Next to Tesla, Plug-In Hybrids Are an Illusion of Eco-Consciousness
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles often have short electric ranges and do little to improve overall fuel efficiency.
4 min
AS I WAS RAGING NORTH toward Switzerland in the 735kW Ferrari SF90 Stradale in July, I was feeling pretty good about myself. After all, I was saving the Earth.
The Stradale is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV)—powered by a twin-turbo V8 (about 581kW) assisted by three electric motors and a lithium-ion battery pack. The idea is that Juan-Philippe Cliente, or his manservant, will plug in the Ferrari at night so that it may provide electric-only driving range in the morning. Notionally, the Stradale’s hybrid design will allow it to operate in European cities’ low-emission zones.
With its battery fully charged (7.9 kWH), the Stradale can achieve admirable efficiency of 4.6l per 100km, according to the EPA. But penny-pinchers need to check the fine print. That applies only to the first 13km. Practically within sight of my hotel in Maranello, Italy, the Stradale had devolved into its baser, grumbling, petrol-powered nature—albeit with a kind of Prius-of-the-gods electric torque assist.
Thirteen kilometres.
The Stradale has plenty of company in Crazytown. The PHEV version of the Bentley Bentayga can waft silently only about 29km, officially; the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, 33. Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid, 27. These short electric legs—combined with powerful internal combustion (IC) engines—do almost nothing to improve overall fuel efficiency. Why do manufacturers even bother?
Like most PHEVs—only slightly more so—the Stradale is a compliance baby, with a powertrain designed to meet soaring vehicle emissions/consumption requirements in major vehicle markets, using de minimis electrical systems added to IC powertrains. In some respects PHEVs are a technical echo of a time not long ago—2010—when such machines were being showered with public money and held to wildly unrigorous standards.
To cite but one notorious example: The Stradale (US$663,623, as tested) qualifies for $3,501 in public money meant to encourage reduced consumption. Thirteen kilometres.
That party is about to be over. Under the Biden administration, new federal PHEV standards are expected to be more “robust,” in the gentle lingo of policy makers.
How robust? In many respects the California Air Resources Board (CARB)—with authority to set its own vehicle emission standards and penalize offending automakers—is already there. For example, the state has a price cap of $60,000 for qualifying vehicles in the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project. As of April 6, 2021, qualifying PHEVs must also achieve a minimum 48km of EPA-measured electric range to qualify for the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project tax credit. By dint of this one rule change, California buyers of more than a dozen new PHEV vehicles, from Bentleys to Volvos, no longer qualify.
Sacramento is now drafting the state’s Advanced Clean Car II language, applying to model-year vehicles beyond 2025. Qualifying PHEVs might then need to deliver a proposed 80km of all-electric range. The state may also put a 15% cap on what are called “historical” PHEV credits claimed by a manufacturer.
What comes next is a fight over standards and timetables, credits and penalties. Mercedes-Benz, GM, Toyota and Stellantis NV, to name four big pickup/SUV players in the U.S., need PHEVs to contribute to their bottom-line Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and other emissions targets for the balance of the decade. They will also need consumer-facing tax credits because, with two power systems aboard, PHEVs typically cost several thousand dollars more than a conventional vehicle.
You might be wondering how it all could have gone so wrong for PHEV, a powertrain architecture that once seemed so logical as to be inevitable? In brief, there are two kinds of PHEVs: short-range and long-range. PHEVs with more than about 37 miles of EV range—like the Chevrolet Volt (2011-2019)—do meaningfully displace petrol-driven kilometres, reduce emissions and save consumers money, according to a 2019 report by UC Davis International EV Policy Council.
But short-range PHEVs—the vast preponderance on the market—don’t, except in limited conditions. Why? It’s behavioural. Studies show that the shorter a vehicle’s all-EV range, the less likely owners are to bother charging overnight. And, when owners don’t charge overnight, PHEVs calculations of efficiency go upside down in the morning. Actually, a short-range PHEV with a flat battery is lugging around a lot of useless weight.
Charging PHEVS on the go can also be comically difficult since few are capable of fast-charging.
PHEVs may yet have a bigger problem: NOX, or nitrous oxide, a hazardous smog-forming product of combustion. At a workshop in May, CARB officials raised concerns about PHEVs’ excessive NOX emissions during full-power cold starts, as when an IC engine kicks on after a period of electric driving. One probable explanation: Emission-scrubbing catalytic converters in exhaust systems only work after they are well heated by the exhaust stream, typically requiring 20 seconds or so. It’s most cars’ dirtiest seconds; PHEVs often spend them with wide-open throttles.
In November the environmental pressure group Transport & Environment published a study of the emissions of the popular BMW X5, Mitsubishi Outlander, and Volvo XC60 plugins. The study observed that, even with a fully charged battery and in optimal conditions, the emissions of these vehicles were 28-89% higher than the official value. In cases when the battery went flat, emissions jumped three to eight times higher than listed. And, as when a PHEV runs the petrol engine hard to charge the battery, the report says emissions were up to 12 times higher.
In a preamble to the report, Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility at T&E, blasted the EU’s incentives for PHEVs and raised the spectre of emissions scandals past. “Plug-in hybrids are fake electric cars, built for lab tests and tax breaks, not real driving.”
