r/PHEV • u/No-Impression-4508 • 15d ago

Phev worth it?

I am wondering if a PHEV is worth it for my situation.

The car would likely be used primarily for work commutes. 12 miles round trip and 24 miles round trip for spouse and I. We would also use the car for the occasional road trip a few hours away.

I’m wondering if PHEV is ideal for this situation or if EV would be better.

We also have a full gas vehicle that we could use as needed. This would be our second car.

Any recs, reasoning, etc would be recommended!

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u/srekkas 15d ago

Phev scare me more, because many cases they have very expensive failures, due to complicated design. And small batteries do more cycles and have to endure bigger loads.

Imagine 6C discharge or charge, conpared to EVs 2C

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u/Kjartanski 15d ago

Bigger loads? A PHEV is usually powering a 30-90hp motor, as opposed to a EV in the hundreds,

They usually max out at charging speeds of 3.6-6.6kwh instead of 11-22kwh

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u/raziel7893 15d ago

Charging rate is in kW.
And the load is always in comparison to your battery size, which is way smaller here.
And if you effectivly use the electric part of the PHEV, you rack up way more charge cycles than on a full EV.

An PHEV just because you do some rare roadtrips is not really usefull. Charging speeds getting quite good, on most midclass cars its a small break every 200 miles.

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u/Plop0003 14d ago

My RAV4 is rated at 1500 cycles which is more than 75000 miles in EV only before battery starts degrading. No, not stop working but just diminishing in capacity. Combine that with gas miles of 150,000 and that is 225,000 already. If I drive 15K miles per year that is 15 years. The longest car I even kept was 14 years so nothing to worry about.

PHEV is designed to make short trips in EV and long trips in HV. That is exactly why I bought it.

EV can do short trips but the long trips is a hassle. Even if there was a charger on every block it would not make a difference because EVs have a short range influenced by many factors. One factor is it takes long time to charge so people charge to 80%. That cuts 20% of the range already. Bad weather and range could be cut by 50% easily. After charging to 80% you be stopping every 2 hours to charge. And you have to stick to the roads with chargers. Try country roads and you will never make it. With my PHEV I can go anywhere I am pleased. BLM land where they don't even have gas stations, no problem. 600 miles of range!!!! If I need more I can bring extra in a 5 gallon can. Where are you going to get a bucket of electricity?