At 78, Jim Beermann realizes his carbon footprint will go to zero sometime in the not-too-distant future. He’s just hoping to keep it relatively low in the meantime. So Beermann was frustrated to find that his senior center in Juno Beach, Florida, doesn’t have electric vehicle chargers or plans to build them anytime soon.
Like many people on the cusp of EV adoption, Beermann bought himself a hybrid instead. In a typical week, he drives his 2019 Ford Fusion — a plugless car — about 140 miles and uses a little less than three gallons of gasoline. “More than anything it’s the footprint I’m leaving,” he says. “I appreciate the fact that I’m using less gasoline … and the fact that I’m not using the car a lot is also reducing my footprint.”
The humble hybrid vehicle, long considered a half-step on the road to electrified transport, is sticking around longer than many anticipated, as carmakers work out the kinks on manufacturing full EVs at scale and consumers deal with sticker shock. In the first nine months of the year, drivers around the world bought almost 2 million hybrid vehicles, a 45% increase from the year-earlier period, according to BloombergNEF. Full EVs are far more popular — they outsell hybrids at a pace almost three to one — but the two technologies have accelerated in parallel. Over the past three years, EV sales are up almost five-fold, while hybrid sales have quadrupled.
