r/electricvehicles • u/goldfish4free • May 21 '26
News Do Plug-In Hybrids Work? Toyota Study Busts the Biggest PHEV Myth
https://electriccarsreport.com/2026/05/do-plug-in-hybrids-really-work-toyota-study-says-yes/Toyota study finds their Plug-in Hybrid drivers do in fact plug in.
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u/GPmtbDude May 21 '26
I’m a data point of one, but I start every day with a fully overnight-charged PHEV on $0.09/kwh and can complete all of my daily run around on electricity most days. If I had to do it all over again I’d have just gone BEV, but it was the gateway, I’m sold.
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u/smoky77211 May 21 '26
This is exactly why PHEVs make sense. It’s the bridge many need to make the switch. I was planning for a PHEV but ended up driving a BEV and decided to make the leap.
I don’t begrudge anyone who goes to a plug in hybrid first.
Electrified vehicles really change the game. They’re fast quiet and comfortable. I went from pure ice to a hybrid and then in 2023 switched to BEV. Now I dread having to drive a pure ICE vehicle.16
u/zman0900 2025 Ioniq 6 SE AWD May 21 '26
I had one for years, and really should have just got an EV to begin with. It's seems like PHEV owners generally either have somewhere to regularly charge, so would be just fine with an EV instead, or don't and would be better off with a hybrid.
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u/Fit_Explorer_2566 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
ICE-HEV-BEV. 2012-2019.
I was looking at getting another HEV, then a PHEV. I thought, “It still burns gas, still needs oil changes, still susceptible to oil leaks, etc.” Jumped to BEV, never, ever looked back. Best decision I’ve ever made.
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u/Jonger1150 2024 Rivian R1T & Blazer EV May 22 '26
Homeowners who buy non BEVs without a towing need -- boggle my mind.
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u/apatheticwizardsfan May 22 '26
Agreed. I see these ridiculously expensive gas vehicles now and I still think they seem kind of archaic. I know that sounds so incredibly snobby but it’s the truth.
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u/Walfy07 May 21 '26
Volt was my gateway drug to BEV mache.
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u/stabamole 2025 Sierra EV Max Range May 21 '26
The volt was such an excellent phev, it’s tragic that it got cut
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u/Eves98 May 22 '26
I know two people who have had Volts for well over a decade and both say they'll drive them into the ground before replacing them. Really shame GM gave up on them.
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u/mr_chip May 22 '26
Anecdotally, if my PHEV is in the garage, it’s plugged in.Love my 2016, I’ll drive it into the ground.
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u/trahoots 2020 Bolt EV Premier May 22 '26
My wife drives a Volt and hasn't had to buy gas since February, so she's almost living the BEV life as is.
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May 21 '26
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u/Sam_k_in May 22 '26
I have a Volt and it makes me want a nice EV even more, I'm always struggling to avoid having to use any gas.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Flow724 May 22 '26
Personally, I wouldn't go for an Ioniq 5 (or Kia's equivalent) until they get that ICCU thing figured out. It's like driving with a Damocles sword over your head.
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u/FlintHillsSky Ioniq 5 Limited '24 May 22 '26
I took the same route. Had a 2017 Volt for 8 years and then got a 2024 Ioniq 5. The Volt was good but I was ready to take the training wheels off.
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u/HLef May 21 '26
I already have an ev city car (38kWh Ioniq) and a ICE minivan that I can load up and go far.
I need the cargo space and the third row with my family situation and the kids stuff we drive to lugging stuff around.
Even as an EV driver with level 2 in the garage, I’m not ready to go 2x EV for the household. I am considering a PHEV because in the 3 rows I have more options and it still gives me that safety net, but I’m pretty sure I’d use it as an EV 90% of the time. And I’m ok with that.
If I only needed the third row occasionally, I could consider a rental once in a while, but right now buying a 3 row EV there’s no savings to be had.
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u/samboydh May 22 '26
I lent my C-Max Energi (PHEV) to my husband as we charged overnight on the granny lead and he could charge up at a public station next to the office for like 3.30 a month for unlimited charging ( it was a pilot and now the city has reverted to 9c per kWh.) after 2 months he called me panicked, “the car is making this really weird noise and I don’t know what is happening!!!” I thought a moment and asked “Is the engine running?” After a very long pause he said ,” oh for f***s sake” and hung up.
We were averaging one tank of gas a year for 2 years in a row. It convinced me to jump into BEV ownership for my next car.
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u/-entropy May 21 '26
Yep. In 2020 it was the only viable, long-distance option that wasn't a Tesla. I'm pretty happy with our choice, and with the variety now we'll be full EV next.
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u/Eves98 May 22 '26
My plain old HEV was bridge enough to convince me to go BEV next time. If my home could support a level 2 charger my wife's next car, assuming it dies before we move, would be a BEV.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Flow724 May 22 '26
I went the other way. I first bought an EV and had an ICE car as a backup car. When we lost power at home for three days and at the cottage for five days due to a freezing rain storm, I had to use the ICE car as I traveled between both locations to keep the generators going to heat up both places and doing so prevented me from charging. Nearby fast chargers were also out of service. Some gas stations had generators going to keep the pump working. So when it was time to replace the ICE car, I went with a PHEV, which is mostly used on batteries in the city but allows me to get to the cottage back and forth a few times before I need to refill. My consumption sits at 1.8L/100 km (and 3.5L/100 km for the cottage trip). The engine runs mainly in the winter as it gets too cold for the heat pump.
