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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they paired small batteries with backup generators.
But nooo, its 7000lb all electrics or overly complicated ICE-hybrids, nothing in between.
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An ICE hybrid is a gas car with a little electric motor shoehorned inside.
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A “plug in” hybrid as they are called is a full electric drivetrain, with a gas generator like you’d buy at Lowes stuck in the boot .
It seems trivial, but the difference is massive. The former is super complicated, heavy, and expensive, as you need all the junk a gas car needs and the electric stuff to go with it.
The later is hilarously efficient. It takes the best part of electric cars, the dead simple drive train, and solves their achilles heel: the massive battery. You can get away with a dirt cheap 3 horsepower generator in such a setup and shrink the battery massively, whereas a ICE hybrid needs a huge car engine and (like I said) all the expensive junk that goes with it.
You don’t see more of the later because:
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Car manufacturers are geared to produce ICE cars, and reserve the electric drivetrain capacitry for profitable luxury vehicles first.
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This is just speculation on my part, but a gas range extending generator “taints” a full electric car, making it unpalatable to people who think it ruins the image, eco friendliness or whatever, when it’s actually better for the environment because the battery isn’t so freaking big.
They were a fantastic idea but:
- too many people never plugged them in, so you just have a slightly heavier ICE car
- they would have been a great transition to full EV, but full EVs are now functional enough for most people (we need to get the volume up to get the price down)
I suppose they’re still right for some people but generally it’s just Toyota looking back to do what they should have been doing ten years ago
7000lb all electrics
This idea overlaps the big truck mentality: most EVs are much lighter. The weight penalty averages only about 20% over an equivalent ICE, so the type of vehicle you get can be a much bigger impact. My EV is a mid sized SUV that may be the biggest car I’ve ever owned and it weighs 4,000 lbs. I’m not claiming it’s light, but it’s much better than you seem to think
Yeah that was a hyperbole.
Still, there is a weight penalty depending on how much range they try to squeeze in.
And I’m one of those people that gets super salty about ICE cars getting so heavy too, especially crossovers and city SUVs that everyone seems to run now. A small or mid sized SUV should not be 4,000lb with modern tech, ICE or not.