Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

smmt.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 297 posts

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#231

Post by pmg101 »

physicsguy wrote: post #56

The biggest seller of EVs here is the salary sacrifice schemes that give a huge discount to high earners, especially those with kids. Imagine you're on taxable income of £120k and have two chidlren in nursery. Currently you get no help with childcare costs from the government. From my own experience it's ~£6000 subsidy per child. You can currently take out an EV salary sacrifice scheme for ~£600 per month (pre tax),…

Your car isn't 'effectively free', because you could sacrifice all £20k into the pension, paying no tax on it, and get the £12k in childcare subsidies because your income is It still might be desirable, but it isn't free.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#232

Post by dalyons »

jeffbee wrote: post #225
dalyons wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true. most are much worse at being EVs than the toyota prime models. Toyotas were the top of the euro data on real world EV-only use. Every other manufacturer ranges from worse to hilariously worse. Toyotas are not over half of sales, so therefore "most" applies.

You're making this outlandish claim so it is on you to name any currently or recently-marketed PHEV that can't reach highway speeds in EV mode, and to demonstrate that this constitutes "most" of the market or installed base.

its been widely reported on.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-...

https://electrek.co/2026/02/19/biggest-study-yet-shows-plug-...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

the link to the underlying most recent fraunhofer study referred to by the first two seems broken sadly, so i cant get the breakdown by manufacturer anymore. But the data on aggregate is clear - on average the PHEVs cars out there today spend very little time on average in pure EV mode. If they did there would be more than ~20% reduction in emissions.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#233

Post by traderj0e »

iso1631 wrote: post #226
traderj0e wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like PHEV can mean it only goes 15-30mi on a charge. Realistically how many people are actually plugging those in?

Most journeys are well under 30 miles. https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/best-car-insurance/average-car-... > The average car journey distance in the UK is approximately 8.2 miles

The question isn't how long the journey is, it's how long until you're somewhere with a charger where you can wait a long time, but not too long. Short-range EVs make the most sense for people with single-family homes. Charging at work or apartments helps, but then there's the "too long" caveat.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#234

Post by [deleted] »

physicsguy wrote: post #56

The biggest seller of EVs here is the salary sacrifice schemes that give a huge discount to high earners, especially those with kids. Imagine you're on taxable income of £120k and have two chidlren in nursery. Currently you get no help with childcare costs from the government. From my own experience it's ~£6000 subsidy per child. You can currently take out an EV salary sacrifice scheme for ~£600 per month (pre tax),…

[deleted]

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#235

Post by jeffbee »

dalyons wrote: post #232
jeffbee wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making this outlandish claim so it is on you to name any currently or recently-marketed PHEV that can't reach highway speeds in EV mode, and to demonstrate that this constitutes "most" of the market or installed base.

its been widely reported on. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/plug-in-... https://electrek.co/2026/02/19/biggest-study-yet-shows-plug-... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-... the link to the underlying most recent fraunhofer study referred to by the first two seems broken sadly, so i cant get the breakdown by manufacturer anymore. But the data on aggregate is clear - on a…

You are not addressing the claim that PHEVs can't reach highway speeds on batteries. That is a ridiculous claim, and it is false. You will not be able to name even one PHEV on the market with this limitation, because they do not exist.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#236

Post by appointment »

traderj0e wrote: post #192
bobthepanda wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/ford-f-...

That lists the Ford F-series as #1, not the F-150 Lightning which is 1.3% of that per https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/content/dam/fordmediasite/u... . I've seen about 3 ever. Even the F-series popularity is kinda overstated by this because other cars are more fragmented.

I think they were trying to say that it's surprising the Lightning sold so poorly considering the popularity of the ICE version.

I do think F-150 buyers tend to be more conservative than average car buyers and more receptive to anti-EV FUD for both political and cultural reasons.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#237

Post by appointment »

dalyons wrote: post #229
rsynnott wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home And, in practice, the battery tends to be much, much bigger. Some PHEVs are basically mediocre-range electric cars which happen to have a petrol generator.

Its time to call a spade a spade - the bulk of the PHEV category sold to date (with a few exceptions like toyota) has been an emissions scam, designed to skirt EU fleet emission laws. In practice, most are mediocre range, low-speed only evs that effectively no one bothers to charge regularly because its impractical and annoying. The manufactures claim 80% reductions in emissions, and use those credits to allow them t…

To be fair, running electric only at slow speeds is still good, because it's slow, stop-and-go driving that benefits the most from electric.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#238

Post by jfengel »

Freedom2 wrote: post #221
jampa wrote: post #11

This oil crisis was a huge boon for EVs. In Brazil, despite the "hate" most people have against EVs, BYD went from breaking into the top 10 in March to taking the #1 spot in consumer sales for the first time ever.

Curious as to why American EVs never took off. The US is the most advanced country technologically and has the greatest soft power in history to make deals.

Incumbent American automakers had a hard time switching over. EVs require significant expertise that they didn't have, and didn't particularly want to acquire.

Only Tesla designed cars to be electric from a clean sheet. And they were doing extremely well for a long time, and had an enormous lead. But they squandered it in a variety of ways.

The automakers and oil interests spent a lot of effort badmouthing electric cars. To hear Americans talk about it, they need to haul giant boats on their daily 400 mile commutes into uncharted forest. They didn't come up with "range anxiety"; it was deliberately spread.

For a while there was a partisan divide about it, with electric cars seen as a hippie-liberal choice, much as hybrids used to be. Then circa 2020 Elon Musk began to systematically alienate that market.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#239

Post by appointment »

mrob wrote: post #200
londons_explore wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still gives decent efficiency improvements. You can always run the ICE at most efficient RPM. Never need to idle it, etc. You can also have a much smaller engine for a much bigger car, since you only need to cover average not peak power usage. You also in most designs eliminate the gearbox.

Only true for a plug-in hybrid with a series drivechain (a.k.a. "extended range electric vehicle"). The more common type has two parallel drivechains linked with clutches, so you still have all the drawbacks of a conventional internal combustion engine drivechain when you're using it.

This is something people say, but in practice the Toyota Prius is still a very reliable car.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#240

Post by dalyons »

appointment wrote: post #237
dalyons wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its time to call a spade a spade - the bulk of the PHEV category sold to date (with a few exceptions like toyota) has been an emissions scam, designed to skirt EU fleet emission laws. In practice, most are mediocre range, low-speed only evs that effectively no one bothers to charge regularly because its impractical and annoying. The manufactures claim 80% reductions in emissions, and use those credits to allow them t…

To be fair, running electric only at slow speeds is still good, because it's slow, stop-and-go driving that benefits the most from electric.

except, as the data shows, thats not enough to make much emissions difference.
Post reply on HN