Plug-In Hybrids? Worth it? Money Saving?

Jlawson118

So I'm in the market for a new car. I currently have a 4 year old diesel Audi A3 that I've owned for 3 years. It's been a great and reliable car over the last few years but unfortunately don't do enough mileage like I used to, to warrant the high diesel mileage requirements. Over the last three years I've had the car I've moved a lot closer to work, I no longer travel on the motorway to university often, nor do I visit my friends who live far away as often. Lockdown has contributed but this was becoming the case before.
Yet I feel if I jump back to a petrol car, this is going to cost me a fortune in filling it up often and even more so when I do go on long journeys and on my day to day mileage barely warming the engine up.
I've been looking at the BMW 330e and test drove one in December. Really nice car, comfy drive yet still quite sporty and fun. Tested out a decent run with hills for the regenerative braking and managed to generate a fair bit. The vehicle offers up to 40 miles on pure electric, and when studying my daily mileage more, I tend to do between 17 - 20 miles on average per day so this would be perfect. I only travel to work, go shopping, visit my grandma and run errands for her, and picking my girlfriend up from work.
I wouldn't be able to charge at home, but my workplace have chargers that are free to use. Worked out if we were to go anywhere at weekends where we'd usually visit, there are charging ports available. Fancying a trip to Scotland (covid permitting) in the Summer time and worked out charging points near hotels and places we'd like to visit. 

Overall I feel like going hybrid, I'd be saving a fortune. But then I'm thinking of the negatives;

• In 5 - 10 years time when the high voltage batteries deplete, how much are these to replace?
• Is it bad on the petrol engine to mostly use the electric motor when driving short journeys?
• These vehicles are significantly expensive compared to their petrol only models. Would fuel savings really be that much to make up for it?
• I would be able to charge it at work now but there's always the potential I could change jobs without these facilities.

I'm curious as to whether these cars are worth it just yet? I train out electric vehicles as part of my job and do really like them but I just don't feel like the infrastructure is quite in place yet.

Ditzy_Mitzy

According to the website, the list price of a new 330e is £40,030.00.  Given that the majority of your own driving is local and, presumably, low speed you're rather proposing to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.  You have no need for an executive saloon, a small to medium sized hatch will fit the bill from the utilitarian point of view.  A new one of those can be had for about half the price of the 330e.  You could even get a hybrid or mild hybrid if you must have electrification.  
If, however, an executive saloon is wanted; you could get a perfectly decent second hand BMW with a petrol engine for a quarter of the cost of a new 330e, it won't have the complications and will leave £30,000 left over to buy petrol with. 
Buy the 330e if you really must have it, but be aware that it will be an emotional decision.  There's no economic case whatsoever for what you propose.  You won't be 'saving a fortune'.  

AdrianC

Jlawson118 said:

• Would fuel savings really be that much to make up for it?

Not hard to work out.

You're doing 20 miles a day. How often? Every working day? Then 5 days x 45 weeks x 20 miles = 4,500 miles/year. At 40mpg, and £1.15/litre, that's just under £600/year in fuel.

You're looking at buying a £40,000 car that's going to lose something like £20,000 in depreciation over three years... to save £1,800 over three years. 40mpg too pessimistic? Then 30mpg would be £2,400.

jimjames

Money saving? If that's the criteria wouldn't keeping your existing car be the best MSE option?

macman

Surely, the comparison we should be doing is between the 330e and the petrol-only equivalent? So, what is the price difference there? It clearly doesn't make economic sense per se to buy any £40K car, simply because of the huge depreciation, but it might make sense to pay £x more for a PHEV version than ICE.

OP: if you are buying new, then the battery life isn't going to be an issue, unless you intend to keep it until economic end-of-life. There is currently a 6 year warranty on the BMW PHEV batteries.

If you can charge it FOC at work, then your fuel costs are effectively zero apart from your few longer journeys.

Using the ICE for short journeys is much worse than using the electric motor, as it never gets fully warm and wear is greatly increased.

The charging network is going to expand at a considerable pace in the next few years.

[Deleted User]

5-10 years battery stuff is nonsense, they don't die after 10 years, they (sometimes) go below the threshold of say 90% of original charge - think about that logically, if a car has a range of say 100 miles, that "failed" battery now only does 90 miles - big whoop!

Have a read of this article looking at real world data of Tesla S/X models after up to 250,000km (about 160,000 miles) - the average after 100,000 kilometres is around 95% capacity, at 250,000 just about 90%. Just one had a failure early that put it under 75%. 

