You don't need an EV mode to have a good PHEV.

For example, when the EDrive Prius is doing 55 mph, 70% of it's energy is coming from the battery, so it gets about 150 - 180 mpg at this speed. Even at 65 mph it will still get 100+ mpg.

This is where the real benefits are - so long as you can inject some grid-charged energy into the mix at any speed, the gas engine works less hard, uses less gas and you can easily exceed 100 mpg+ without the requirement for an EV mode.

Halving your fuel bill would be enough to make a lot of people consider a PHEV, even if it didn't have an EV mode. Of course some people will still prefer to pay a bit extra to have the EV mode for other reasons.

 

Right now, the main advantage the HSD has over other hybrid systems is the EV mode allows better fuel economy in heavy stop-and-go urban traffic. Right now, Honda's IMA better highway mpg offsets that disadvantage. Plugin hybrids would turn a lack of an EV mode into a major disvantage for Honda.

Honda needs to find a way to add at least a low-speed EV mode to it's IMA system. Keep in mind that Honda puts a priority on fuel efficency as it has the best fleet mpg. I hope Honda's board room is taking Toyota's plan for a plugin hybrid very seriously.

Let's go into the future five years and say Toyota has a plugin hybrid. Also suppose Honda has a plugin IMA hybrid as it is now. I'd suggest that Honda's plugin would not be that inferior to Toyota's, but the public perception would. For people that drive less than 50 miles daily with a plugin: Advantage overwhelmingly Toyota. For people that drive 100 miles or more daily with a plugin (and can't swap batteries) - Honda might have an advantage on highway drivers. Problem is you would have to do a lot of highway miles and not many do that on a regular basis.

Bottom line is Honda needs an EV mode in future models or Toyota will have a big leg up on them.


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Back to pickups - it's unfortunate that Detroit is not offering the small pickups - I remember seeing a lot of them.....

 

Nothing anyone has ever posted here has convinced me that EV only offers a big advantage. It's always "look at the EPA" or "wow, I got 90MPG on a 10 minute drive in bumper to bumper traffic today".

Look at the database. The Prius owners getting the big milage or big tanks are the ones doing a lot of highway. See a low tank in someone's profile? SURPRISE.. it says they did a lot of city. I think this is largely a myth and a mirage. It is extremely obvious from looking at the milage database that the Prius does better on the highway.

In the short term, it may LOOK like you're getting outrageous milage in the city, and the car tells you that, because it only measures gas burned. What the car doesn't do is go back and adjust the histogram to tell you how much energy it had to rob from the ICE when it comes back on to replenish the battery. Therefore, your EV-only travel looks better than it really is, and your travel with the ICE on after EV-only travel looks worse than it really is.

Someone here needs to subject their Prius to endless hours of city traffic... an entire tank. Or maybe someone has.

I believe EV only probably has some advantage... mainly that you should be able to more quickly use up the energy that was stored, and be less likely to be in a situation where you could recover energy, but you have a full battery.

If the Toyota system costs significantly more to implement, it's already polluted more. You can't claim a system is greener if the production of it emits significantly more CO2 than will be conserved by the consumer. I'm not saying that is the case, but I'm saying it's a consideration. You can't just look at its pollution once it is delivered to the consumer.

I don't know of two cars or extremely similar cars where one has IMA and the other has HSD, so I don't know how you can say for sure how much more fuel efficient the HSD is in city traffic.