In The US Finally Abandons EVs, Reportedly Will Try To Sell Extended Range Hybrids In The US As A Gateway Drug To ICE.
FIFY
“deliver the best of the electric experience”
An EV does this, not a hybrid.
I took a VW ID.4 on a 6500 mile road trip, and encountered exactly one out-of-order charger. Once you change your mindset and have a plan, it’s actually great.
From what I’ve heard, VW software is in deep s*** again. Since they dumped Cariad overboard after burning through about 4billion eur, Rivan has been building their future SW architecture (for pure EVs). And since VW realized they kinda really need to keep the REX/plugin cars going, they wanted Rivan to add that in, but that’s a huge feature change, so Rivian said “no”. And now VW is reportedly thinking about bringing Cariad back again.
Nowadays their cars are running a way way outdated stack and the new one is picking up delays. I wonder how that’ll go for them.
As I’ve said from the beginning, offer the IDBuzz in range extended, short wheelbase with a non-stupid price, and I will probably buy it. Oh, and real knobs no capacitive sliders.