Featured Why Hybrids Are Beating EVs In The U.S.

I bet if you looked at the data on this and you excluded people who can't afford to buy a brand new car you'd find that EVs are selling quite well among people who can afford one. But with record "inflation" making corporations post huge profits that they're spending on executive bonuses, now more than ever capitalism is behaving in ways that it can never sustain.

Truth is the vast majority of people in the world will never be able to afford a brand new car and they/we live our entire lives owning vehicles they/we bought used because that's the only option our income can handle.

 

Our illustrious moderator posted this in another thread;

Doesn't mean the Camry is dead. Nor is it fair to say electric cars are "losing ground" .... because their growth is not as phenomenal as it's been over the past few years. Nor is it fair to say plug in hybrids will not outpace Electric cars. It's just too soon to tell.

 

Burning 1/2 as much gas is a good start if that's all you can afford... Was kinda hoping for speedier progress than that after a 1/4 century, but things always take longer than you think with the exception of climate change, which scientists are now saying is happening way faster than we thought possible. Temps in recent months indicated that we're getting close to being a decade further along with this problem than they forecasted: The world is not moving fast enough on climate change — social sciences can help explain why

 

Electric vehicles and hybrids surpass 16% of total 2023 U.S. light-duty vehicle sales -
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

So hybrids are just beating out BEVs in new car market share, with PHEVs being around a quarter of either. That's with hybrids having a decade lead start to market, and counting all the mild hybrid Jeeps and Ram trucks sold in the past few years.

 

The Prius came out in 1996, and it has only been recently that the technology was been expanded to other models. Even more recent to start seeing those other models being hybrid only. Hybrid new car sales should have had a larger portion than they do.

It's a Toyota rule because they underestimated plug in demand, and didn't line up the battery supplies to compete there.

When they have a clean sheet EV platform ready?

 

I often feel that if I were to change vehicles for something better for the environment, my best option would likely be to trade in our cars for a set of new bicycles for the family, not an EV, simply because EV's are much more expensive, and my confidence and/or expectations in them has gone down over the years.

If I needed to buy a car right now, which makes more sense? A brand new $23,000 hybrid Corolla, a similar priced used Tesla or a used hybrid Corolla or Camry? For me the hybrids are more practical. I'd be giving up some practicality for the environment if I got an EV. A Prius Prime would be even more ideal for me.

When I got my Leaf, I definitely was of the minority class. It was the most expensive vehicle I had ever bought, and it didn't really help save any money even when nearly all my charging was free. Every drive in that car was an adventure and an experiment. I had to make precise calculations of how far I could go and make sure there was going to be some way to charge at those places.

The problem for me was when others forgot I was that minority with the risk tolerance and early adopter mindset. I didn't understand why one neighbor lady was asking things about my Leaf. I found out later that she thought they must be good cars since I bought one. So she also bought one, and much to her dismay it ran out of electricity about a 1/4 of the way coming home from the auto dealer. She didn't realize she was going to be locked to her neighborhood by the car and that 5 years later the battery was going to degrade down to less than 50% of it's original capacity making it not very practical even for going to the grocery store.

 

Riddle me this ..... japan's1:6:90 claim kinda flies in the face of 2023 sales in china, world's largest market. 37% plug-in & over ¼ if their huge market pure EV. That's almost ⅔ of their market! But if a company needs to be dragged kicking & screaming into the future ... like so many legacy USA automakers, so be it. I believe that's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

25% of New Car Sales in China Were 100% Electric in 2023! - CleanTechnica
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While that sounds all doom and gloom for ICEV's I don't know if that's really the case.

Worldwide there are some 75 million cars sold each year (or at least in 2023). China bought some 30 million cars that year (40% of all cars worldwide) and they are the top consumer of EV's, buying around 59% of the global EV market.

But, as you said, only around 1/3 of the cars sold in China are actually EV (you said more than 1/4, but I say more or less 1/3), the other 2/3 are ICE. So around 10 million EV's and 20 million ICE are sold in China each year.

Add to that, Toyota is their second biggest car brand, right after Volkswagen, selling nearly 2 million cars in China every year. In other words, even Toyota is selling more cars in China than any one of those EV brands such as Tesla and BYD.

