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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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OK, so we've established a person can do the math and come up with some value of long trips where its not economical to rent.
Given that a person needs to make that many long trips, how many short trips would they also need to make for the gas savings from a PHEV in EV mode during short trips to exceed the gas loss from doing long trips in a vehicle that gets somewhat lower MPG on long trips compared to a pure hybrid?
How much value might a person reasonably assign to the flexibility to take a weekend road trip without having to plan ahead and make reservations with a rental company?
That's such a strawman as it js such an edge case.
You have to include the additional purchasing and running costs of a more modern PHEV against an older diesel or an older small EV, this will be $10ks.
Booking ahead for hire cars for local pickup is rarely needed unless you have unusual requirements or live in a tourism black spot.
PHEV only made sense during the short period of time when EVs doing 300 miles or more looked to be very expensive but battery costs came down and now there are a significant list of evs than can beat 300 and a not insignificant list that can hit 400. They have become irrelevant.
Wait a minute, are you talking about taxi services? Those are for people who don't own a car when they need to make short trips that can't be done through public transportation. For people who do own a car, those kinds of short trips can be done with a PHEV without burning any gas.
For longer trips, its cheaper and more convenient to rent a car compared to taking a taxi. Yes, if the trip is to someplace with chargers along the way, an EV would be ideal. Yes, if there are no chargers along the way, then a HEV would be ideal. But a PHEV is almost as good as an HEV in that case - certainly better than a diesel in terms of emissions - and it lets you make the short trips without burning any gas, without having to make car rental reservations for long trips to areas without chargers, and without needing to purchase an entire second vehicle for driving in areas that do have chargers.
No, hire car, not a taxi. You really don't need to book months in advance to get one, unless you live somewhere with unusually high demand for them. Most places you van get same day.
PHEV emissions are only lower if you use the battery, majority of phev owners don't even charge regularly. With the majority of miles on the ice ruins any gains on emissions. Emissions are only one part of the impact to the environment, brand new cars even evs have a higher initial impact that reusing an old car, especially one no-one will want in a few years.
Car weight is also a factor due to brake and tyre wear, and guess what, a phev is carrying around all the components of an ice and all the components of an small ev, way heavier than the old car, even ignoring that modern cars weigh more anyway...
It's just such an unlikely set of requirements the number of people that actually meet it is pathetically small.
All of these have to be true for your example to make any sense: Commute distance less than the battery range, typically just under 30 miles
Able and prepared to charge every night as that commute has just drained the tiny battery, another poster has already pointed out that the majority of PHEV owners don't actually charge
Cannot plan any long trips greater than 400 miles
Lives with no reliable hire car service
Lives more than 400 miles from a public ev charger
Somehow can do more miles a year to save money over buying an older, cheaper car that's about £15k cheaper to buy
It's just comes across as a bad faith argument, sorry.