Why buy a Hybrid?

k6chris

Looking at EV, which I think I understand more about now, as I do with traditional ICE cars. However, I am struggling to get my head around the real world benefits of a Hybrid, especially as the electric part seems to only have a tiny range, often sub 30 miles. What am I missing??

martinthebandit

If most of your journeys are less than 15 miles, with only the occasional extended journey.

Scrapit

If you do a mix of types of driving e.g. live in the home counties and then drive into London. Hybrids work there. Also alot more ease of use over an electric car. Park where ever and fill up where ever just like a normal car.

DrEskimo

It's a way of cutting down on petrol use. If your work commute is only 15miles, but you routinely do large journeys, then you can run on battery most of the time, and have the petrol engine there for when you do longer journeys.

daveyjp

If you need a larger car, but don't do enough higher speed miles to warrant a diesel they make perfect sense.

They are becoming the taxis favourite. The third most common UK vehicle with over 250,000 miles is the Toyota Prius.

I use a plug in hybrid version pool car and regularly do 10-20 mile trips without using petrol.

k6chris

Thanks. So I get how plug-in hybrids get their charge (clue in the name). Assuming non-plug in hybrid cars get the charge from the ICE engine, is their any net benefit to either the environment or fuel efficiency??

HP_Source

Some of the charge comes from the petrol engine but the majority comes from regenerative braking. In simple terms the energy that would normally be turned into heat by the brakes is turned into electrical energy to recharge the battery.

shinytop

I had a plug in hybrid (Golf GTE) for 2 years/80,000 miles. As well as the 20-25 mile EV only range, it did about 45mpg as a non plug-in hybrid and about 55mpg on my 125 mile roud trip commute plugged in at home only. So getting on for diesel economy and certainly better than a petrol. It was also good for BIK in my case and very quick off the mark when required.

Arklight

k6chris wrote: »

Looking at EV, which I think I understand more about now, as I do with traditional ICE cars. However, I am struggling to get my head around the real world benefits of a Hybrid, especially as the electric part seems to only have a tiny range, often sub 30 miles. What am I missing??

They're good if you spend a lot of time in traffic. I probably wouldn't bother unless that's the case.

Had a Rav 4 hybrid as a hire car once. It did only low 40s on a motorway trip from the south coast up to Manchester and back. Was a nice car though.

reeac

I used to think that a pure ( non plug in) hybrid made no sense apart from the regenerative braking aspect but then I bought one and have come to realise that there are other factors. True that all the energy created comes from burning petrol so there's no prolonged running on the battery except in stop/start traffic jams but, certainly with the Toyota Hybrid Synergy system the eCVT can go up to incredibly high gearing .. e.g. only 1300 rpm at 70 mph on a level road which yields great refinement and economy ( due to reduced pumping and frictional losses) and this is with an engine red lined at 6000 rpm. Acceleration at a constant modest 2000 rpm is quite sufficient most of the time. My Lexus300h has a 2.5 litre petrol engine and gives an overall average of 48 mpg ....nowhere near the claimed 60 mpg I must admit.

Herzlos

Hybrids are/were exempt from a lot of congestion charges and had a lower corporate tax rate, which led to a lot of people buying them and never plugging them in (based on plans to do that by some people in my office). It seems mad though; most would get home virtually free if they plugged in at work.

For me, the bulk of my car journeys are short enough to be covered by a 15 mile electric range, but I do longer trips a few times a month.