From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
While we’re on the topic of EVs, the Telegraph uncovered some of the illogicality of plug-in hybrid taxes:
When the plug-in Toyota Prius hybrid went on sale in 2012, its rechargeable battery pack and petrol engine combo was hailed as the best of both worlds.
Rather than having an electric motor recharge itself through regenerative braking like earlier hybrid models, plug-in hybrid (PHEV) owners could now hook their car into a three-pin plug and get a longer electric range – with the added reassurance of a petrol engine back-up. It could save you money, reduce range anxiety and be good for the environment.
But PHEVs are about to become the nation’s least-wanted car. From 2028, those who bought plug-in hybrids for their green credentials will become the most heavily taxed motorists.
They will be saddled with an “illogical” 1.5p per mile charge as part of the Government’s new road pricing initiative. As well as mileage charges, they will continue to pay fuel duty at the pumps, in effect being taxed twice for every mile they drive.
Electric vehicles (EVs) will attract a higher 3p per mile rate, but as drivers do not pay fuel duty, the principle of a pay-per-mile tax has been met with tacit acceptance. Self-charging hybrids, meanwhile, that don’t plug in are not affected by the new per-mile charge, and will continue paying normal fuel duty.
Car dealers believe fed-up PHEV owners will rush to sell as demand inevitably dips in the lead-up to 2028, when pay-per-mile is introduced.
Full story here.
Successive governments have pushed hybrids as a stepping stone to fully electric cars. But what this whole saga highlights is that those same governments shut their eyes to the loss of fuel duty revenue in years to come. It was a case of kicking the can down the road. Now thanks to ZEV mandates, the crows are coming home to roost!
For ages there was a lot of frankly nonsensical talk of road charging using satellite eye in the sky technology and black boxes. Eye in the sky? More like pie in the sky! As I often commented, such a scheme would take years to get up and running and probably not even work then.
Now EV drivers are facing the harsh reality that they have to pay their share of taxation, they are up in arms. Governments should, of course, have taxed them fully years ago. My solution would have been to charge it all through Vehicle Tax, at say £1000 a year. It would have of course have killed the EV rollout stone dead!
The Telegraph notes that most PHEVs have a tiny battery range:
Plug-in hybrids typically have a limited range in their battery pack,soit is commonfor drivers to ignore the electric capability of their car. The average range of the electric component of a PHEV is 15 to 60 miles. This is dwarfed by the capabilities of pure electric vehicles, which can achieve in excess of 300 miles on one charge, according to tests run by the consumer group Which?.
The feeble battery range of PHEVs means many owners don’t bother charging their car or using the electric function. Yet they will still be charged 1.5p for every mile they drive.
David Sillito, who drives a plug-in hybrid Lexus and lives in central Scotland, said: “If I drive to Manchester and back one weekend and then Newcastle and back the next to see my children, I’ll do a wee bit less than 1,000 miles. But around 900 of those would be done on the [fuel] engine, so I’m paying 1.5p a mile for 900 miles that I’ve already paid fuel duty on.
“I find that absolutely crackers and unfair.”
It does, of course, destroy the idea that PHEVs are saving the planet. I had an MG hybrid on hire for a week earlier this year. The guy who delivered it said the cable was in the boot, but nobody ever bothered to use it! They just filled up with petrol!
Another driver comments:
“Locally, we have BP pulse chargers and they’re 89p per kilowatt hour. I’m getting about 33 miles from a 14.4 kilowatt battery. It works out roughly 38p per electric mile for me, whereas if I fill it up with fuel in Tesco, I get 50 miles to the gallon, that’s roughly 11p per mile,” he said.
“So it’s just purely uneconomic to plug the car in anyway. But now in spite of the fact that I don’t drive it in electric, I’m going to be charged an extra 1.5p just because it comes with a plug.”
One in ten cars sold this year in the UK is PHEV, but it appears most of these are company cars, thanks to their generous benefit-in-kind tax rates.
In reality, hybrids are really dead end technology. Under current plans, new PHEVs will be banned after 2035. Between 2030 and 2035, they will be subject to the same stringent ZEV mandates that petrol cars now are.
No manufacturer is going to spend money of developing new models and setting up production lines.
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Hybrids – CALL them what they really are –
Kinetic Energy recovery vehicles … (or some variation on that theme)
What the Government gives… The Government can take away…
.. plus extra 🙂
High time EVs of all shapes and sizes in UK were charged same taxes as ICE cars.