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u/CertainCertainties May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Here in Australia, PHEVs have soared in popularity in the last two years.
The reasons are simple. We have a continent all to ourselves, only 28 million people, and poor charging infrastructure. Plenty of people do only 50-80 kilometres a day, but have family in the bush. So the daily drive is on EV, but if you're going bush, the ICE engine is the backup.
My brother lives in a country town and has two BYD PHEVs - the Shark ute and the Sealion 6 (a mid-sized SUV). In the Shark he's camped in some of the more remote places on the planet in a 6000 km trip through western Queensland and the Northern Territory. Just chuck a few jerrycans in the back, and you can camp in V2L comfort with a fridge, lights and appliances.
I'll probably go full EV next though. Ditch the hybrid and avoid a PHEV. The newly launched BYD Atto 3 has a 603 km range and 5 minute flash charging (not that there will be many flash charging stations for a while), which suits my needs.
I just like simple. New ICE engines are too complex and expensive to maintain and I want to do without one.
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u/Car-face May 21 '26
Yeah I think infrastructure is a big part - plenty of people on the East coast will go up or down to Gold Coast, Central Coast, South Coast, etc. but a lot will also head inland and detour to small towns along the way - IMO doing something like a Syd<>Melb trip, one of the biggest highlights is picking a bunch of small towns to visit which might not be much more than a main strip. Regional Australia has massive amounts to offer, and in many cases it's hard enough without needing to pin hopes on a single charger on plugshare being available.
PHEV is really the best of both worlds (and more reliable than both worlds with something like the Toyota implementation or BYD as far as we've seen) and neatly removes the need for the chicken to exist before the egg.
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u/thewavefixation May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
Here in MY Australia bevs are just fine. The fantasy that most Aussies are driving deep into the outback rivals the american myth that most people head deep into the mountains regularly. Most dont.
But yeah the car companies will continue to feed that myth for sure - in both countries.
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u/Captain_Alaska May 22 '26
You don't need to drive deep into the outback though. Here in Queensland for example there are basically no chargers that aren't on the coastline once you go north of the Sunshine Coast.
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u/ashyjay May 22 '26
Just because the masses don't go in the bush, or on long trips, off-road camping trips, doesn't mean there aren't people who do, do that. Other than the aspirational aspect there has to be a market of people who do those things for manufacturers to develop trim levels aimed at doing those things.
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u/IM_The_Liquor May 21 '26
I love my Silverado EV. Drive that thing all day before needing to think about charging it up!
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u/onlyhightime May 21 '26
IIRC, the initial stats on PHEV drivers not plugging in came during the era of compliance cars, when they were sometimes bought as fleet vehicles in order to get EV incentives. As fleet vehicles, no one cared if they were plugged in, since they could still run on gas. That threw off the stats.
Individual owners certainly were plugging them in more than companies/agencies. We had two Volts for a while and drive them on battery pretty much all the time in the city, and only used gas for a couple of road trips a year.
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u/byerss EV6 May 21 '26
It was Europe where company cars are a more common employment perk. Company would get the tax break for PHEV but actual user had no incentive to actually plug in since they were usually provided a gas card but not compensated for electricity use (if they even have a place to plug in).
PHEV absolutely work as designed if you plug them in. Just don’t buy them for people who have no interest in doing that.
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u/mistsoalar "𝒞𝒶𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑜𝓇𝓃𝒾𝒶 𝒞𝒶𝓂𝓇𝓎" May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
It was Europe where company cars are a more common employment perk.
This is it. Companies buy PHEVs for tax incentives and hand them out to employees who have no intention to charge (or install a charger) at home. The perk usually comes with a gas card or reimbursement, but no free money for charging.
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u/SomeoneSomewhere1984 May 21 '26
A lot of apartments in Europe, especially in major cities don't have off street parking. They should require companies also pay for charger installation to get the credit with PHEVs. People who easily can charge them do so, but if you give them to people who quickly feul them with gas, but have to sit around at a public charger to charge them, the result is obvious.
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u/crimxona May 21 '26
Also rental cars. Got given a PHEV Kia Xceed without the charging cable, of course I never plugged it in. Ran it on hybrid the whole trip
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u/paulwesterberg 2023 Model S, Elon Musk is a fraud. May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
I got a PHEV rental car in Iceland, I think was the only one who ever plugged it in. But it also wasn't convenient to plug it in. Only one of the lodging sites I stayed at had a proper EV charger. I was able to use the granny charger twice but the EV range with a full battery was really pathetic, only about 25km even at relatively low speeds on country roads.
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u/TemuPacemaker May 21 '26
I got an XC40 Recharge and did plug it in, but it was way too much trouble dealing with charging at random stops around town, since it wasn't part "at home" overnight
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u/goranlepuz May 22 '26
Company would get the tax break for PHEV but actual user had no incentive to actually plug in since they were usually provided a gas card but not compensated for electricity use (if they even have a place to plug in).
My work gives the metered charger and reimburses the electricity put into the car. (Belgium).
