Hybrid v Electric: what you need to know in 2025
With the electric vehicle revolution upon us, here’s everything you need to know about owning a battery-electric or hybrid vehicle.
4 min
You don’t have to be an automotive expert to know that the future of the automotive industry at large is going to be heavily reliant on battery-electric power – “electrification” is the new buzz word in town. But while car manufactures look to transition to this exciting new electric future, there are still a few key factors to consider when entertaining the EV conversation.
The biggest debate in the car industry right now is the hybrid v electric discussion: which to consider in 2024? Is one option better than the other? For the uninitiated, sales of hybrid cars, including hybrid and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles, remain the obvious choice for consumers in Australia, with new sale records reached in 2023. Data published by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) reported that 98,439 hybrid and 11,212 plug-in hybrid were sold in Australia in 2023, up 88.8 per cent from the previous year. Sales of fully-electric vehicles, on the other hand, also saw massive growth, with a total of 87,217 vehicles sold in 2023. Out of the three main types of ‘electrified’ vehicles in Australia—hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric—plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles were the least popular.
According to Jeff Mannering, Audi Australia CEO, it’s one of the most exciting times to be a part of the automotive industry.
“Australia is undoubtedly in the midst of a significant transition towards electric mobility. Whilst the journey to a fully electric industry is ongoing and advancing at a rapid rate, we’re lucky to be in a unique situation whereby we are seeing technological advancements in both hybrid and fully electric platforms,” explains Mannering.
“At Audi, we see this transition as a multifaceted evolution, with both hybrid and electric vehicles playing pivotal roles in shaping the future of sustainable transportation.”
In the luxury sector, Audi is making waves with its offerings, seeing the demand for its electric models hit an all-time high in 2023, delivering more than 178,000 fully electric vehicles to customers globally, with particularly strong demand for the Q4 e-tron, Audi’s compact electric SUV offering.
So, with all the buzz around electric vehicles, are consumer’s ready to take the plunge into the world of electrification? Mannering seems to think so, but a number of considerations still need to be factored in.
“Consumer readiness varies based on numerous factors, just a few of those being accessibility, infrastructure, and individual preferences. However, if sales figures and sentiment are anything to go off, we’ve seen a growing interest in, and uptake of, both hybrid and electric vehicles,” says Mannering.
“This increased demand results in the introduction of a number of new models and choice for Australian consumers, with more and more electric vehicles arriving on each incoming ship. It’s crucial to acknowledge that consumers are increasingly considering these options as viable alternatives, especially with the expanding availability of charging infrastructure and the advancement of battery technology.”
If you’re entertaining a new vehicle and want to make it electric, here’s some things you might want to know beforehand…
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What is an electric vehicle?
An electric vehicle—or ‘EV’— is powered by electricity and uses one (or more) electric motors powered by a battery pack to accelerate and drive, as opposed to traditional fossil fuels like petrol or diesel. Depending on the type of EV, the electric motor(s) either assist a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) or power the car completely.
What are the different types of electric vehicles?
In the grand conversation of electrified vehicles, there’s three main types to consider: battery electric vehicles (BEV), hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV).
Are hybrids better than electric?
It depends on your individual needs, and as Mannering mentioned, on various factors such as accessibility, infrastructure, and individual preferences. While both hybrid and electric vehicles respectively present as great alternatives to your traditional combustion engine, factors need to be assessed, including driving habits, distance and range, access to charging infrastructure, and budget constraints. However, considering that 110,000 new car sales in Australia in 2023 were hybrid or plug-in hybrid—compared to 87,000 electric vehicles—it’s obvious hybrid vehicles present as a viable solution for those seeking to steer away from traditional cars, but might not be ready to plunge fully into the electric world.
“Hybrids offer a transitional solution for those who may not yet have access to extensive charging infrastructure or require longer driving ranges,” adds Mannering.
What is the downside of a hybrid car?
As we’ve made clear by now, hybrid cars offer several advantages, such as improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions compared to traditional petrol-powered vehicles. However, there are some trade offs, like:
- Cost: currently, hybrid models are associated with more complex systems across controls and batteries. While they incorporate both an internal combustion engine and electric motor, such complexity can often result in higher manufacturing costs (and potentially maintenance costs, too).
- Not fully electric: As most hybrid vehicles typically have a limited range of electric-only propulsion before the combustion engine kicks in, the environmental benefits of using electric power and somewhat limited, both short-term and long-term.
- Charging Infrastructure: As hybrid cars do not require charging from an external power source—unlike plug-in hybrid vehicles or fully electric vehicles—owners won’t be able to take advantage of the growing infrastructure of charging stations around the country.
Should I choose electric or hybrid car?
Again, it depends on your particular needs and circumstances. Currently, hybrid vehicles offer improved fuel efficiency without the range limitations of electric vehicles—you won’t need to rely on finding or planning for a recharge station on your next trip—but electric vehicles will, sooner or later, be the most prominent form of automotive transportation.
“On the other hand, electric vehicles represent the pinnacle of sustainable mobility and a high level of uncompromised performance, offering zero-emission driving with advanced battery technology and an ever-expanding charging network,” concludes Mannering.
Is charging an electric vehicle easy?
