evnow said:
scottf200 said:
There is really 3 categories (4 if look at major diffs of PHEVs, 5 if you include CARB vehicles).
I can understand why Volt fans are disappointed, but having more categories tells us nothing useful.
evnow: Thanks for putting together that table. It really helps to quickly see what's going on in the electrified vehicle arena. I'm interested in this stuff, and I'm still getting confused with all of the new choices. Ten years ago we were talking about E-Vaporware instead of choices.
Scott, also thanks for the categories. I think they help when trying to convince newbies/wantabees about what is available. Too many choices can be confusing, especially when just learning. Below "tiny", I would also add "conventional hybrids". I don't know how to classify, perhaps "braking energy collectors".
This next two paragraphs may be for a separate thread, if others want to give it a go:
So when talking with electrified wantabees, I will probably start from the bottom of the list, since most people have heard of conventional hybrids. Unfortunately, the thing missing (and not always perfectly correlated with EV-range), is cost. Most people don't understand the total cost of ownership, and get stopped by sticker-shock. Even then, most people don't know how much electricity costs and how much cheaper it is to drive EV instead of ICE. Example: My '92 ICE, $9K purchase, $15K gas, $10K maintenance, $5K ins (all guesstimates). Rounded to $40K and165,000 mi equals $0.24/mi. Do people realize that they will spend 4x the sticker price over the next 20 yrs? I know I certainly didn't but I'm sure glad I bicycled all those years because I probably saved $50K on another car.
Everyone's situation is different and at least now there are choices that will fit for nearly everyone.
So how do we get more electrified users? Cost, range, test drives, free rentals, more stations, quiet, nightly plug-in vs smelly gas?