Plug-In Hybrids – The Dangers
Friday, 26. January 2018
I reported last year that companies in particular, as well as many private drivers, were being tempted into Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) as a result of MPG’s being advertised of 130 – 150. One company in particular, under pressure from employees because PHEV’s come with low benefit-in-kind tax, switched much, if not all of their fleet to Mitsubishi Outlanders.
However, many of the drivers had no access to charge points so drove their cars as a normal hybrid but ended up driving the car mainly on the petrol engine. The result meant that the cars that should have achieved over 130 MPG ended up returning just 25 MPG. At the time of writing the company was haemorrhaging money, pouring it into the tanks of its cars.
The point is that as pressure increases on companies and consumers to take more fuel efficient cars you should understand that PHEV’s are only efficient if they are run on the electric motor which must be charged from a charge point, not the trickle charge from the petrol engine. Make sure that if you are going down this route you understand all the implications.
There are grants for charge points to be installed at work and at home but if you don’t have access to your own or a street charge point your car could end up costing a fortune in petrol costs and the increased emissions do more damage than if you’d taken a petrol car in the first place. By Graham Hill