Wait. Me first. PHEV-ilgate? That’s not right. PHEVigate? Pffffevul-gate?
The dangers of misrepresentation and misunderstanding are real. Consumers unclear on the difference between a fuel-electric hybrid (like a Toyota Prius) and a plug-in electric vehicle, might not even know to plug their cars in. Imagine the Stradale owner when it dawns on him it’s not 4.6l/100km all the time.
The manservant better have some answers.
Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: September 3, 2021
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Vacationers scratching their travel itch this season are sending prices through the roof. Here’s how some are making trade-offs.
3 min
Capri Coffer socks away $600 a month to help fund her travels. The Atlanta health-insurance account executive and her husband couldn’t justify a family vacation to the Dominican Republic this summer, though, given what she calls “astronomical” plane ticket prices of $800 each.
The price was too high for younger family members, even with Coffer defraying some of the costs.
Instead, the family of six will pile into a rented minivan come August and drive to Hilton Head Island, S.C., where Coffer booked a beach house for $650 a night. Her budget excluding food for the two-night trip is about $1,600, compared with the $6,000 price she was quoted for a three-night trip to Punta Cana.
“That way, everyone can still be together and we can still have that family time,” she says.
With hotel prices and airfares stubbornly high as the 2023 travel rush continues—and overall inflation squeezing household budgets—this summer is shaping up as the season of travel trade-offs for many of us.
Average daily hotel rates in the top 25 U.S. markets topped $180 year-to-date through April, increasing 9.9% from a year ago and 15.6% from 2019, according to hospitality-data firm STR.
Online travel sites report more steep increases for summer ticket prices, with Kayak pegging the increase at 35% based on traveler searches. (Perhaps there is no more solid evidence of higher ticket prices than airline executives’ repeated gushing about strong demand, which gives them pricing power.)
The high prices and economic concerns don’t mean we’ll all be bunking in hostels and flying Spirit Airlines with no luggage. Travellers who aren’t going all-out are compromising in a variety of ways to keep the summer vacation tradition alive, travel agents and analysts say.
“They’re still out there and traveling despite some pretty real economic headwinds,” says Mike Daher, Deloitte’s U.S. transportation, hospitality and services leader. “They’re just being more creative in how they spend their limited dollars.”
For some, that means a cheaper hotel. Hotels.com says global search interest in three-star hotels is up more than 20% globally. Booking app HotelTonight says nearly one in three bookings in the first quarter were for “basic” hotels, compared with 27% in the same period in 2019.
For other travellers, the trade-offs include a shorter trip, a different destination, passing on premium seat upgrades on full-service airlines or switching to no-frills airlines. Budget-airline executives have said on earnings calls that they see evidence of travellers trading down.
Deloitte’s 2023 summer travel survey, released Tuesday, found that average spending on “marquee” trips this year is expected to decline to $2,930 from $3,320 a year ago. Tighter budgets are a factor, he says.
Too much demand
Wendy Marley is no economics teacher, but says she’s spent a lot of time this year refreshing clients on the basics of supply and demand.
The AAA travel adviser, who works in the Boston area, says the lesson comes up every time a traveler with a set budget requests help planning a dreamy summer vacation in Europe.
“They’re just having complete sticker shock,” she says.
Marley has become a pro at Plan B destinations for this summer.
For one client celebrating a 25th wedding anniversary with a budget of $10,000 to $12,000 for a five-star June trip, she switched their attention from the pricey French Riviera or Amalfi Coast to a luxury resort on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.
To Yellowstone fans dismayed at ticket prices into Jackson, Wyo., and three-star lodges going for six-star prices, she recommends other national parks within driving distance of Massachusetts, including Acadia National Park in Maine.
For clients who love the all-inclusive nature of cruising but don’t want to shell out for plane tickets to Florida, she’s been booking cruises out of New York and New Jersey.
Not all of Marley’s clients are tweaking their plans this summer.
Michael McParland, a 78-year-old consultant in Needham, Mass., and his wife are treating their family to a luxury three-week Ireland getaway. They are flying business class on Aer Lingus and touring with Adventures by Disney. They initially booked the trip for 2020, so nothing was going to stand in the way this year.
McParland is most excited to take his teen grandsons up the mountain in Northern Ireland where his father tended sheep.
“We decided a number of years ago to give our grandsons memories,” he says. “Money is money. They don’t remember you for that.”
Fare first, then destination
Chima Enwere, a 28-year old piano teacher in Fayetteville, N.C., is also headed to the U.K., but not by design.
Enwere, who fell in love with Europe on trips the past few years, let airline ticket prices dictate his destination this summer to save money.
He was having a hard time finding reasonable flights out of Raleigh-Durham, N.C., so he asked for ideas in a Facebook travel group. One traveler found a round-trip flight on Delta to Scotland for $900 in late July with reasonable connections.
He was budgeting $1,500 for the entire trip—he stays in hostels to save money—but says he will have to spend more given the pricier-than-expected plane ticket.
“I saw that it was less than four digits and I just immediately booked it without even asking questions,” he says.
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