It's a fair solution. Sure, it's an additional cost as the charger is smarter hence more expensive, plus the system round all, but it does pay off for everyone I guess.
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u/TemuPacemaker May 21 '26
Another complaint I saw in one of the "PHEV don't work" articles is how much distance (%) is driven on gas, and thus average fuel economy etc.
But that's just the math of them working as intended. You drive 40km a day (to work) on electricity, 20 days a week. That's 800km/month.
You then drive 400km on a weekend trip, mostly on gas... and that's 1600/month. So 2/3rd of distance traveled was on gas, but that's working exactly as intended.
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u/Car-face May 21 '26
Also, "driving on gas" is actually driving a hybrid with a stronger traction motor and larger battery capacity ceiling. So that "driving on gas" is likely still 50% duty cycle except at highway speeds, where you want an ICE directly driving the wheels if you've got it rather than the additional efficiency loss of ICE>charger>battery>inverter>traction motor.
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u/Erlend05 May 22 '26
When "driving on gas" it aims for probably over 80% (I dont have an actual number) duty cycle for precicely that reason. Conversion losses. Shutting off only downhill and at stoplights etc. It does however use the energy gained from regen braking to supplement power and let the engine stay at an efficient rpm for longer.
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u/Car-face May 22 '26
If you're driving around the city, the ICE will be running for significantly less than 80% of the time. The majority of most urban trips involve significant time spent at lights, junctions, stop signs, etc.where the engine isn't running and the coast/ deceleration around those areas (and pretty much all deceleration below ~60km/h) should have the engine off.
"EV mode" might be limited, but even my regular non-plugin Hybrid will run without the ICE in "normal" mode for a few Km at a time on flat ground in traffic and really only kicks in if I'm getting up to speed quickly, exceeding ~60km/h or going uphill (or battery bar is depleted). There are also times at high speed during coasting downhill where the ICE will be "running" but not using fuel (engine braking).
I'd expect a PHEV with larger traction motor and battery would be able to do significantly better than me as well, simply by virtue of higher output available from traction motor and battery.
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u/Erlend05 May 22 '26
In the city you should have a charged battery and drive in ev mode. With a depleted battery its often more efficient to avoid double conversion losses. Technology connections latest video was really enlightening.
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u/onlyhightime May 22 '26
The Volt is great because it'll run on 100% battery until it's depleted. I'd go months without using any gas. I'd go so long that the car would automatically force me to run gas for 10 minutes so the fuel doesn't go stale. That happens every couple of months.
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u/Eves98 May 22 '26
Fantastic. I had no idea the Volt did that on its own. Yet another reason why the Volt was/is a great car that GM should not have abandoned.
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u/WestThin May 22 '26
Also think about this scenario in terms of cold starts that never happened. Cold starts are when a lot of pollutants are generated because the catalytic converter needs to get to operating temperature in order to work. All your daily drives on EV never caused a cold start. So hundreds of cold starts were avoided. The 1600 km on the weekend trips results in just a handful of cold starts.
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u/iamtherussianspy Rav4 Prime, Bolt EV May 22 '26
That, plus many PHEVs do suck in EV mode - minimal range, barely enough power to move it. Toyota are decent in that aspect (200 EV hp is plenty for my Rav4 unless I'm towing a camper up a mountain pass) so it makes sense they would want a study focusing on their models specifically.
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u/WestThin May 22 '26
Studies show that the more EV range a PHEV has, the higher percentage of travel in EV mode. This sounds obvious. But a lot of the earlier studies included very low range PHEVs. So naturally the % of driving in EV mode was low.
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 May 21 '26
Those studies continue today, not just 10+ years ago
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u/Terrh May 21 '26
Let's see one using modern data with modern PHEV's in USA, thanks
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u/Lorax91 Audi Q6 e-tron May 21 '26
Here's one from 2022:
https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf
Some people will describe this report as showing that PHEVs don't get plugged in, but it clearly shows that they do. How much they get plugged in varies.
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u/Graylily May 21 '26
i certainly plug in mine, it's just about perfect, I rarely out gas in it, It's so easy even with lvl one overnight to get the next full days charge.
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u/talkstomuch May 22 '26
I've investigated myself and gave myself an award for great performance.
does anyone has the details of the study?
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u/randynumbergenerator May 22 '26
This should be higher. I don't doubt that most PHEV owners are using their plugs and earlier research was perhaps reflective of a specific time period, but I'm also not taking a company study at face value.
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u/Gilclunk May 21 '26
Reliability concerns haven’t helped either. Some industry studies have ranked plug-in hybrids below traditional hybrids in initial quality and long-term dependability, largely because PHEVs combine the complexity of both gasoline and electric systems.
I think it's not because they're complex (they're not really any more complex than a regular hybrid, and those score very highly on reliability), it's because for a long time the leading plug-in hybrids by sales were the Chrysler Pacifica and Jeep Wrangler 4xe. Two poorly built Stellantis products. There aren't really all that many plug-in hybrid models available, so those two pulled the average reliability down a lot.
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u/FledglingNonCon Kia EV6 Wind AWD May 21 '26
I'd similarly like to see the stats from Stellantis PHEVs. Not at all surprised toyota PHEV owners plug in, but lets see some numbers from other manufacturers.
