Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
Yes, that is odd but not surprising.
People seem to want an EV with a back-up engine for the couple trips to grandma's a year. They want all of their day to day driving to be on electric.
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This gets back to the original 3 PHEV concepts
1. PIP which is basically a Prius with a NIMH battery space filled with lithium and a plug, very limited plug in, didn’t even have heat but theoretically should cost the same price as a normal hybrid (but they oversold it killing their market and sales)
2. BMW I3 Rex - very small limited extender with long EV range (poor gas mpgs)
3. Chevy Volt - long EV range with moderate fuel economy and no limitations
Each has their use case, the fundamental problem is that the range extenders are all extraordinarily inefficient when they aren’t run over a long enough distance and some like the Ford are poor economy wise the whole way.
Under these circumstances the 2nd gen Toyota PIP is as close to ideal as we can get if you need to use the motor often, 2nd Gen Volt comes in 2nd and the first Gen is best used only on EV.
The Rex is great if you occasionally need emergency extension
All in all gas economy isn’t good enough on many range extended vehicles which means if you need to use it a lot you aren’t doing much better than a gasser.
Instant solution would be for the EPA to accept tuning the car to fire the cat quicker makes more pollution in short trip scenarios but only illicit means can solve a really dumb problem