this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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That's an edge case if it's any more regular than could be addressed by hiring a car for those trips. And if it's that regular, then a plain ICE would be a far far better fit as you aren't trying to drag around a useless heavy battery and motor on them and you haven't paid over the odds to do so.
It's like the dumbasses that purchase a pickup truck for the flat bed, then use it at must a handful of times. For them, hiring a van or a trailer would be the sensible choice. If they ran a landscaping business or something, then yeah, a pickup is the way to go.
Buy the vehicle for whatever the majority of driving you need, not some random likely rare edge case, that's dumb.
How frequently would you need to make that trip for it to be more expensive to rent a car each time?
How long is a piece of string? So many variables with that you'd have to do your own numbers for your own situation and if you really can't charge a long range ev for your trip.
However, most people who say they do big trips (more than 400 round trip) do so a handful of times a year where there is zero ability to recharge the car. That's where I'd be looking at a hire car, and it's going to be cheaper to do so.
A long-range EV works for me. About a third of my annual miles are towing on long trips (1000 mile round trips) with it, and it's fine with planning.
Completely get why some people don't want to do that, and for that, a suitable diesel is far better for them as its 10ks cheaper to buy in the first place.
PHEV makes fuck all sense for that sort of trip as it runs out of battery 30 miles or so into a 1000 mile trip. You paid for to buy it than a diesel, you get worse economy than a like to like diesel, just not good.
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.