Mort Walker wrote:100% electric does NOT equal 100% battery. Try to understand that, but I doubt you can. Hybrids are EVs. Toyota, VW and others will release lots of pug-in hybrid EVs at low cost that will get nearly 100 MPG for cars the size of the Camry and Passat.
I'm not trying to contradict your overall good discussion, but obviously for the plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) 100 MPG is just the road gasoline mileage. If you only plug it in (no gas fillups) and only take short trips < 20 miles every day, it could be infinite MPGs...but that's not quite meaningful.
There are multiple "serious" considerations in purchasing a HEV/PHEV/BEV (not considering things like "need for speed" or a "sexy car").
- Cost of the car
- Energy and fuel cost
- Environmental impact - which mainly includes the CO2 emissions for powering the car and then the life cycle sustainability of making the car and recycling it at end of life (batteries, metals etc)
- And of course, whether the batteries and critical/rare materials are Chinese or not...!
In the USA at the present time, the regular hybrid (HEV) seems the best overall choice for most people wanting to change from a conventional gas vehicle.
- It is now nearly the same cost as the gasoline car (<$1000 difference). The PHEV and pure battery EV (BEV) are considerably more expensive.
- With electricity and gasoline both being cheap, the lower cost of running on more grid electricity (PHEV) versus more gasoline (HEV) isn't much of a saving for most drivers.
- In terms of CO2 emissions, with the current US electricity grid mix (gas+coal+nuclear+renewables), here is the comparison:
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electr ... sions.html
The big saving in emissions is in transitioning from a gasoline to a HEV...beyond that, its not a whole lot more effective in terms of greenhouse emissions.
- Life cycle issues: the HEV has a moderately sized battery that lasts a long time and uses the least amount of lithium and metals. PHEVs and BEVs use 2-8X the amounts of these materials and currently have questionable environmental benefit outside of CO2 emissions.