The objections to PHEVs in this article make no sense to me. Who would buy a PHEV and never plug it in? PHEVs command a premium price. You’ll pay at least an extra US$5K for the PHEV’s charger and bigger battery pack, so why would you buy it if you don’t intend to use it?
PHEV are excellent for people who mostly use them for predictable moderate commutes, and plug them in at home, but who occasionally need to take longer trips. They’re not intended for people who take frequent 1000 mile trips, nor for people who have to charge at public chargers (“BP pulse chargers”). The bit advantage of a PHEV is that you never have to charge at a public charger.
In fact, even if you occasionally take trips in a PHEV, stops at gas stations will still be infrequent. The combined gas+electric range of the Prius PHEV is about 600 miles.
There are large subsidies on offer for fleet buyers to buy hybrids, not least the largest fleet buyer in the UK, Motability; a scheme allowing physically disabled people further government subsidies to keep them mobile. However, the scheme has been abused for decades, with people suffering from mild anxiety now able to exploit it.
A survey was done of regular business fleet users a few years ago, and it was found that the majority of drivers simply didn’t bother to plug them in. Why would they? They are provided by businesses ‘free’ to employees who need them for business use, e.g. travelling salesmen, and the business pays for the fuel and running costs.
Company cars are a phenomenon peculiar to the UK and began way back when they were seen as an untaxed perk of the job, until HMRC cottoned on and began taxing the employee for them. Bizarrely, they are still considered a perk, although it’s doubtful they offer anything but marginal benefits.
As for charging PHEV’s or EV’s, 45% of UK homeowners have no off-street parking (driveways) which allows them access to cheap electricity straight from their domestic supply. Predictably though, the clinically insane Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves) will be taxing people who use home chargers as well.
I’m beginning to think she’s a climate denier determined to kill off PHEV’s/EV’s.
Company cars of various types are standard in the US as well, and likely every developed country. They are clearly not “a phenomenon peculiar to the UK.”
Do US fleets get incentives to buy EV’s? Question, not argument, I really don’t know.
Fleet EV’s are a large part of how automakers have made their required EV sales quotas as a percentage of total sales. Yes the buyers got their incentives and as a bonus at times automakers also gave them heavy discounts to get the EV’s off the lot.
Thanks DB. Now I’m wondering how I’d feel if I were assigned one of those fleet cars. Initial thoughts have more to do with “what am I doing where I’d get a fleet car?” than “is an EV a sh—y option?”. It seems like a subsidy to businesses large enough to have a fleet. If the saving helps that company offer other benefits then sure, whatever.
There’s always a large subsidy involved….
Not limited to the UK. And don’t forget government cars – benefits to upper level public servants.
In other words, a trip to the gas station would be a
rare event for the owner of a plug-in hybrid.
A Google AI query and answer:
Do the owner’s manual for plug-in hybrid cars
advise running the engine every so often?
Yes, many owner’s manuals and automotive experts
recommend periodically running the gasoline engine
in a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV),
even if you primarily drive in EV mode. This
practice is important for maintaining the health
of the entire system.
True. Modern gasohol blends have very limited shelf lives. So it would be a very bad idea to never run the engine, and just let the fuel slowly turn into varnish. I would think that the computers in PHEVs would take that fact into account while deciding when to run the engines, but apparently some do not.
If I had a PHEV, and if I found that I was refueling less than once every 2-3 months or so, I think I would make a habit of adding fuel stabilizer (Sta-Bil) to the fuel, or else try to find “E0” fuel with no ethanol. Here’s an article:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/drive/mobility/article-should-i-worry-about-stale-gasoline-in-a-plug-in-hybrid/
Seems like running the engine might keep oil from turning to glue.
Yes I agree. I live in the US and one of my friend’s wife has a plug-in hybrid which she uses to commute to work. She can recharge it in the garage at work and so never has to use gasoline except occasionally to keep the gas system working properly.
I suggest you tell our friend’s wife to use only alcohol-free gas in her plug-in. Most gas contains about 10% alcohol (a Government rule) which will gum up her engine if it sits long in the tank and fuel system.
She probably does since she’s been using this car for several years.
This website catalogs places where you can buy “E0” (ethanol-free) fuel, which has much better shelf life than gasohol blends:
https://www.pure-gas.org/
Another option is to add fuel stabilizer when refueling:
https://www.goldeagle.com/brands/sta-bil/
I think the computers in most (but not all) PHEVs keep track of how fresh the fuel is, and will run the engine if necessary to mitigate the stale fuel problem, even if you never drive far enough to run down the battery.
