The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles

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Apologies to the Toyota Prius, but the first notable hybrid vehicle was the Semper Vivus, developed by Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche) in 1900. The Semper Vivus (Latin for “ever living”) used two combustion engines to power generators, which then supplied electricity to the motors inside the wheel hubs. The fact that it took modern engineers more than a century to truly appreciate the fusion of internal combustion engines and electric power is a sign that ingenuity isn’t always a foregone conclusion in the automotive world.

Car manufacturers are now trying to make up for lost time. Thanks to stagnant electric vehicle sales, hybrid vehicles are experiencing a significant resurgence in popularity, with sales reaching record levels in 2024 and 2025. Hybrids are often touted as a stepping stone between the gasoline cars of yesterday and the fully electric cars of tomorrow. Plug-in hybrids can offer 20 to 60 miles of electric-only driving for everyday use, as well as a gasoline engine for longer trips or when they can’t recharge. And as the growth of electric vehicles slows, many automakers clearly see hybrids – and particularly plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) – as better suited to America’s fluctuating tastes. To give you an idea of ​​where things are heading: the Toyota RAV4, the most popular vehicle of any type in the United States, is now only available as a hybrid.

But cracks are also starting to appear in this market. Without strict fuel economy standards or tax credits for electric vehicles, some automakers are abandoning PHEVs. Jeep, for example, recently discontinued its PHEV models, despite them being among the best-selling plug-in hybrids in the country. More recently, automakers have turned to extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), which use small gasoline engines to recharge an EV-sized battery to increase range.

But for plug-in hybrids to deliver on their promises of lower emissions and better gas mileage, they need to be plugged in. Leave them unplugged, and you end up with a heavier and potentially more polluting gas-powered car.

As for whether people actually plug in their PHEVs, the research isn’t very promising. Numerous studies have shown that plug-in hybrid owners often neglect to charge their batteries, which defeats the purpose of owning a vehicle capable of driving without emissions.

In 2024, telematics and fleet management company Geotab analyzed 1,776 PHEVs used in commercial fleets. The study found that North American fleet operators relied on gas for 86% of their total energy needs, suggesting they were failing to charge their batteries enough to run on electricity alone. Additionally, PHEVs offered an average fuel efficiency of 1.6 gallons per 62 miles (100 km), which translates to approximately 37 miles per gallon. That’s only slightly lower than the average fuel efficiency of gasoline equivalents, which consumed 1.8 gallons every 62 miles, or 33.1 mpg.

Another study, published earlier this year by the Fraunhofer Institute, used on-board fuel consumption monitoring (OBFCM) data from 981,035 vehicles across Europe. With data from almost a million cars, the study authors were able to draw conclusions about the behavior of plug-in hybrid owners. The results were quite shocking: PHEVs require on average 6 liters of fuel per 100 km, around three times more than previously announced. The reason was that these vehicles consumed fuel while also running on electric power, contrary to many manufacturers’ claims. And because drivers don’t plug in their cars, they don’t take full advantage of their powertrains, choosing instead to lug around a nearly dead battery while consuming far more fuel than they should.

Owners of Toyota hybrid vehicles were the best, using electricity for 44% of the energy used for driving, suggesting these drivers plug in most often. The worst were Porsche owners, with just 0.8 percent, or an average of 7 kWh over two years. Ferdinand Porsche is probably turning in his grave.

There is still hope for hybrid vehicles. Some automakers believe they can force customers to take plugging seriously by making it a game. For example, a prototype feature to gamify charging was recently added to Toyota’s ChargeMinder app in the United States and Japan. The feature used notifications, positive encouragement, and quizzes to help owners adopt better charging habits. In the United States, PHEV owners were incentivized to increase their charging frequency by 10% and, as a result, improved their owner satisfaction by 16 percentage points.

Other automakers are betting on extended-range electric vehicles, or EREVs, which essentially take PHEVs and turn them on their head by starting with an EV-sized battery and platform and adding a small gasoline engine to recharge the battery. Of course, EREVs must also be plugged in And fills up with gas, which brings us back to the same problem. It seems that drivers are good at refueling Or reload, but when asked to do both, they stumble.

This leaves many automakers in a tough spot. Take General Motors, for example. The company’s Chevrolet Volt had been among the best-selling plug-in hybrids in the United States for years. But GM then abandoned it in 2018, choosing instead to go all-in on electric vehicles. And while it’s yielded some success — Chevrolet’s electric Blazer and Equinox are top sellers — it hasn’t been enough to overcome the political tides that have devoured electric vehicle policy at the federal level. That forced GM to cancel more than $6 billion from its electric vehicle investments, and now CEO Mary Barra says the company is actively exploring hybrids again.

But at a recent conference in Detroit, Barra expressed the uncomfortable truth about hybrids: “What we also know today with plug-in hybrids is that most people don’t plug them in,” she said. “That’s why we try to be very thoughtful about what we do from a hybrid and plug-in hybrid perspective.”