And while Volkswagen, the top brand in China, does sell a large percentage of their EV's there (around 44% of their total EV production), EV's are still only a small percentage of their cars. I don't have data for 2023, but in 2022 they sold 143,100 EV's in China, but annually sell some 2,400,000 cars in China. So less than 6% of Volkswagen's car sales there in China are EV, at least in 2022.

If Toyota were to compete with the EV's in China, they'd have to figure out how to persuade around 1 in every 5 new EV customers to buy a Toyota EV just to sell the same number of cars there as they do ICEV's.

Now that doesn't mean that things aren't going to change in the future. But today, right now, going all EV is a great gamble. Even trying to sell just a few EV's is apparently not an easy thing to do. There is just too much competition and not enough demand.

 

Why the 6 to 18 month Canada wait for a Rav4 hybrid when the US can get one in 2-6 weeks? Heck mine came from Woodstock Ontario.

 

Meanwhile - we tried to get a prime RAV4, but after over 12 months of getting jerked around by Stealerships upmarking them by $1000s - we found it more advantageous to give them the bird & never looked back.
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Every automaker that offers a hybrid has at least one model under $30k

The list of automakers with sub-$30k EVs is pretty short.

What do I win?

 

Toyota already has plug in models for sale in China. Some that are only available there. Like a Corolla PHEV and C-HR BEV. Then any ICE sold there has to be a mild hybrid at the least.

Toyota's problem isn't the lack of demand there. It's their conservative outlook that kept them from making the investments years ago for the EV market today. They can't compete with BYD and Tesla on production costs. So when those two started cutting prices, while still profiting, Toyota had to choose between not making the sale, or losing money on it.

This is what the big shake up at Toyota last year was all about.
Toyota changing strategy? | PriusChat
Toyota scambling to change EV plan | PriusChat

BEV sales are slowing down because all but Tesla and the Chinese are in the early 'it's new, high price' phase. The new thing normally starts at the luxury segment as the producer tries to pay off the development fast. Then it moves down in price. With car level prices, that is just a slow process to occur naturally.

A like and this reply.

 

Sharing my metrics:

• 1991 Camry - 35 MPG
• 2003 Prius - 52 MPG below 70 mph
• 2010 Prius - 54 MPG with higher speeds
• 2014 BMW i3-REx
  • 39 MPG , 65 mph gas for 78 miles
  • 117 MPGe, EV 72 miles, 50 kW fast DC charging
• 2016 Prime
  • 56 MPG
  • 117 MPGe, EV 25 miles, daily 20 mi, no fast DC charging
• 2019 Model 3 - 133 MPGe, 215 mi EV, 170 kW fast DC charging
• 2017 BMW i3-REx
  • 35 MPG, for 88 miles
  • 111 MPGe, for 106 miles, 50 kW fast DC charging

The three PHEVs taught lessons about charging:

• J1772 for home charging and urban driving works but fails for cross country. Prime had half-speed charging.
• CCS-1 unreliable, expensive, and speed limited by BMWs, gas cheaper and faster.
• SuperCharger reliable, affordable, and 3x faster than BMWs. No Prime option.

A BEV is not just batteries and a motor but has to include the charging options. Although J1772 works locally, fast DC charging is necessary for cross country EV driving. In 2019, Tesla had it but CCS-1 was not available on the Prime and slower and costlier on the BMW i3-REx.

Bob Wilson

 

Respectfully I disagree on mandating hybrids, or any vehicle mandates for that matter. I respect my neighbors choice to blow his whole paycheck on diesel fuel while pulling nothing with his commuter Ford f250 Lmao

Allowing each of us to choose is what makes 'Murika so great. I choose to save my money on the commuter car, and have a convertible Corvette for sunday's, a boat for Saturdays, a motorcycle for Friday nights and vacation money for trips to Europe every other month. I fully respect that my neighbor can't afford to do any of that because he wasted all his money on gas for his "truck"

Just so you know big boy in the truck: it's not a truck unless it requires a CDL to operate it. What you have is a "Passenger Vehicle" check your registration for proof of that