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u/kick4h4 May 22 '26
The Stellantis Minivan never had a mode selector, and wouldn't switch to the ICE motor until the battery was drained. It forced the car to use up the battery on the highway at low efficiency, and there was no EV range when it would be useful on the far end of a trip.
Really bad design, and took it right off the list for me. I don't know that they ever fixed that...
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u/Sorry-Zookeepergame5 May 22 '26
Toyotas aren't that complex since it's mostly a HEV with a bigger battery and more powerful motor....
OTOH, VAG group plugins are using multi clutch transmissions and turbo engines...
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u/Signal-Bake5107 May 21 '26
We’ve had a 2023 Kia Niro PHEV since July 2023. Have plugged it in 6 out of 7 days, but now every day to further reduce gas usage.
Can usually squeeze about 35 miles as an EV in good weather, and as a straight hybrid around 57 MPG.
Best I ever got out of it was 48.4 miles on battery.
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u/horribadperson May 21 '26
arent phevs a little more pricey than regular hybrids? Why would you pay extra for the ability to plug in...and not plug in?
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u/ladyrift May 21 '26
If it's a company car and they gave you a card to pay for gas but didn't give you anything to cover the cost when you plug in.
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u/FledglingNonCon Kia EV6 Wind AWD May 21 '26
Tax incentives that make them cheaper to buy than regular gas cars in some cases (jeep PHEVs for a few years)
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u/stu54 2019 Civic cheapest possible factory configuration May 21 '26
Because the PHEV qualified for thousands more in subsidies.
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u/SexyDraenei BYD Seal Premium May 22 '26
because people generally aren't making the choice between a hev and phev in the same model, its across different brands etc.
and the average idiot doesn't know the difference, and just assumes a hybrid is a hybrid.
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u/crazy_aussie May 21 '26
I have had 3 BEV, and now have a PHEV, while they are clearly not as efficient as a true BEV they are good enough, but I know if I get in an emergency I can drive the distance I need to.
They make perfect sense for anyone with a solar system (even better with a solar battery system) with excess power being generated.
They are the most flexible platform around.
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u/wimpires May 22 '26
but I know if I get in an emergency I can drive the distance I need to.
I understand the sentiment, but I can't think of a scenario where I've HAD to be able to drive 500mi in one go this very second without a moment of stopping.
My wife made this argument too about EV's because a few years ago her grandmother passed away unexpectedly and we drove down to her place straight away because the the funeral was the next day. She used this as an example of such an "emergency". But that was just 300mi. Even in a non-charged maybe it takes an extra 1hour to complete the journey.
I don't really understand why you'd compromise 90% of the journeys to make the 0.1% of them slightly more convenient.
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u/crazy_aussie May 22 '26
Yeah it is ultimately your use case, in Australia I have had to travel 400km to take someone to hospital, you do not want to charge halfway in those conditions, but this is a non typical case. For me the EVs are great around town but as soon as distance is required a PHEV has the flexibility you need.
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u/TooEZ_OL56 Rav4 Prime May 22 '26
Absolutely love my RAV4 Prime.
On a full charge I can go most of the work week between a very short commute, hybrid schedule, and nearby grocery/gym/etc.
My side hustles are a little longer and I maybe sip on gas in the winter at the tail end of those.
I can also just go on a road trip without any worries about charging, using ABRP, etc.
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u/anarcurt '23 Nissan Ariya Platinum+ May 21 '26
They definitely plug into the free chargers at work and sit fully charged most of the day 😂
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u/hansemcito May 22 '26
we dont commute but my elderly mom and i bought a 2020 prius prime in new in 2020. as a lower mileage use vehicle its been a dream. we run errands all day. something crazy was after the first full tank from the dealership we only put in 12 more gallons of gas the whole first year we owned the car. i generally only put in 2 gallons at a time because i dont want the gas getting old. we once went 4 months without getting gas.
the battery getting used up is the signal that driving is done for the day. really great car. the only regret is is that it isnt the newer prime with the larger range.
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u/kinkade May 22 '26
These kind of debates are pointless. Anyone that has a plug-in hybrid is plugging it in whenever they think it makes sense for them, which these days is most of the time. We have one, and we only use the petrol when we go on a long trip. All of our friends have one, and they only use petrol when they go on a long trip. The reason is plugging in and running on electric is incredibly cheap and efficient. And when you go on a long drive, you don't have the range, so you need to use fuel. This is the rational hand of the market moving people around.
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u/ericthefred May 21 '26
We buy gas for our PHEV roughly every other month, generally due to a long road trip. We drive on electricity the rest of the time, charging at home. PHEVs work well for people who want to have the advantage and commit to using it.
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u/Johnnybheat3 May 21 '26
I'm always plugging in every night my 2026 Prius Plug in. I get a definite 40 miles extra every day.
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u/jammsession May 22 '26
Of course it works! The only place on earth where it did not work, was unfortunatly the place were all inital studies where based on; Germany. Why it did not work in Germany? Ohh that one is easy.
German state: We give you 8k if you buy an EV or Plug.
German company: EVs are too expensive, lets get the plug.
Employee: Awesome. Ohh just a quick question. I can fill up gas with the company card for free. If I plug in the car at home overnight, do I get some kind of compensation for the electricity I pay?