At least in my state we went from hard to find non ethanol fuel to a good percentage of gas stations now sell it. Mostly due to the public demanding non ethanol gas for both their cars and other powered equipment/tools that don’t due well with ethanol.
The tax incentive for company cars for PHEV meant if an EV was not usable ie for travelling salesmen, repair engineers etc doing large mileage then you got a PHEV and not a plain ICE. After you got the car charging at home or work makes little sense for high mileage users. So the battery is a dead weight but the tax incentive is still there.
A popular YouTube series, High Peak Motors, which details the daily life of a used car salesman, learnt an expensive lesson with hybrids.
The usual schtick is that they are the best of both worlds, petrol/diesel and electric motoring, and on that basis, High Peaks owner bought an average-mileage hybrid Land Rover to put on his forecourt.
It went wrong. The battery failed and had to be replaced with tens of thousands of pounds of new hybrid batteries. All profit, and more, straight down the drain (he usually makes ~£2,000 per vehicle he sells), and that of several more of his cars to make up for the loss.
As he ruefully pointed out, you are not buying the best of both worlds; you are buying the worst of both worlds. If the engine packs up, not unusual with Land Rover products, you are stuck with another bill running into tens of thousands of pounds.
The Prius hybrid is a very reliable car. We have one for five years so far with no maintenance other than oil and filter changes. A friend has a 2012 model {not plug in} which is still running with the original battery without issue. Both get about 60 mpg in town, a bit less on a long highway trip. The problem with the salesman’s Range Rover is the manufacturer and their choice of battery and hybrid technology. Range Rover has a well earned reputation for very poor reliability which it seems has carried over to their plug-in hybrid. The lesson the salesman learned was don’t buy/sell Range Rovers.
Lets be real I have been in golf buggies bigger than a prius .. hardly a family car. I guess you could squeeze kids in the back but basically all they could then put in boot was a rucksack. They stopped being sold in Australia in 2022 due to declining sales even with your claimed reliability .. anyone who bought one basically didn’t want to buy one again.
65″ flat screen TV, in box, in a newer Prius. https://www.reddit.com/r/prius/comments/m8mw68/65_flat_screen/ Someone on that subreddit carried a bigger flatscreen out of its box in a 2004-2009 Prius.
When a Prius can take the kids, dogs and luggage anywhere in the world in luxurious comfort, let me know.
Most unreliable ICE Land Rovers are badly maintained, or they are used as trendy Chelsea tractors not designed for stop/start urban traffic, which eats up braking, suspension and engine components in a 2 Ton vehicle.
The salesman is on his third (to my knowledge) personal Range Rover and has suffered little to no reliability problems. But then he’s fastidious about maintenance and uses the car as it should be used.
Hybrid owners like to be part of the solution, not the problem. Thaaaaanks!
Hint: From South Park.
I live in Teller County , next to South Park .
I’m glad to see this applies to Brit ill logic rather than reality , because I see hybrids as the logical choice around here with intelligent all wheel power & regenerative braking on the 900m downhill to the ` Springs .
Hybrid has worked for railways for over 3%4 of a century .
Logically, hybrids are cars with the inherent problems of an ICE and the inherent problems of an EV, all in one convenient package.
Certainly in the UK, motorways (equivalent to highways in the US, I guess) are ribbons of tarmac hundreds of miles long with little to no need for braking. The benefits of regenerative braking are, therefore, zero.
Whilst electric power from a hybrid battery may be good for 30 miles of driving at 30mph in an urban environment, the charge will last for 5 minutes when driving at motorway speeds (70 mph in the UK) or B road limits (60 mph).
The only reason hybrids were invented was to avoid the fines for not selling enough battery cars. As the hybrid was touted to be green, it was allowed. They are of course nowhere near green. A polished turd. A battery dragging around a heavy engine, or an engine dragging around a heavy battery. Insane. The engines operate at very high revs much of the time, cancelling out any advantage.
The Prius gets about 60 mpg in town which is their advantage. They get twice the gas mileage of a comparable ICE car despite the increased weight of the hybrid machinery and are comfortable and well equipped. They were invented a few of decades ago to provide a very high mileage car because of the high price of gasoline at the time, as now. They were not originally invented to address car production rules. Had the Government subsidized the purchase of good quality hybrids (not Range Rovers it seems) and drivers bought them, the CO2 emissions from cars would be half what it is now. That’s halfway to “green” as I see it. Considering the CO2 emissions from their production (very high) and the source of electricity needed for their operation, it’s not clear that EVs reduce CO2 emissions at all in many or even most places. A few other countries are exceptions to this issue. Norway is one because nearly all (90%+) of their electricity is produced by hydro.