Now think about your average driver, doing 10,000 miles a year - that means a 10 year old car still has 90-95% of the original charge - why on earth would you need to change the battery? Tesla cover cover battery degradation in all their cars with a limit of 70% of capacity for 8 years/100-150k miles (depending on model). Modern electric batteries, at least for Tesla, are going to outlast the car.

feolojad

Hybrids, plug in or otherwise, are the worst of both worlds. You get a paltry battery that'll do maybe 30 miles or so, less range than it'd get in a full EV install due to having to carry the additional weight of the ICE engine and it's fuel so it uses more KWh than it would need to to move the vehicle in a full EV install.  It then switches to a petrol engine which gets much worse fuel economy than it would have done in an ICE install because of the additional weight of the battery and electric motors.

When you compare the fuel economy of a hybrid to a normal car, especially a diesel, unless you're using it just for short journeys you'll be better off just getting the ICE car. I do a 60 mile round trip commute and doing the maths I'm better in a diesel than a plug in hybrid or hybrid fullstop. From a "save the environment" point of view for my usage the hybrid still loses out. You either need to stick with an ICE vehicle or go full EV and not the wishy, washy virtue signalling hybrid route.

But looking at it from a purely money saving point of view electric vehicles and hybrids of any flavour all have a long way to go before you'll save money over running a conventional ICE vehicle. The upfront price premium of an EV/Hybrid more than wipes out any savings, the only time there's a remote possibility of it breaking even if you charge purely from free sources and own the vehicle several years and don't need a battery change.

So before you read the next part, I'm pro-EV just to clarify....

One thing that concerns me about EVs is from an environmental point of view. A used ICE vehicle is perfectly possible to get to 150,000-200,000 miles without any real major costs, you'd need to be fairly unlucky to end up with a £1000 bill if you maintain it properly and once it's end of life almost 100% of it is recycled. An EV though (hybrid or full EV) is going to require at least one battery replacement. At £6000 upwards a pop for even a Renault Zoe that's going to result in a lot of EVs that are otherwise perfectly good going to the scrapyard with the types of mileage we were used to in the 1970s and 80s where anything from 80,000-100,000 was effectively completely knackered and currently the recycling rate is nowhere near that of an ICE vehicle as it's currently not economically viable in most cases to recycle the battery. From a societal point of view it's possible that car ownership may be out of the reach of those on low incomes because of the cost of a battery replacement.

I suspect EVs may end up being a "solution" that ends up being worse than the problem it was trying to solve, especially in regards to the waste generated and e-waste and especially as currently with the battery it's cheaper to mine more lithium and make a new one than to recycle one.

born_again

1st off a PHEV does not have a very big battery & has a pretty low charging rate.
Depending on how expensive the charger is. Some have worked out it is cheaper just to put ICE juice in. Given the cost/time to charge the battery & the limited range you get from it. If it's a free charger that's fine. But for many PHEV's you are looking at a 2 hour charge time from empty to full. 

So for day to day use. You either need to charge @ home or @ work every day, given your mileage.

Personally was going to get a PHEV, but none in stock, so got a self charging hybrid. After 2 weeks looking at 45 mpg on local trips (sub 10 miles) even in the cold weather. Old ICE would only return 20 MPG on these trips in the same conditions, but give 40+ MPG on longer ones.

feolojad

born_again said:

1st off a PHEV does not have a very big battery & has a pretty low charging rate.

But it still has a battery and one that weighs a fair amount along with the electric motor, the wiring and everything else that's put in to allow it to run on electricity.

Personally was going to get a PHEV, but none in stock, so got a self charging hybrid. After 2 weeks looking at 45 mpg on local trips (sub 10 miles) even in the cold weather. Old ICE would only return 20 MPG on these trips in the same conditions, but give 40+ MPG on longer ones.,

My car gets 64MPG on normal commuting, >70MPG on a run.

born_again

feolojad said:

born_again said:

1st off a PHEV does not have a very big battery & has a pretty low charging rate.

But it still has a battery and one that weighs a fair amount along with the electric motor, the wiring and everything else that's put in to allow it to run on electricity.

Personally was going to get a PHEV, but none in stock, so got a self charging hybrid. After 2 weeks looking at 45 mpg on local trips (sub 10 miles) even in the cold weather. Old ICE would only return 20 MPG on these trips in the same conditions, but give 40+ MPG on longer ones.,

My car gets 64MPG on normal commuting, >70MPG on a run.

Which I guess is a high polluting diesel. 

Petriix

If you can charge for free at work every day then getting a full EV is a no-brainer. But don't spend £40k, that's just chucking money down the pan. Spend 16k on a second hand Nissan Leaf 40 or £20k on a new MG5 and enjoy paying nothing for your fuel, no VED and minimal maintenance costs. If you ever go on a long trip, if you really can't face rapid charging on route, then just hire a car for a few days.

Hybrids are a waste of time. They aren't typically more economical than a decent modern diesel. It's just marketing nonsense.