Easy enough! In fact, EV charging can be as easy as plugging in your phone to charge. However, you need to ensure there is a suitable charging station available. While a lot of car manufactures will offer you a charging station to install at home with your purchase, such as Tesla and Polestar, in recent years, there has been wide concern over the scarcity of electric charging infrastructure in Australia.
Typically, you will find electric charging stations at different public locations, like supermarkets, public carparks, highway service centres, and some accommodation venues. However, with the growing number of EV sales in Australia alone, the system needs stronger charging infrastructure that is robust and reliable—and readily available— and this will come down to a number of industry stakeholders and government bodies coming together to supply the demand.
From bushland greens to valley reds, the country’s most awarded designers are proving that the best colour palette was never on a swatch card; it was outside the window all along.
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From bushland greens to valley reds, the country’s most awarded designers are proving that the best colour palette was never on a swatch card; it was outside the window all along.
4 minWalk through the Australian bush, and you’ll find a green that no paint chart quite captures. Eucalyptus canopy filtered through dust, heat and distance, grey at the edges, sometimes almost silver, never one fixed shade.
For decades, Australian interiors avoided it for exactly that reason. It was much easier to paint the walls white and look at the landscape.
That is no longer the case. Across this year’s Dulux Colour Awards, the celebrated projects shared an unmistakable thread: colour drawn not from trend forecasts or mood boards, but from the ground the buildings stand on.
Bushland greens, harbour blues, valley reds, coastal aquas are a palette with terroir, if such a thing can be said of paint.
“There’s a strong sense that designers are moving beyond safe, uniform schemes and embracing colours that reflect the local Australian landscape,” says Dulux Colour and Design Manager Lauren Treloar.
She points to greyish greens echoing coastal bushland, cool blues that nod to Sydney’s harbourside light, and rust-toned reds pulled from inland, rural country. “These shades feel rich, earthy and versatile.”
White walls, grey stone, maybe navy if a client was game, that was the old formula. Now colour is being used to describe where a house actually is, not just how it looks.
The house that disappears into its garden
Few projects made that argument more persuasively than Nithsdale, an 1890s villa in Stanmore, restored and extended by Studio Prineas as an intergenerational family home.
Once compromised by decades of unsympathetic renovation, the house has been restored to something like coherence, and colour has done much of the heavy lifting.
Architect Rachel Prineas didn’t stop at a front door or a strip of trim.
She drenched the entire exterior in two deep tones, Dulux Bronze Icon and Tambo Tank, pulling render, timber and ironwork into one chromatic field, lifted straight from the native planting around the house, species indigenous to Wangal Country. The building and its garden start to blur into each other.
Judge Ben Peake, Principal at Carter Williamson Architects, called the result mature and sophisticated, praising the discipline behind it: deliberate selections lifted from the immediate native landscape rather than abstracted from it.
The effect is a house that no longer sits in its garden so much as it recedes into it, camouflage as design strategy, and a quietly radical rebuttal to the idea that heritage colour has to mean caution.
A valley, painted from the inside out
If Nithsdale shows landscape dictating a single, disciplined hue, The View, this year’s Residential Interior winner, designed by Studio Shields in the treetops of the Yarra Valley, shows what happens when an entire palette is built from the shifting conditions of a single place over time.
Seven years, start to finish. The colour scheme evolved right alongside the build, tones tested on site, adjusted through the seasons, checked against the light as it moved across the valley.
“The palette draws from oxidised earth, eucalyptus canopy, dry grasses and shifting skies, allowing the interior to feel inseparable from the landscape,” says designer Ruby Shields.
Chartreuse and olive pick up the bushland outside the windows. Burgundy and earthy reds anchor the more intimate rooms, echoing soil and aged timber. Powdered electric blues cut through the warmth for clarity.
It is, in Shields’ words, less a single decision than a tonal narrative, unfolding room by room as a considered journey.
Judge Sarah Jane-Pyke, of Arent&Pyke, singled out the precision of that placement, and the cohesion it created, proof, she said, of how thoughtfully deployed colour can enhance the texture of everyday life.
It’s a long way from colour as decoration. Here, it functions closer to memory: a way of encoding a specific valley, its light and its seasons, into the walls of a house.
When the landscape is the coastline
Not every project translating “place” into paint sits in the Australian bush.
Te Pākau Maru, a 63-home development on former brownfield sites in New Brighton, Christchurch, took its name, meaning “the sheltering wing,” or “the place of joy”, from a gift by Ven Dr Lyndon Drake, and built its exterior palette around the beach, sea and sky.
What ties Nithsdale, The View and Te Pākau Maru together isn’t a shared shade; it’s a method.
Each project treats its palette as more of a site survey than a style choice, asking what a place already looks like before deciding how a building should be painted.
Treloar sees this as central to where Australian and New Zealand design is heading.
Warm neutrals are doing particularly well in the Australian climate right now, she says, softening rooms without losing their contemporary edge, and sitting easily next to the timber, linen and stone that anchor so many of these projects. The bigger shift, though, is about provenance. Designers can increasingly tell you why a colour belongs in a house, not just that it looks good in it.
There’s a practical lesson in all this for anyone renovating or building right now: skip the trend report. Step outside instead. Look at the ground, the trees, the light at a particular time of day. Ask what the house is already surrounded by.
As these award-winning projects prove, the answer was often there all along; you just have to be willing to bring it inside.
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