Regenerative braking and frugal 50-60 mpg fuel efficiency are big advantages of hybrids and PHEVs, but lower CO2 emissions is not a plus (except that it means you’re saving money by using less fuel), and lowering CO2 emissions is not “green.”
In fact, CO2 emissions are greening the Earth, so much so that NASA satellites can measure the improvement from space. This is NASA’s video about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwHT8yS1XIRT
Here are some additional papers about it:
https://sealevel.info/greening_earth_spatial_patterns_Myneni.html
The scientific evidence is compelling that manmade climate change is modest and benign, and CO2 emissions are highly beneficial, just as Nobel laurate Svante Arrhenius predicted, over a century ago.
That means the “social cost of carbon [emissions]” is negative:
https://sealevel.info/negative_social_cost_of_carbon.html
To understand a contentious and highly politicized topic like climate change requires balanced information. I’m here to help:
https://sealevel.info/learnmore.html?0=arrhenius
That’s a resource list with:
● accurate introductory climatology information
● in-depth science from BOTH skeptics & alarmists
● links to balanced debates between experts on BOTH sides
● information about climate impacts
● links to best blogs on BOTH sides of the issue
The CO2 Coalition also has great information:
https://co2coalition.org/
Why do people always bring up the bollox of Norway? It has the biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world, thanks to North Sea oil extraction.
It’s a mountainous country with abundant hydro from generations ago, long before the climate change shi*. In fact, hydro was about its only source of electricity as it has no coal reserves. The price of imported, refined gasoline for vehicles was eye-watering, so when EV’s turned up, it suited the countries’ needs down to the ground, as they already had an excess of cheap, reliable electricity.
Yet another example of complete, total and utter disjointed [green] Labour activist thinking.
But the funny thing was when the policy of pay per mile was announced the Chancellor, aka Rachel from Accounts, was asked how the policy would work… She hasn’t a clue
Can’t tow or pull loads with any range so Ford have wasted billions on battery trucks-
Ford CANCELS Lightning electric truck, prioritises COMBUSTION and HYBRID | MGUY Australia
E xtremely
V ulnerable
Joe, since their inception, the plug-in and not-plug-in hybrid cars use regenerative braking to help recharge the battery. When driving, the engine is the primary source of recharge energy in both. Contrary to your statement, the motor(s) are not recharged at all, they are just a motor(s). The plug in variety has a larger battery to provide more battery-only range. So far as I know, all hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars use the same feature.
So Long, PHEV, we hardly knew ye.
When a vehicle can be self-charging, why make a plug-in? I’ve never understood that.
Ticks boxes on eco rating garbage.
The reason is that in a conventional vehicle when you brake the kinetic energy of the vehicle is converted into heat in the braking system, in a hybrid it is converted into electrical energy and stored in the battery by regenerative braking thereby recycling the energy. As a result the mpg of the vehicle is significantly increased. However the battery power is still the secondary source of power, in a plug-in hybrid the battery is the primary source and the i.c.e. is a secondary
In almost every case, the maximum possible charging rate of the batteries is far less than the power required to slow the vehicle. The batteries simply cannot absorb the necessary amps. Some of the power can be used, but not all of it. To me, the advantage of a PHEV is that plug in power can be used for daily commutes, but the car can also be used for cross country vacations without long waits at electric charging stations.
The issue here is PHEV regulations, not PHEV technology.
There is no free lunch. About 5 to 10% of the recharge energy delivered in a hybrid system comes from braking. The rest is supplied by the engine.
One of the best mileage and high value small utility vehicles in the US is the Ford Maverick small hybrid pickup. Users report mileage in excess of 40 miles per gallon over the road and a range well beyond 500 miles. Since day one it has been over subscribed/over sold versus supply. And yesterday Ford announced a 19 billion dollar writedown for full electric vehicle shutdowns of its signature Ford E 150 truck etc, but cannot build enough Maverick’s meet the demand. Part of Ford’s announcement was a strategic switch to hybrid cars. So think about this; in the UK, hybrids are being eliminated and in the US and many other places companies like Ford and Toyota will now try to produce as many hybrids as possible. Ford’s ability to do so is hampered by its wasted investment in full electric vehicles but it does have excellent technology. So what does the global future for hybrids hold? Is it tax it to death ala Britain, or the savior of the automobile industry that some car makers in the US and Asia are declaring? Hmmh.
