Are Plug-In Hybrids the Future?
On today's podcast, we ponder if plug-in hybrids are the future, talk Tesla and Ram, and ruminate on our first races attended as fans.
It's just Chris and I this go 'round, though Matthew Guy does drop by to chat car-wash soaps.
We set up our PHEV discussion by comparing Prius notes, then we touch briefly on the latest Tesla Cybertruck controversy before I give you the skinny on the 2025 Ram 1500.
It's a fun one, we think. Lots of car chat, a little controversy, and a trip down memory lane.
You can find our podcast on Spotify, Google, Apple, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.
Thanks for listening!
[Image: Toyota]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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I recently bought a 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV here in France where I live. PHEV's have become very popular here as most people don't drive very far in a day and fuel prices are very high, $7.50 to $8.00 a gallon high! Mitsubishi has been selling these here for ten years now and they sold them as fast as they could build them. Mine has a 2.4 gas engine and a battery that will take it about 40 kilometers on a charge. Since France is on 240 volt current, it charges relatively quickly just plugging into a regular socket. My first tank of gas yielded me 55 MPG and the second 60 MPG. Most days I don't use gas at all and I enjoy tooling around quietly on electric power alone. It also has 4WD if you press a button since it has electric motors on the rear wheels as well as the front. All in all I really enjoy it and the reliability is very good, even though there may be 75K kilometers on the odometer, the gas engine probably only has about 40K kilometers on it. It also has an 8 year warranty on the battery.
About 7 years ago crazy Mary said there is no future for Hybrids and GM would concentrate on EVs. Barra has an amazing ability to make the wrong decisions on just about every issue. I used to think Rick Wagoneer and Roger smith were the biggest GM idiots. I am not so sure now.
No, they're not the future. BEV sales are growing every year, and, along with sound energy policy, result in cleaner air, lower CO2, foreign policy not based on oil, and will continue to drive like a smooth powerful nearly silent turbine. Some 19% of new car sales in 2023 were BEVs - this will continue.
The future is an EV with a gas turbine range extender you can easily attach for long trips.