Live data from Hacker News

Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

smmt.co.uk

251–260 of 297 posts

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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore the "EV" part. B = Battery H = Hybrid PH = Plug-in hybrid (Same as a hybrid but you can charge up the hybrid battery at home)

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

I would. Why wouldn't I? I park my car in an attached garage. If I had an EV or PHEV, I'd walk right past the charger on my way to the door into the house. I don't like standing around at the gas station waiting on the tank to fill. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I actually wanted a PHEV, since my car is mostly used for local driving but I also drive hundreds of miles for work trips. Unfortunately I couldn't find one I liked.

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

#252
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commuter[1] PHEVs start at 30 miles EV range. Which is ~enough to cover the vast majority of commutes, and the majority of US commutes. Keep in mind that even if 20% of your commute is done on petrol, the other 80% isn't. --- [1] Yes, there are PHEVs with shorter ranges, but those tend to be weird luxury models that for some compliance reason have a battery strapped to them.

the short ranges make them impractical and annoying to charge all the time, so people just dont in the real world https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

That data needs to be split out by how the person acquired their PHEV. In much of Europe the majority of PHEVs are purchased by companies because of tax incentives. I remember seeing a study which said that people who are driving a PHEV because it was assigned to them by their employer are much less likely to plug it in than are ordinary consumers who bought or leased a PHEV.

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

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you charge the battery, sure. Most people simply don't. Data collected across 600.000 vehicles in Europe show that most people don't and that emissions are just a smidge under typical ICE vehicles. If you factor in the high emissions produced during battery productions it looks to be an overall bad package. The idea itself is certainly good but the real world simply doesn't show it. https://www.evshift.com/368695/…

You have to factor in regerative braking. Toyota's had ~25 years to get their system dialed in. Hybrid is worth it unless you're only ever doing freeway speeds flat out with no braking.

As a Toyota hybrid owner, you see that Toyota's design is kinda at a local optimum, hitting limits in every direction which sometimes rear their head in the user experience.

For example, the sluggish 0-60 is due to the design being unable to get all the power from the engine to the wheels at slow speeds, due to the electrical path through the CVT gearbox being too small.

The funny noises when going down really big hills are due to the system having no way to dump excess energy after the battery is fully charged and being forced to rev the engine at 5000 rpm with no fuel to waste some.

The slow throttle response is due to the engine always running at 80% throttle for efficiency, which means if you suddenly need more power you can only quickly get an additional 20% before waiting for the rpm to slowly rise and give lots of power in a few seconds.

EV's do have similar design limitations (drive on a racetrack and you'll need to let the hardware cool between laps), but they seem easier to overcome by simply sizing the system slightly bigger to hide the limits.

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most? You mean all . 240V [0] as been the standard in the US basically since electrification started in the late 19th century. 120V has for all practical purposes never been a thing, it has always been an artifact of split-phase 240V. A deliberate choice to offer two voltages to every consumer. [0] Okay, technically 240V did not become official until around 1967, but the split-phase design was there from the beginnin…

In tge early days they did sometimes wire 120 only houses. That was mostly done before WWII

Sure, but that is the exception proving the rule. Not quite urban legend, you can find people on mikeholt.com who have actually seen one in the wild. Usually because of some shenanigans the local power company pulled to directly connect more houses by giving each one a phase of a three-phase feed.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except, as the data shows, thats not enough to make much emissions difference.

I find that strange just looking at my current PHEV the engine now is at 75,000 miles or what my previous one was at only 30,000 miles. Most trips we barely use the intent if we use it at all, but every once in a while we do go on the long road trips. Plus, they are great for Americans who normally don't do those long trips, but they don't get rained to anxiety or any other issues with charging.

1. you are you and your data and your use. I believe you, but thats not useful compared to the real world data from "981,035 vehicles across Europe".

2. i suspect but i have no way to prove... the PHEVs sold in america tended to be way better EVs - there's no similar total fleet emissions laws so no incentive to subsidize shitty/fraudulent PHEVs in the US.

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

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like what the Chevy Volt did back in the day. Turns out that it just was not feasible to achieve higher efficiency through the generator when cruising on the highway than just direct driving the wheels. Almost certainly why nearly all hybrids have been parallel hybrids up to now. What is changing, I think, is that a significant number of people are warming to the idea of a BEV, and want all of the benefit…

I'm curious why exactly they haven't made 2-3 speed trans typical in EVs already, like Porsche did. Single gear is too inefficient at freeway speeds. Tesla supposedly solved this with dual-motor models where the second motor has a different final drive ratio, but I feel like that's more expensive than 2WD w/ trans, which doesn't need to be nearly as advanced as the ICE-driven kind.

To my understanding the increase in efficiency is marginal at best, highway efficiency is completely dominated by wind resistance in either case. It would never come anywhere near paying for the increased cost or complexity of implementing the transmission. It may not be quite as complex as a five or six speed ICE transmission, but my bet is that it is much closer to that end of the scale than it is to a single speed reduction gearbox.

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

#257
post #2

I am so confused by the categorisation of cars: BEV, HEV, PHEV and so on. I think the industry insiders who write some of these articles don't realise how hard it is for some of their readers to keep track.

Quite frankly, today there is no need to look anywhere else than a pure electric car. No point to buy an ICE with battery + electric motor. It just adds complexity and makes it expensive to service. The newly released EVs today are so good and have fantastic range.

Unless you travel a lot and live in hotels for months at a time, like I do. Granted, that's not horribly common but there are still legitimate reasons to want an ICE.

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reverse psychology works very well on Trump but probably not Netanyahu.

Possibly not in this instance though, as Trump has a FIFA Peace Prize already.

He's got that Venezuelan woman's Nobel too, doesn't he?

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

#259
post #194
post #146

Imagine how much faster electric car adoption would be if incumbent auto makers weren’t using them as dumping grounds for experimental, half-baked, and unsafe design experiments? We never wanted their “electric cars” … we wanted their cars, but electric .

I don't know. Kia Niro is now 10 years old and looks completely normal and you could buy it as HEV, PHEV or EV

Yeah, the first EV I bought was an otherwise boring Hyundai Kona. Great car and great EV but you could easily mistake it for the gas version if you weren't paying attention.

And surprisingly to me it is even pretty damn efficient despite being originally designed as a gasoline-powered vehicle.

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

#260
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.

> The US is the most advanced country technologically

Because the US is the most backward advanced country socially/politically

Post reply on HN