Hybrids are more expensive to maintain than Evs, you have 2 systems that are linked together, the ice half requires very active lubrication and cooling.
You talk about battery refresh costs, but a hybrid that uses 85%+ of the capacity on every trip will wear much quicker than the EV that uses 10% of its capacity on 95% of trips.
The whole point of a hybrid is to run the ICE only in its most efficient region. At low loads the electric battery drives the car. If the battery gets too low, then the ICE runs, but rather than running at a low (and inefficient) load, it runs at its sweet spot and the excess power it generates charges the battery. When the demand is high, rather than running the ICE hard, it is kept at its sweet spot and the electric motor boosts power instead.
So yes, the ICE part is more efficient in a hybrid, though it isn't magic.
Range could be a reason too. EV's have a decent range nowadays, but in wintertime the range could decrease dramatically. With an ICE you always know what your range is.
A hybrid can give the best of both worlds. A hybrid with a battery range of 50 miles can reduce your ICE usage by a factor of 10 easily (the vast majority of trips are shorter than that). But a lot of people think that reducing emissions by only 90% is not enough. With this you get to the full 100%.
EVs have less maintenance costs than ICEs in general, but they have particularly less maintenance requirements during the for the lifespan rental companies keep their cars, often less then 30k miles. During that time you are really just looking at oil changes, fluids, and filters, which EVs don’t have or have less of.
Later in a car’s lifecycle you’ll start seeing things like tires, brakes (better with regenerative!), and trim start needing replacement, along with the battery. My older ICE’s most expensive maintenance issues in the last 2 years were the window regulators all failed- that has nothing to do with the power train.
Which is all to say EVs are cheaper to run overall, but they are suited to save even more money for rental companies than individual consumers.
> EVs also have much higher costs in repairs, maintenance and car insurance.
Not sure about the maintenance cost being higher here. The only things that need regular service are brake and tires as all of the moving parts of an EV are contained within an electric motor assembly that are very reliable across manufacturers.
By contrast, an ICE vehicle is loaded with moving parts, all of which need lubrication, have wear profiles that demand replacement occasionally, need to pass emissions testing, etc.
This isn't really true in my experience. I have an Outlander PHEV and the costs associated with maintaining the electrical system have dwarved the ICE maintenance costs. The other major expense has been tires, which electric cars also have.
Hybrids are generally significantly more efficient that ICE cars because it keeps the engine in the "sweet spot", efficiency-wise. If the sweet spot for engine efficiency is more power than you're using, then the extra power goes towards charging the battery. If the sweet spot is less power than you need, it can make up some of the difference with the electric motor using previously stored power.
People talk a lot about plugging them in, or regenerative breaking, but that's overlooking the main way they work, which is in concert with the ICE to make it more efficient. (caveat: I'm not an expert, but own a hybrid and had a long discussion with an engineer friend who had just taken a hybrid powertrain class)
That is true, but there could be a reduction of maintenance on hybrids as well, especially if the majority of stop/go driving is handled by the electric motors. Synthetic oils are sometimes rated at 10k miles before needing changed, so the ICE does still have maintenance but it's not so constant.
It seems like a sensible middle ground because hybrids are also cheaper than EVs in the US so it can get more pure ICE cars off the road.
Because modern ICE cars have freaking overgrown snowmobile transmissions, and a hybrid drivetrain can replace that entirely.
A hybrid can be simpler than an ICE car (by eliminating the transmission and allowing the engine to be power-banded) and cheaper than an EV (because a 10x size battery is more than the cost of the engine and generator).
Though I do think EVs to be better in terms of maintenance. I've had family members drive multiple ICE cars (Corolla and Civic respectively) over 200,000 miles. I honestly doubt modern ICE is that expensive to maintain.
hybrids don't really offer much more efficiency over ICE, but they do add cost and complexity (more things to break). The good compromise is PHEV (plug in hybrid) since you get the efficiency of grid energy for short trips but retain the reliability and versatility of ICE.
> Other problem with hybrid is you have all the maintenance & failure modes of ICE plus the maintenance & failure modes of EV in one vehicle.
You'd think so but in practice most hybrid designs allow for some fairly radical simplification compared to your average ICE vehicle. eCVT transmissions are stupid simple and reliable compared to traditional automatics and also have the benefit of replacing the starter and alternator. The high voltage system also let's you easily replace failure prone belt driven components like power steering pumps and A/C compressors with electric versions. Hybrids can also hit efficiency and power targets while naturally aspirated, avoiding the need for turbos and all of the associated complexity which is very common in ICE cars.
Hybrids generally also have longer maintenance intervals because the engine only runs ~2/3rds of the time relative to ICE for a given distance driven. Rotors and pads will also last much much longer.
If an EV were significantly cheaper than an ICE, then maybe it would be worth the extra hassle and expense of figuring out an alternative for an occasional long trip. But EVs are often more expensive, especially compared to a used ICE. So the benefits, at an individual level, often don't outweigh the downsides, even if it is only relevant occasionally.
EVs are indubitably miles ahead in terms of being simple to maintain mechanically since it's a sealed fixed gear system (the software is another matter, but let's disregard that for now), but I don't believe those numbers for the PHEV for a second.
You're maintaining both an EV and an ICE at the same time in one car with both needing to interface with each other in complex ways. There's bound to be in the range of 4x as much that can go wrong compared to just one or the other. You'll have the mechanical issues of the ICE coupled with the software problems of an EV.
It's an absolutely stupid idea to even consider doing these sort of overcomplicated hybrids, but unfortunately it's also the only way to get around the abysmal battery capacity we currently have.
Used ICE cars have all sorts of failure modes that EVs don’t. More parts get physical wear, and once a car gets old enough something is always breaking, and all that adds up in cost. It’s pretty clear EVs need less maintenance over time, though I don’t know where the break-even point is. I suspect batteries will continue to get cheaper over time as well.
Honest question: what are the service intervals like for the ICE part of plug-in hybrids?
Considering they are unused most of the time, I'd expect very infrequent maintenance, and even some parts switching from X years to lifetime.
Edit: a short Google search [1] shows that for actual cost, plug-in hybrids have the same cost per mile than EVs, which is half the cost of ICE cars. It makes sense to me because batteries are a lot smaller/cheaper, the ICE doesn't get used all that much, and there is regenerative braking.
I appreciate that perspective, I know many share it.
> you get back a lot of the maintenance hassle and on top of that your fuel is again more expensive
The entire value proposition of hybrids is that they both reduce the amount of required maintenance on the ICE part (plus the brakes) and reduce the amount of fuel needed-- while maintaining all the flexibility of ICE vehicles. As a bonus, they require far fewer batteries than full electrics at a time when battery supply is clearly going to be constrained for the foreseeable future.
Fully electric trucks will have trouble anywhere with long stretches of cold weather. Operating outside of their ideal temperature zone will result in much lower efficiency, exacerbated by the weight of the batteries remaining the same regardless of charge level.
I think there are ideal niches for both approaches. Honestly, I also think most pure ICE drivetrains should be converted over to varying types of hybrids in the long run, because it almost always seems to be a net win to me... but I could be wrong. Would love to see more R&D put into it, in any case.
And it sort of makes sense that ICE’s are cheaper to maintain. There is about 100 years of experience with building reliable engines and doing maintenance on those things versus about 12 years for EV.
Also ICE’s are still way ahead in energy density (energy per kilogram/pound) even if you count the big engine with it
You talk about battery refresh costs, but a hybrid that uses 85%+ of the capacity on every trip will wear much quicker than the EV that uses 10% of its capacity on 95% of trips.
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