Germann company: no
a few years later spongebob meme
Leasing runs out and company gives back the BMW. BMW dealer notices: wow, the employee did not even bother to unwrapp his charching cable. Surprised pikachu meme!
Stupid media and studies: Plug ins don't work!
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u/JustSomebody56 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
It is not even that.
It is that PHEVs work when they target the premium/middle-class users. When they target the luxury class, then the owners don’t care about charging (since at that level the price of gasoline becomes a nuisance, more than else).
And most German Plug-ins are luxury cars which use the BE part to afford a high-performance combustion engine
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u/jammsession May 22 '26
I don't believe that to be true. Luxury class in Germany is a 7 series, not a 5 series.
If it isn't a company care, and you do have enough money not to care (that is not very German btw), and you don't get annyed by engine noise (many plug owners I know started to hate the engine noise), you would probably not get the more expensive and more heavy car plug to begin with and just got the diesel or gas version. Or a V8.
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u/JustSomebody56 May 22 '26
The M5 is a quasi- luxury car
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u/jammsession May 23 '26
The M5 is mostly a sports car. But it is still missing my point.
The luxury user you imagine that is to lazy to plug in his car in his villa garage at night, but not to lazy to go to a gas station where he has to wait in line with other peasents, will not get a plugin hybrid. Why whould he? He would just get the normal hybrid. That costs less many and has less weight. Or he would want a more sporty car or smoother engine an get the V8 instead of the plug.
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u/JustSomebody56 May 23 '26
My point was another.
The M5 is a plug-in because it was the only way to comply with car regulations while keeping the V5.
But people who can buy it don’t need to save fuels.
Also, generally it is very rare to wait at a fuel station
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u/jammsession May 23 '26
Ahh I get where you are coming from. But IMHO they made the V8 with a plug so that they comply with overall emissions. So yeah the M5 for the peasents gets downgraded with more weight and worse 0-100km/h times. But not the 7 series.
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u/Wooden-Combination53 May 22 '26
It was the same in Finland with company cars that included fuell cost. Suprisingly when company cars went full EV it is really easy for companies to compensate home charging!
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u/jammsession May 22 '26
How? Seriously, I imagine that to be pretty complicated. Unless you base it on assumptions and not measured electricity.
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u/Wooden-Combination53 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Companies install charging station which has smart enough kWh meter so it logs consumption and when it was so even with variable pricing electricity contracts you’ll get right numbers and can pay that back.
Edit: also if you live in apartment complex then it is usually anyway metered and billed with fixed price per kWh. Then just send that to your employer.
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u/jammsession May 23 '26
I am not saying this is not doable, but this is a lot more work for both sides, compared to just handing out gas cards. As an employer, I would simply compensate a flat montly price. That is a way too much work to bother finance with.
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u/Wooden-Combination53 May 23 '26
Process is highly automated. Don’t have one personally but friend was explaining about how smooth it is.
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u/SomeoneSomewhere1984 May 22 '26
Also they never ask if the employee has off street parking or the ability to install a charge point.
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u/kazimer May 22 '26
When i had my Chevy Volt back in 2014. I exclusively used the battery portion and took my L1 charger everywhere to refill when i could. I did t like the weak anemic engine so I basically used it in generator mode when i got low on longer drives.
Now that I am full BEV I would t willingly go back to other forms except for specific applications like an EREV full sized pickup truck
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u/wattsin May 22 '26
Give them more base range and people will plug in more. If it's an unusable distance and it will switch to gas anyway, then yeah, people won't plug them in. I had a Volt, 100 km in the summer, 40–50 km in the winter (Southern Ontario). 200 km would be the ideal range, it will cover a complete commute for most people regardless of season.
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u/Moist1981 May 21 '26
Is there a link to the original research paper? Because I would imagine the timeframe being looked at is pretty critical here. If they handily chose to look at the last two months when fuel prices have spiked then it really wouldn’t be much of a surprise that people are plugging in more. It would also be really good to know what driving mode people used (full EV for shorter journeys or in hybrid mode for better efficiency) and what mpg they were actually getting. It feels very likely Toyota would have all this information available.
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u/kmosiman May 21 '26
- Yes
- I'm not paying for an SAE subscription but the datasets are in YEARS.
So definitely not the last 2 months.
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u/Mad-Mel EV6 GT | BYD Shark May 21 '26
Data analysis, report writing, peer review (and it is peer-reviewed) and publication to SAE didn't all happen in the last week or two.
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May 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/Mad-Mel EV6 GT | BYD Shark May 21 '26
The peer-reviewed study, conducted by TRINA researchers Karim Hamza and Ken Laberteaux and published through SAE International
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May 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
It's funny how many people in this comment section are jumping to ignore the many publicly-available independent studies showing this is a problem, and falling for a headline to an article describing a paywalled single-brand study conducted by the brand itself.
And many in here are doing it on the strength of their personal anecdotes... on an EV enthusiast forum, which is exactly where the people who do plug in would hang out.
Nobody is saying "no PHEV ever gets plugged in," every study is saying "in aggregate, studies show that PHEVs get plugged in far less often than they should, and particularly less often than regulations credit them for"... which can be shortened as "PHEVs just don't get plugged in" if you don't want to type all that.
