Recent car sales statistics show that hybrid vehicle sales are growing faster than fully electric vehicle sales. This trend is bad news for the effort to limit global warming. Why? As I explain in this article, the reason is simple.
A hybrid vehicle is two vehicles in one. It has an internal combustion engine with ancillary parts (gearbox, starter motor, cooling system, and fuel tank) and an electric drive train (electric motor, regenerative braking, and a large battery). When running on petrol, the vehicle has to carry the weight of the electric drive train. When running on electricity, it has to carry the weight of the internal combustion engine assembly. In each case, it takes additional energy to carry around the other as dead weight. To reduce the extra weight, manufacturers of hybrid cars have to save weight and cost on both the petrol and electric components. Therefore, both the petrol drive train and the electric drive train necessarily have to be smaller and cheaper than they would be for a petrol-only or electric-only car.
Hybrid vehicle emissions and cost savings
You might argue that a hybrid vehicle has a lower fuel consumption per distance travelled than a petrol car, and hence, your carbon dioxide emissions will be lower. Also, rising fuel costs, make the running cost of a hybrid vehicle appear to be lower than for a petrol car. However, the latter expectation may not eventuate. It is tricky to estimate the emission and cost performance of a hybrid vehicle because these depend very much on the trade-offs made by the manufacturer between the electric and the petrol drive trains for the hybrid vehicle. For example, on whether the electric part a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) or not.
The purchase price of the vehicle is a critical factor in the total cost of the vehicle over its lifetime. Many manufacturers offer three versions of some of their car models: the petrol version, a hybrid version and a fully electric version. In 2024, the hybrid version was typically somewhat more expensive than the petrol version, while the fully electric version was much more expensive than the hybrid version. To limit the price jump from the petrol to the hybrid version as low as possible, they make the electric part smaller compared to the fully electric version.
And last but not least, the total cost of running the hybrid vehicle also depends on how much of the total distance the driver travels in electric mode. The fuel savings provided by the hybrid version with respect to the petrol version turn out to be relatively modest and may not even compensate for the higher cost of the hybrid vehicle. Despite these complexities it is clear is that the reduction in carbon emissions when replacing a petrol vehicle with a hybrid car is far less than it would be from replacing it with a fully electric vehicle.
The bottom line
So, what can we get in return for paying more than we have to and contributing less than we could to stop global warming? Well, buyers of a hybrid vehicle will not suffer from range anxiety and can flaunt their environmental consciousness to the gullible. That is precisely the feeling that manufacturers appeal to when marketing their hybrid vehicles.
Assisted with by bit of persuasive advertising, carmakers give the customers what they want. And, by the way, hybrids cars are more profitable than electric cars. Never mind global warming!
In a few years, when the range of BEVs is at par with ICE vehicles, charging stations are plentiful and BEVs are much cheaper, owners of hybrid EVs will find no buyers for their used hybrid cars.
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