Definitely depends on your lifestyle and the trips you normally make. My PHEV gets me to work and back and takes care of 95% of my journeys. If I do go on a longer trip, I don't have to worry about charging. For me, it is the right choice!

I've had my A Class PHEV for over two years and it is perfect for my lifestyle. I get around 40 miles from the battery in the summer, less in the winter, but charge every 2-3 days. The petrol engine is normally only used on the motorway and the regeneration tops up the battery every time I slow down. It is a great stepping stone to full EV.

I have a plug in hybrid, and its been a great experience. Picking up kids on all electric, hybrid for long distance. 600+ miles per fill up.

I love my PHEV. I have a Audi Q5e, and its perfect for me. I live and work in a city, and charge every 1-2 days. My commute is 12 miles round trip, and a couple times a month i take a 50 mile drive. I fill up my tank every 5-6 months. its incredible, and i really like having the flexibility to fill up when needed.

Moral of the story: Like many things in life, know your usage/habits and do your research for what makes sense for your context. With cars, if you're predisposed to any "genre" of car, go for it, just know what you're getting into :) Great vid

I have an A3 with 35 mile battery range. Had it a year and currently sat at 7800 miles and 123mpg. That has included some long distance driving where I got 53mpg on a full charge over 250 miles and 42mpg with an empty battery for the same distance. I charge it everyday and it is perfect for my family and short commutes etc. For me, it is a stepping stone to full EV and a great option for local commutes and even the odd long distance.

PHEV are a necessary option because you can make 4x the cars with the same battery materials. Also the way PHEV are used is better for the proper charge/discharge of the battery. If you find an employer that allows you to charge from an outlet at work, you don’t even need to plug in at home. Most peoples long drives will be few and far between, usually for vacation, and who wants to wait to charge a battery at that time when you could just gas up and go. PHEVs are brilliant.

PHEV is the perfect vehicle for single car owner. There's absolutely no range anxiety. Its perfect short trip and long trip car. You can go anywhere and dont have to worry about where to plug in or where to put gas. Sure youre lugging some unused weight but instead of buying 2 cars and maintain both and insure both, you can do just one.

A common complaint about PHEVs is, "You'r dragging around the EV & Battery (or ICE) when you are using ice ICE (or EV) mode." On the flip side, EVs drag around a 1000 lb battery when you mostly drive less than 40 miles per day. Love the teddy shirt :)

Spot on. When your driving pattern is a combination of short daily runs and occasional long journeys the PHEV makes a lot of sense - when having a home charger. I do nine out of ten drives in electric mode. That translates into 1/3 of my total mileage.

My two bobs worth…, bought an Outlander PHEV a year ago. Fantastic car. My main town is 65km away. I normally arrive with 20ks still in the battery. Do my business, top up the battery at the local supermarket fast charger, and drive home. Over 6 weeks I was averaging 1.2 litres per 100 km. Over a 4 month period, with numerous 600k journeys, and filling the battery when I could at fast chargers on the way, I averaged 4.5 litres per 100 km. Pretty good stuff. No regret at all.

I used my BMW 330E PHEV for a year. My work was a couple miles down the road. As was the gym, grocery etc. I filled it with gas 4 times in that year because I used EV mode almost exclusively. Plus I got the huge tax credit. If you have a short commute to work, school, etc. the PHEV are the best bet.

I get what you're saying about the inefficiency of a battery pack that's never charged but with the advantage of regenerative braking most plug-ins are still more efficient than pure combustion vehicles. Mine is rated for 30mpg without electric while the equivalent regular model gets something like 24mpg.

Have to admit the aspect I hadn't thought of before is that they're even more useless for people without dedicated parking than a BEV. I've seen a lot of people suggesting then as a stepping stone if you don't have charging facilities to go full electric.

I think your review is more of a specific experience with a single PHEV. I've had my 2018 Chevy Volt PHEV for 4 years now. 42k miles and 85% of that electric. It has a 18.4 kWh battery, which last on avg 50 miles depending on weather. Perfect for my daily M-F commute, so typically always on electric. In the rare scanerios I take a longer range trip, ill get around 40 MPG with just the gas engine, adding easily another 350 miles of range. Not sure what your problem is with it taking all night to charge. I just plug it into a regular 120v outlet, and then its fully charged by the morning. And if I need to take it out sooner than that, then I got essentially just a regular hybrid vehicle which still has an appealing MPG. Literally no inconvenience no matter how I slice it, however I understand not all PHEVs are the same. I simply dont understand why PHEVs aren't continuously inovated on. The Volt being discontinued is a real shame. It's been quite literally the best of both words for me, elimanting range anxiety, dependece on public fast charging network, and of course less than 15% reliance on petrol. Seems like a win-win in my book. 🤷‍♂️

You don’t need home charger Rory. If you are daily commuting to work, and they have a healthy supply of chargers, that would be suffice! As a few of my colleagues own PHEV’s with no home chargers.

It is all about your routine/lifestyle. The main question is: how far do you usually travel between charges? In my case a plug-in hybrid was perfect for me. I had a commute of about 40 miles round trip every day to work. I purchased a Chevy volt that had a 42 mile (usually I got more) electric range + gas (36mpg). For months I would not have to fill the gas tank (8gal) because I would charge the car overnight every day and only really used gas on the rare long trips or extra driving I had to do during the week. If I had a 100+ mile commute or average drive between charging it would have made more sense to get a hybrid with the best gas mileage could get (50+mpg) or a long range all electric vehicle.

The numbers for my PHEV: 7000 electric km/year (4350 electric miles/year), 3.95 litres/100 km for the entire year (71 mpgUK, 59 mpgUS).

Any car's mpg performance varies drastically and continuously depending on how you drive it. I currently have an efficient ICE car and it shows anywhere between 10 mpg to 50 mpg depending on if I'm driving it like a race car vs. cruising steadily on the highway. I'm very interested in a PHEV because my daily driving is only around 20-30 miles and I could easily charge it at home and even while I'm at work. Seems great to me.

Probably one of the best car reviewer and presenter on KZfaq. Cheers Rory!