Battery electric vehicles lose their spark in Europe as hybrids steal the show

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 106 points –
Battery electric vehicles lose their spark in Europe
theregister.com
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And burn even more than pure ICEs since they also carry the added weight from the electric stuff. At a time where we need much less cars overall, including EVs.

That's news to me considering the EPA-rated fuel economy of vehicles with both hybrid and pure ICE drivetrains is universally higher for the hybrid versions.

An ICE vehicle needs a much larger engine than is truly necessary due to the inefficiencies and limitations of mechanical transmissions, whereas a hybrid can have a much smaller, more efficient engine.

A hybrid can potentially act like a 'perfect' transmission, capable of taking in power from an engine running at its single most efficient RPM and, with the aid of battery storage, produce any combination of speed and torque that has an average power less than the output of the ICE.

I think what he might be saying is running a Plug in hybrid only on gas takes more than a regular hybrid because of the extra weight. That makes sense to me but I'm not sure if that's what he means

They said "pure ICE," so I don't think that's what they're saying. But yes, a non-plugin hybrid should do better than a plugin hybrid if the plugin is never plugged in.

But it doesn’t. PHEVs can still regenerate during braking though. ICE only vehicles can cut fuel when off throttle, but that’s not going reclaim the heat lost to braking.

PHEVs should still be more efficient overall especially in cities and stop and go traffic.

If we had ICE only vehicles with tiny engines maybe your point could work, but we don’t anymore at least not in the US.

That's news to me considering the EPA-rated fuel economy of vehicles with both hybrid and pure ICE drivetrains is universally higher for the hybrid versions.

Because they make certain assumptions. Fortunately the EU mandated that cars measures those things since various years. That caused a review of those hybrids. They're usually not charged.

Nothing in that comment discussed plugin hybrids though.

A non plug-in hybrid will be more efficient than a full gas vehicle because of the efficiency you can gain through minimizing the engine and tuning it for a more limited rpm range.

This ideally carries over to a plug-in hybrid in the same way even if it's never plugged in, if all the gas engine does is charge the battery it can be more efficient than a gas only car due to reduced engine size requirements.

I love how you completely ignored the context of my comment and thus completely missed the point.