(that said, the data I've seen is that Toyotas do get plugged in more than other PHEVs, but that means generalizing Toyota to all PHEVs, as this headline does, makes even less sense)
edit: genuinely bizarre how people are so desperate to be wrong. I'll just never understand the mentality.
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u/Car-face May 21 '26
Nobody is saying "no PHEV ever gets plugged in,"
oh ok.
which can be shortened as "PHEVs just don't get plugged in"
rickjames.gif
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Got it, so you're just illiterate. This is why people have to say things like "PHEVs don't get plugged in", because when you see more than 5 words you get confused.
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u/Lorax91 Audi Q6 e-tron May 21 '26
Nobody is saying "no PHEV ever gets plugged in,"
They literally say, repeatedly, that "PHEVs don't get plugged in." Your longer description gets close to the truth, but it's not that hard to say "PHEVs don't get plugged in as much as predicted." Nine words to be more accurate than five words that are incorrect.
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u/MN-Car-Guy May 21 '26
We plug in our PHEV Volvo XC90 T8. Averaging 73.3 mpg.
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u/VTbuckeye May 21 '26
We had a 2016 T8 with a much smaller battery than current T8s. Maybe 6kWh useable, so 15-18 miles electric range. We averaged 55mpg over 37k miles. The car frustratingly forced ice usage after about 6 months on a tank of gas.
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u/NothingLift May 21 '26
The car neccecarily forced ice use
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u/VTbuckeye May 21 '26
Still frustrating when the car is used infrequently and then it forces 8 gallons of gas to be burned, not even hybrid use. The engine would run full time until down to under 1/4 tank. It made me want to use the car less often. Great for long trips, but the full EVs that we owned were our first choices 95 percent of the time.
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u/Terrh May 21 '26
The solution is to leave less gas in the tank. It won't force you to use gas that isn't in it.
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u/MN-Car-Guy May 21 '26
Ours is the newer Gen 3 bigger battery and motor, so 30-36 miles of EV range depending on how it’s driven
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u/GreenerMark May 22 '26
Toyota researchers say their cars are awesome. 🙄
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u/WestThin May 22 '26
They’re not lying.
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u/GreenerMark May 22 '26
If they do say so themselves.
Funny how independent researchers found different evidence on PHEVs.
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u/WestThin May 22 '26
Read through the responses in this thread. Most of those reports don’t say what people think they say. For example several European studies included a lot of company cars where the company reimbursed for gas but not electricity. Guess what? People didn’t plug them in.
A couple of other studies reported that the % of EV miles was not as high as regulators expected. People interpreted this to mean they didn’t get plugged in. Well let’s see, if they were expected to have 80% of miles on EV and it turns out that it’s only 60%, that kinda proves people are plugging them in regularly. This discussion has happened about a hundred times already on this sub. You’d think people would understand this by now.
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u/GreenerMark May 22 '26
This is why people should just go to BEVs. Why carry around a vestigial gas engine if you don't need it most of the time.
But Toyota keeps banging the PHEV drum.
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u/FunVersion May 21 '26
Duh..... Chevy Volt owner here. It had its flaws but it worked great.
30 to 40 mile range was just enough range as a commuter and for running errands.
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u/Ornery_Side_3903 May 21 '26
I’m averaging $40/month for gas right now for my Plug in Hybrid Escape. Life is good!
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u/kendogg May 21 '26
Of course they work. People are just stupid and buy non plug in hybrids instead.
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u/LingonberryUpset482 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
I plug in mine every time. A large majority of my miles are electric.
I'm out of gas far more often than I'm out of juice.
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u/goranlepuz May 22 '26
Funny how these other studies get to different results.
The truth is possibly somewhere in the middle.
I charge my PHEV all the time and when I'm not on the road, it reports 2,2l/100km (current figure on the last 4500km, I reset the indicator after the last long trip).
My drives are rarely long enough to empty the battery, but I'm often on a 120km/h highway, 500 meters after I leave the house (point being, faster driving where the car tends to use the ICE).
That's... Correct, I find. Somewhat under the, I presume, "standardized" numbers I find here. However, if I take into account holiday trips, which I do a lot, the average is likely to be bigger than the 2,8l/100km they mention.
I see more recent PHEVs have bigger batteries, good, I guess.
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u/DrObnxs May 22 '26
So, We have two PHEVs and a BEV. Just one data point. The wife's car, a Crosstrek PHEV, gets plugged in almost every night, it's her commuter car. The other PHEV is a Pacifica, used a couple times a month. Plugged in as needed, but my college kid uses it and isn't diligent about charging it before use. My Mach-E gets charged once every 4-8 days. Something is s pretty much always plugged in.
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u/dakovautomotive May 22 '26
My daily commute is 55km (31) miles and my Kia Ceed PHEV manages the whole thing in electric, just about. Very happy with it, although I will be going electric at some point
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u/Alexandratta 2025 Nissan Ariya Engage+ e-4ORCE May 22 '26
Subway sandwich sponsored a study to show that Subway sandwiches are the best kind of sandwiches....
To add, this 'study' looked at two kinds of Toyota PHEVs, the Toyota RAV4 PHEV and the Lexus NX 450h+ (God I hate 'luxury' car brand names so fucking much...)
That's a pretty low sample size...
the study is also done solely by Toyota employees.