My internal combustion Impala gets 32 mpg highway, range of 450 miles.. Why would I want to get rid of it?
If you’re getting 32 mpg then I think that means you’re doing a lot of highway driving. If you do mostly highway driving, then ICE is the best fit for your needs.
That is especially true if your trips are often longer than EV range, and/or if you live where you cannot charge an EV at home.
That’s a big market segment, so it’s a rotten shame that GM and Ford stop making affordable sedans like the Impala and Focus. About 1/3 of Americans rent, rather than own their homes, and my guess is that most renters cannot charge an EV at home:
https://archives.huduser.gov/periodicals/researchworks/may_09/RW_vol6num5t4.html
OTOH, if you do mostly city driving, a hybrid will give you much better gas mileage than an ICE, especially if you make it your habit to brake gently when possible (which is a good habit, anyhow).
On the gripping hand, if you’re within about 25 miles of your workplace, and you mostly use your vehicle for commuting and/or other short trips, and you can plug in and charge your car at home, but you need to occasionally take longer trips in that vehicle, then a PHEV is perfect for you.
I got rid of 4 vehicles and compromised on one, a 2019 F150 with 4 wheel drive, an 8 foot bed, and only 2 doors with no back seat. I can’t carry little kids but I can carry a dozen RR cross-ties (2,100 lb) and I can pull a 12 inch 40ft log (1,400 pounds) out of my tree patch. I can also go to town when it is 5°F with ½ foot of snow on the road. Not all drivers have similar needs.
The niche for which BEVs are ideal is as a second car for commuting, in a two-car family. Plug it in at night, drive it to work in the morning. If you need to take a longer trip, use the other car.
It seems really foolish to think that BEVs can replace hybrids and ICE vehicles, when the best use cases are so very different.
55 miles one way to work.
No charging stations at work.
I prefer making my own choices as do most.
Having a bureaucracy dictate to me is not part of the plan.
Yowie, that’s a brutal commute.
I used to do a 60 mile trip to work in UK traffic every day. No problem. In fact, it was a great way to start the day, as I had woken up properly by the time I got to work and chilled out by the time I got home.
The gov’ts answer to traffic, and it doesn’t matter which party, is to prevent thousands of people from driving vehicles. This has come down from high, from the NWO, who want their slavelandia. The next step of their plan is to stop you traveling altogether if your journey takes more than 15 minutes. Let’s hope reality kicks in before our beloved ‘leaders’ cause a revolution.
15 minutes walking.
Headline s/b The Death of the Plug-in Hybrid
I love my PHEV. Problem is, the state (MD in USA) has increased electricity prices by 50% in the last six years, with more increases to follow.
How can I put this in the kindest way possible?
Oh! I know. There’s one born every day.
I would be open to one day owning a hybrid. I will never own a purely electric vehicle.
As for hybrids being a dead end, Ford has killed off its electric F150 and will replace it with a hybrid.
When will it kill off its hybrid? The advantages over an ICE vehicle are tiny, and for what? You get 30 miles of electric range in a city. If that’s all you need, just buy a commuter EV.
YouTuber GeoffBuysCars has done some interesting research on cars off the road(the video explains) in the UK
.
https://youtu.be/tiCGpdhN7Dk?si=Hc6Mo-sOXHOZlwEg
He didn’t post the spreadsheet, so it’s impossible to see what’s going on with his analysis.
I don’t give a damn about hybrids or plug ins but I struggle with this issue. Why aren’t the devices that you plug into your car to charge them metered? If they were metered you would pay your tax when you pay for your charge. I don’t get it, if you charge at home you have a separate meter to charge your car with the appropriate tax.
Article conflates hybrids – petrol powered vehicles with electric motors, and PHEVs – plug-in hybrid electric vehicles which are EVs with a combustion engine generator. It points out the issues with PHEVs, but keeps referring to them as hybrids. Currently non-EV new sales are to be banned by 2035, but 80% of new sales must be EVs by 2030 because CCP China’s economy is struggling or something.
Actually, I disagree. If I am ever forced to have an EV due to ban on petrol and diesel, I would far rather have a PHEV, which I would use as a petrol-only car. Yes there would be an extra charge per mile, but I would take that rather than have all the (massive) downsides of pure EVs!
If petrol and diesel is banned, what would the point of a PHEV be? Or you mean the cars are banned, but the fuel itself remains legal for whomever is left to buy it?