249
Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
249 points (94.0% liked)
World News
53977 readers
3055 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I can say from personal experience that my Chevy Volt gets around 40-60mpg when it kicks over to gas. That said, it rarely does, because my daily commute comfortably inside the battery's range.
Again, I've got a tank of fuel from... several months ago? Barely 7 gallons and it hasn't run out. Like, I almost never visit the gas station anymore. So, idk. Maybe the Volt was just built better.
You were charging it. The PHEV drivers are not charging at all, they were told the cars were self charging. Many use street parking and can't charge. They should be driving hybrids, not plugins they never plug in.
You have to work at a car service center to truly appreciate how stupid some people are, and they are not rare.
Based on my interpretation of the article the Porsche plug in was so bad that it skewed the study, it used 85% more fuel than all of the other cars in the study. But it doesn't surprise me, it's not the first time Porsche (Volkswagen) wasn't very trustworthy with their fuel stats in recent years. Something was that the less expensive the car, the better it was on fuel economy, seems logical once you think about it. The more sensible the car the more likely that buyer is to be concerned with those types of stats.
Nobody (expecting to win) is street racing a Volt or a Prius, to be sure.
So there's little incentive to cheat emissions standards in order to juice performance.
There's no way it would win a race, but I have to say, I have the latest Prius Prime and it's actually pretty damn fast, especially for a Prius. They really shook off the underpowered rep with this latest batch.
This mirrors my experience with my 2017 Prius Prime. On the rare occasion when I activate gas mode (e.g., for long trips) it gets 50 mpg no problem. Otherwise it's an electric car and the gas engine is completely shut down.
During COVID lockdowns, we were driving a lot less. We got a warning message that we needed to burn at least 5 gallons of gas each year to keep it from going stale. So we drove it exclusively in gas mode for a while, then went right back to not caring about gas prices at all.
The Prius PHEV basically turns into a regular Prius once the battery is empty because Toyota designed it for low consumption. Others like Volkswagen just needed PHEVs for tax reasons, so the actual consumption does not matter to them.
That's not correct, but proves my point, people have no idea how these cars work.
A Prius uses an electric motor to assist the gas motor, the primary drive is the gas engine. Kinetic energy is recovered and stored as electrical potential.
PHEVs are EVs with a gas generator on board. The gas motor only charges the battery.
Unfortunately „most people“ in this case includes you, but not me. But we can change that 😉
The major differences between the Prius HEV and PHEV are that the battery has a larger capacity and that it can be charged externally.
The transmission works exactly the same and on both models the gas engine can be used to provide traction to the wheels without converting everything to electrical energy first.
It also has (at least) two electric motors - again, both HEV and PHEV.
Look up Hybrid Synergy Drive on Wikipedia. There are also some good explanations on YouTube. It’s at the same time a quite simple, yet very smart design. I find it fascinating what the Toyota engineers have come up with.
PHEVs do indeed typically have the output of their engines connected to the wheels through the drive train. You’ve described a range extender. Vehicles with a range extender do not have the gas engine connected to the drive train directly.
Doesn't gas go bad eventually? Could that be a problem if you end up needing the ICE to turn on?
They do turn on the ICE if the fuel is old, but it has to be very old, months.
Hence my question. Lol
they actually thought of that when designing the volt. the tank is pressurised to stop evaporation (which causes the concentration of additives to change so they fall out of solution), and the engine runs for a minute or so every month (or if you haven't started it in a while) to make sure there's no bad gas in the lines.
if only it had a proper stats screen, came in hatchback form factor, used a type 2 plug in europe, and had five seats, it would have been a perfect car. oh and the battery range is a bit too small, but i think there's probably someone who can fix that. after all, the batteries are twelve to thirteen years old at this point.
Wow, awesome tech
The Volt was also the most reliable vehicle GM ever made. But they stopped making them because without incentives, they lost money. It's a lot of complexity and weight to carry around two redundant drive systems, EVs make more sense, but the media drilled range anxiety into consumer's heads.
I used to have a motorbike that I hardly ever used and it was so unreliable because of this. I ended up having to get rid of it in the end because it just wasn’t worth the effort for the amount of time that I used it.
I have a different model, but it more or less vacuum seals the gas tank to mitigate that - it is still wouldn't last forever, but without air to react with the aging process is significantly slowed down.
Fuel with ethanol will go bad if it sits stagnant for a long period of time. As long as you are driving the car around or using fuel stabilizer, it should be fine.
It would have to sit years. Not an issue in modern fuel injected systems. Most of fuel stabilizer is ethanol, BTW.
You're from the US.The US fixed the bullshit method of claimed fuel mileage about two decades ago. This article is all about the EU. Their official fuel efficiency ratings still have room for bullshit.
It's not even that, it's the abomination of combining electric and gas "efficiency" into a single unit. That number is always going to be trash when one of those variables represents zero fuel usage and other represents pure fuel usage. In the US, the "MPGe" rating suffers from the same exact issue.
The EPA in the US doesn't do that, buddy. They give 2 separate ratings. You also don't understand what MPGe is measuring. MPGe is a pure electric mode. The gas used rating in MPGe is for fuel equivalent it would take to charge the battery back up.
It then also shows the MPG rating, and that rating is what you'll get after the battery from driving in all electric mode would be too drained and the ice motor will be doing most of the work.