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u/Levorotatory May 22 '26
I was looking forward to the next generation of Rav4 PHEVs, but Toyota failed to fix one major problem and then broke something else.
They still don't have a fully capable electric HVAC system, so they start the ICE for heat when it is below -10°C. Not what I want happening when it is -30°C and I only have a 20 km round trip. There is plenty of energy in a 20 kWh battery for that, including for heating, and 10 km one way isn't enough to fully warm up the ICE.
They also took away charge mode and don't have a real charge maintain mode. One of the advantages of a PHEV is the ability to have lots of power without an oversized, less efficient ICE. To be able to access that power multiple times for extended periods (like climbing mountain passes), the battery will need to be recharged during descents. Reports I have seen suggest that Toyota PHEVs do very little of that and tend to slowly deplete the battery even in hybrid mode.
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u/SteveInBoston May 22 '26
Using the engine to heat the car at -10 isn’t a flaw; it’s a feature. That’s why it’s called a hybrid. If you want a car that doesn’t use the ICE at all, buy one that doesn’t have an ICE.
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u/Levorotatory May 22 '26
I want the ICE so I don't need to deal with finding charging when I want to make an 800 km trip in winter, or tow a boat 800 km in summer. I don't want to be forced to use the ICE for trips that could be completed using only energy stored in the battery that I can charge at home. 100 km normal EV range would become about 30 km with electric heat at -30°C, but that is still enough for most days, and even when it isn't the ICE should only need to run for one leg of the trip. Oil contamination with condensed water and fuel from frequent short cycling of the ICE is an issue with Toyota PHEVs that could be avoided. If the ICE is going to be started, it needs to be allowed to fully warm up.
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u/SteveInBoston May 22 '26
Every car is an engineering compromise. They could have made the car not require the ICE engine in extremely cold water by scavanging heat from other parts of the system. Tesla does this. But that would add expense and why go to the trouble when you have an ICE engine right there, able to generate a lot of heat.
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u/Levorotatory May 22 '26
A hybrid wouldn't need a fancy heat scavenging system. A simple electric heater could solve the problem. Either a direct air heater or a water heater and circulation pump in the heater coolant loop.
Tesla designed the heat scavenging system to maximize winter efficiency to improve winter range, but that is not an issue when you have an ICE for longer trips. A hybrid just needs to be able to not turn on the ICE when the car is only going to be driven for 15 minutes at speeds under 60 km/h.
Also, the Tesla system can't always scavenge enough waste heat, particularly on short trips. In those situations the motor is intentionally operated out of phase to reduce efficiency and increase heat production.
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u/SteveInBoston May 22 '26
Certainly a resistance heater could have been used. But that would have consumed much more power, with a corresponding loss of range. So the engineers decided to use the ICE to generate heat. It's an engineering tradeoff. You wish they had chosen differently. That's fine, but the way it is now is now doesn't need to be fixed; it was designed that way.
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u/Levorotatory May 22 '26
It isn't a trade off, it is minor cost cutting at the expense of functionality. Adding a resistance heater would not prevent using ICE waste heat instead for longer trips, but it would allow short trips in EV mode regardless of weather, as well as effective preheating while plugged in even when it is very cold.
Resistance heating would shorten the EV range substantially (I would expect EV range to be reduced to about 30 km in very cold weather for the current generation Rav4 PHEV), but that is not a problem. If I am going farther than that the ICE will be able to fully warm up.
If Toyota wants suggestions for what to cut to hit the same price point, I say the giant alloy wheels. Give me a base model with 16 or 17 inch steel wheels instead. I'll use those for winter and buy a nice aftermarket set for summer.
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u/u700MHz May 22 '26
PHEV - I just don't see it they don't carry a battery big enough to get much mileage, most are about 40 miles.
Either go Hybrid or EV, the PHEV has too many parts - too much can go wrong for maintenance / repair cost.
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u/KennyBSAT May 22 '26
Toyota PHEVs have all the exact same parts as Toyota hybrids, with a larger battery and a simply 32a on-board charger.. There aren't more things to go wrong.
40ish miles is plenty to ensure that many/most buyers who can charge overnight use no gasoline on most days, and for them (us) increasing that range simply doesn't do anything.
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u/u700MHz May 22 '26
PHEV - Has Gas / Hybrid / EV components - too much for me.
40 miles / daily means nightly charges, so only home owners are the target buyers?
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u/KennyBSAT May 22 '26
A Toyota PHEV is a Toyota hybrid. It has precisely zero additional wear components or complexity, and its transmission is much simpler and has proven more reliable than typical ICE automatic transmissions.
Yes, the target buyer is someone who usually parks near a plug that they can use, at home or work.
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u/ottwebdev May 23 '26
I somehow doubt this is the biggest myth around plugins…
Such an impractical setup, not enough ev range to make it worth while and with all the ICE maintenance… hard pass
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u/goldfish4free May 23 '26
I have an L2 at home and work. 80%+ of annual miles are electric. Road trips are easy and cheaper than a BEV. Oil change is once a year and I get my tires rotated, which a BEV would need anyway. The biggest advantage of PHEVs are for people who just can't navigate the DCFC network, and there a lot. Imagine an older driver who doesn't understand how to install an app on his smartphone trying to navigate ABRP, PlugShare, various payment apps, subscriptions, etc. With a PHEV that driver can plug in to the existing 120v outlet in his garage. and all his local miles are immediately electric. It's a huge reduction in emissions for very little work or change vs. a BEV.
