The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles

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Apologies to the Toyota Prius, but it was the first notable hybrid car Always alivedeveloped by Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche) in 1900. The Semper Vivus (which means “ever-living” in Latin) used two combustion engines to power generators, which then fed electricity to the motors inside the wheel hubs. The fact that it has taken more than a century for modern engineers to appreciate the integration of internal combustion engines with electric power is a sign that ingenuity is not always a foregone conclusion in the automotive world.

Car companies are now trying to make up for lost time. Thanks for Electric vehicle sales stagnateHybrid vehicles are seeing a huge rise in popularity Sales reach record levels In 2024 and 2025. Hybrid cars are often considered a stepping stone between the gasoline-powered cars of yesterday and the all-electric cars of tomorrow. Plug-in hybrids can provide 20 to 60 miles of electric-only driving for everyday use, plus a gas engine for longer trips or when you can’t recharge. As the growth of electric vehicles slows, many automakers clearly see hybrids — more specifically, plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) — as better suited to fickle American tastes. To give you an idea of ​​where things are headed: The Toyota RAV4, America’s most popular vehicle of any kind, is now only available in hybrid models.

But cracks are starting to appear in this market as well. Without strict fuel economy standards or Tax credits for electric vehiclessome automakers are moving away from plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). For example, Jeep recently canceled its PHEV models, despite them being among the best-selling hybrids in the country. Recently, automakers have been turning to extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), which use small gas engines to recharge an EV-sized battery to achieve additional range.

But for plug-in hybrids to deliver on their promise of reducing emissions and improving fuel economy, they need to be plugged into electricity. Don’t plug it in, and you’ll be left with a heavier, more polluting gas car.

On the question of whether people actually plug in their plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), the research isn’t very promising. Numerous studies have shown that hybrid car owners often neglect to charge their batteries, which defeats the purpose of owning a car capable of zero-emission driving.

In 2024, an IT and fleet management company Geolocation analysis 1,776 PHEVs in use in commercial fleets. It found that North American fleet operators rely on gas for 86% of their total energy needs, suggesting they are failing to charge their batteries enough to operate on electric power alone. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) also achieved an average fuel efficiency of 1.6 gallons every 62 miles (100 kilometers), which equates to about 37 miles per gallon. That’s slightly lower than the average fuel efficiency for gas equivalents, which consume 1.8 gallons every 62 miles, or 33.1 miles per gallon.

Another studyreleased by the Fraunhofer Institute earlier this year, used on-board fuel consumption monitoring (OBFCM) data from 981,035 vehicles across Europe. Using data from nearly a million cars, the study authors were able to draw conclusions about the behavior of hybrid car owners. The results were rather shocking: plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) require an average of 6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometres, about three times as much as previously claimed. The reason was that these vehicles consumed fuel while also running on electric power, contrary to the claims of many manufacturers. Because drivers haven’t plugged their cars in, they’re not getting the most out of their engines, instead choosing to use a nearly flat battery while using far more fuel than they should.

Owners of Toyota hybrid vehicles did best, using electricity for 44 percent of the energy used for driving, indicating that these drivers were plugging in more often. The worst were Porsche owners, with only 0.8%, or an average of 7 kWh over two years. Ferdinand Porsche will probably be turning over in his grave.

There is still some hope for hybrid cars. Some automakers think they can force their customers to get serious about delivery by making a game of it. For example, Prototype feature The charging feature was added to Toyota’s ChargeMinder app recently in the US and Japan. The feature used notifications, positive encouragement, and quizzes to help nudge owners toward better charging habits. In the US, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) owners were impacted by a 10 percent increase in charging frequency – and as a result, their ownership satisfaction score improved by 16 percentage points.

Other automakers are betting on long-range electric vehicles, or EREVs, which essentially take PHEVs and flip them around by starting with an EV-sized battery and platform and adding a small gas engine to recharge the battery. Naturally, EREVs must also be connected and Refuel with gas, which brings us back to the same problem. Drivers seem to be good at refueling or Recharge, but when asked to do both, they falter.

This leaves many automakers in a difficult position. Take General Motors, for example. The company’s Chevy Volt has been among the best-selling hybrid vehicles in the United States for years. But then GM scrapped that idea in 2018, choosing instead to focus on all-electric vehicles. Although that has led to some success — Chevy’s electric Blazer and Equinox are best-sellers — it hasn’t been enough to overcome the political tide that has consumed electric vehicle policy at the federal level. That forced GM to write off more than $6 billion stemming from its investments in electric vehicles, and now CEO Mary Barra says the company is actively exploring hybrids again.

But during A recent conference was held in DetroitBarra gave voice to the uncomfortable truth about hybrid cars: “What we also know today about hybrid cars is that most people don’t plug them in.” “That’s why we try to be very thoughtful about what we do from a hybrid perspective and a plug-in hybrid perspective.”