- Not enough range and high prices may be keeping American buyers away from plug-in hybrid vehicles.
- More buyers are choosing regular non-plug-in hybrids or are going completely electric.
- PHEVs are more popular in Europe, but it's pretty much the same story with a lot higher hybrid and EV sales.
Plug-in hybrid vehicles seem like a great halfway solution between combustion and electric vehicles—a stepping stone from one to the other. They offer a lot more range than standard non-plug-in hybrids, more performance when running in electric mode, and their ability to recharge their battery from an external source allows owners who plan ahead to hardly ever have to power on the vehicles’ combustion engine.
However, buyers don’t seem to be rushing to buy them. And a new J.D. Power study quoted by Automotive News tries to explain why. It found that owners were less satisfied with their PHEVs than people who owned fully electric vehicles.
According to Brent Gruber, the Managing Director of the Electric Vehicle Experience at J.D. Power, “There's been a lot of focus on creating intermediary steps for consumers who may not be ready to fully adopt a battery-electric vehicle yet,” but the situation “really isn't favorable in comparison to battery-electric vehicles.”
He concluded that “plug-in hybrids have their merits for certain people, but when you look at that ownership experience, it's certainly not as positive as battery-electric vehicle ownership experiences.”
The main reason PHEV owners are not as satisfied as they could have been is the vehicles’ relatively low electric range. It's just about 25 miles on average (although there are PHEVs that go further than that, some as much as an early EV). Just 1.9% of all new car sales in August were PHEVs, compared to 9.4% BEVs and 10.7% hybrids.
Price is another big factor keeping car buyers away from PHEVs. J.D. Power data found that the average transaction price for a new compact crossover with a plug-in hybrid powertrain was $48,700 versus $37,700 for one with non-plug-in hybrid power and $36,900 for an EV in the same category.
Buyers are still not well informed about what PHEVs and their potential advantages are, and many owners aren’t using them properly, driving them like regular hybrids that don’t need to be plugged. There also seems to be a lot of skepticism regarding PHEVs in the U.S., and the vast majority of electrified vehicle buyers get a non-plug-in hybrid. Or they take the plunge into the unknown and go for a full EV.
Portraying the PHEV as the transitional vehicle designed to ween modern motorists off gasoline and ease them into a sort of EV experience lite with a gas engine safety net hasn’t struck a chord with Americans—they provide a less satisfying ownership experience. European buyers seem to have resonated more with this narrative, with over 7% of new cars registered so far this year in the European Union being PHEVs, although that’s still a lot less than the 31.3% market share owned by regular hybrids and even less than diesels, according to ACEA.