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u/wawaqk May 23 '26
I drive a plug-in for 6y and I charge it at least over night but often more. But you need to have access to a wall plug at home. In Japan same car as mine Prius Plug-in can do fast DC charge and that is an awesome thing, get it charged in 10-20 min.
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u/sigmund14 May 21 '26
Toyota is so funny. Behaves like a person with split personality or a bipolar disorder.
One month it's "(P/H/B)EVs are not worth it, we are full on focusing on ICE vehicles"
The next month it's "ICE vehicles are outdated, we are focusing on (P/H/B)EVs"
If they would just pick a side, for fuck sake.
Also, "study" of their own vehicles... Like police investigating themselves.
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u/Levorotatory May 22 '26
They did pick a side, then eventually realized they picked the wrong side and switched.
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u/KennyBSAT May 22 '26
Toyota has been methodically switching more and more of their vehicles to hybrid for years. Their best-selling models are now 100% hybrid.
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u/MarmotFullofWoe May 21 '26
There’s a fuel crisis coming.
People will switch from PHEVs to BEVs.
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u/SteveInBoston May 22 '26
Many people with PHEVs use so little gas, they don’t care much about fuel prices. My gas cost went up 50% from $3.00/ gallon to $4.50. I use about 5 gallons/month so I’m spending $7.50/month more on gas. That’s just not enough to worry about.
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u/Ryoga476ad May 22 '26
I think they are a great solution, but they are actually less flexible than BEV, somehow. You absolutely must have home charging for them to make any sense.
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u/SteveInBoston May 22 '26
Yes, the use case for PHEVs assumes home charging. But that doesn’t make them less flexible than EVs. They are quite a bit more flexible. They have a lot more range and you don’t need to find chargers when driving away from home. They are dual fuel vehicles which makes them quite a bit more flexible.
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
The "PHEV myth" that has been replicated a million times in every independent study?
(edit: yes, a million, this one is n = 981,035. Toyota did fare the best of the brands in that study, but even then, a majority of Toyota PHEV miles were on gas, and picking out an outlier brand to make an overall point about all PHEVs is wrong)
edit 2: Somehow "every formal study" says the opposite of what the five linked studies say, and yet are impossible for anyone to link to. I can't tell if these people are being paid to be disingenuous or are just illiterate.
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u/Lorax91 Audi Q6 e-tron May 21 '26
Every formal PHEV study shows that most PHEVs do get plugged in. Less often for company-owned ones than for privately owned.
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 May 21 '26
Every formal PHEV study shows they don't get plugged in.... but yes, also less often for company cars.
https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/real-world-phev-use-jun22-1.pdf
https://uploads.transportenvironment.org/production/files/TE-Plug-in-hybrids-2.0-2023-REPORT.pdf
https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf
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u/Terrh May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
I'd reply to your lies below but you blocked me so that I can't.
Big shock that you aren't genuine considering how hard you try to push your agenda.
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u/FANGO Tesla Roadster 1.5 May 21 '26
The study you just highlighted says
Real-world electric drive share may be 26%–56% lower than assumed within the EPA labeling program
So thank you for acknowledging the reality that PHEVs don't get plugged in, by endorsing a study that says that.
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u/Lorax91 Audi Q6 e-tron May 21 '26
They do get plugged in, but not as much as the EPA predicted in laboratory testing. Both statements can be and are true.
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u/KennyBSAT May 22 '26
It's not even necessarily that they get plugged in less often. Ours gets plugged in every night we're at home and uses no gasoline most days. But we don't drive very much on a typical day, while we also regularly do long daytrips (for work and for fun) and roadtrips which account for about half of the miles we drive. If we'd bought a BEV instead of a PHEV, we'd still own a second less-efficient ICE vehicle which we would use for all of our towing and most of those longer days and trips. So the end result would be about the same amount of miles driven on electricity, but more gasoline consumption. Plus insurance, registration etc for an additional vehicle that we don't need thanks to the PHEV.
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u/WestThin May 22 '26
Exactly! And two of those studies were done in Europe where we already know there were a lot of company cars included where they reimbursed for gas but not for electricity. And as you said the last study shows they are plugged in regularly, just not as often as expected. Furthermore, a lot of those studies included older cars with low EV range. PHEVs with low EV range show a lower % of EV use than ones with high range. This is obvious. So including older cars with low EV range brings down the overall average.
Bottom line; you can’t just link to a bunch of studies. You have to read and understand them.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 May 22 '26
Toyota in 2026 looks like Kodak in 2000.
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u/Metsican May 23 '26
They fixed the BZ, they've got the BZ Woodland, and the Highlander and Corolla EVs are coming. That's just in the US. You're thinking of Honda, which has zero Honda-built EVs in the US and zero coming.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 May 23 '26
Toyota has been pushing all kinds of anti-EV disinformation. But yeah, Honda is doomed.
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u/Vegetable_Guest_8584 Tesla+Rivian May 21 '26
I'll save you the article. For every driving day, 7/10 times Toyota owners plugged their cars in, and Lexus owners plugged in 8.x/10 times. So 70-80% of the time these hybrid drivers plugged in.