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This is completely false. I own one. It goes up to the low 80s mph before the gas engine kicks in. Acceleration from a stop is sub 6 second 0-60. Hardly weak. C

by baumy 7mo ago

This is completely false. I own one. It goes up to the low 80s mph before the gas engine kicks in. Acceleration from a stop is sub 6 second 0-60. Hardly weak. Charges from fully empty to full in about 2.5 hours. Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range. I drive 10-12k miles per year, and ignoring extended multi-day vacation road trips once every couple years, I fill up the tank 2-3 times per year.

dalyons 7mo ago
Toyotas hybrid uses gas when you accelerate hard to get that 0-60, it’s a combined system horsepower. Unlike phevs, EREVs are only driven by the electric drive, and the gas system is a series generator, so the EV is fully capable & always doing 100% of the work. PHEVs fundamentally aren’t. Anyway, the real world data from PHEV usage shows you are the outlier, most people don’t bother plugging them in regularly due to their limitations.
- baumy 7mo ago
  Again, false. You can clearly hear when the combustion engine kicks in and it's indicated in the dash. I can floor it in electric mode and it still gets up to 60 in around 6 seconds, no gas involved. Hybrid mode is probably slightly faster but it's a very marginal difference. I don't believe your last statement because you've been wrong about everything else, and it doesn't make sense. Plugging it in is exactly as easy as literally any electric car, and it simply doesn't have the limitations you claim it does. I don't know what you've been reading, but you should evaluate the veracity of it as a source and talk to actual owners. I know several others who have one and we're all quite happy with them and don't get gas often
  - dalyons 7mo ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-... “ The researchers attributed most of the gap to overestimates of the “utility factor” – the ratio of miles travelled in electric mode to the total miles travelled – finding that 27% of driving was done in electric mode even though official estimates assumed 84%. ” Perhaps the rav4 prime @ 41ml max ev range is a better system than all the other low range PHEVs like it, and has better real world usage data than them. I doubt it though, but I don’t have the data on just the rav.
    - wanderr 7mo ago
      0 mention of rav4 in this article which seems to be about European cars.
      - dalyons 7mo ago
        European registered cars. The RAV4 PHEV is a popular car in Europe so is assuredly well represented in this data set of 800,000 phevs.
        freetime2 7mo ago
        It's an interesting article - thanks for sharing! The original report is worth reading too. [1] I agree with the premise. The "utility factor" used to estimate fuel efficiency for PHEVs does not line up with real-world data, which effectively creates a loophole to avoid emissions regulations and keep selling gas guzzlers. This is a problem, and should be fixed. In regards to which cars are most to blame: > Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW account for the lion’s share of fines avoided over the past three years, together responsible for 89% of the total. This is a recent trend where luxury carmakers are using PHEVs to circumvent emissions regulations. The latest BMW M5 [2], for example, is a PHEV with a monster 4.4L V8 engine. Car enthusiasts actually hate it compared to the old model because the hybrid system increased the weight by 1000 lbs. But making it a PHEV is probably the only way that BMW is still able to sell a V8. It seems kind of stupid all around. The RAV4 PHEV is also a big, heavy (4,500 lb) car with a large (by European standards) 2.5L engine. But I would hesitate to lump it in with luxury cars from BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, etc. I would also hesitate to apply findings from a European study to the US market, where large gasoline cars are currently very popular (not that every discussion needs to be about the US - but the RAV4 is the best selling car in the US so it's important to that market). Not saying you're wrong about RAV4 PHEV emissions relative to the gasoline RAV4, just that the study you linked doesn't really support making any specific claims about that model. The report only mentions Toyota once, where it is lumped into an "others" category on a chart along with Ford, Hyundai, JLR, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Suzuki. [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-the-growing-phev-emissions-scandal https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q_dlfQFyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q_dlfQFyg
- olyjohn 7mo ago
  What limitations stop someone from plugging them in regularly? If you have a charger at home, what stops people from plugging them in at night? And who cares if this guy is the outlier? You're going to bash on the car because people are dumb and don't know how to operate their cars?
  - dalyons 7mo ago
    The cars fine. It’s great it works for him. I wouldn’t personally buy one today when lots of options for real BEVs exist, but you do you. What I do care about, and why I care that he’s an outlier, is that low range PHEVs mainly exist to get emissions credits for manufacturers so that they can sell more gas cars, and those emission savings aren’t real [1]. You could say everyone’s dumb for using them this way, but clearly the ergonomics of the electrical capabilities in this category are lacking in important ways. And I can’t prove it but I bet the manufacturers have known this for a long time. But adding a plug to a hybrid with a tiny battery was an awfully cheap way to get your existing car counted as “green” for credits, so too tempting. (1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...
armadsen 7mo ago
My experience with my Prius PHEV is the same. I don’t even have a level 2 charger. I just plug it in in the garage overnight, and most days I don’t use any gas. The only time the ICE turns on before my EV range is up is if I hit the windshield defrost button when it’s cold. That’s presumably to prioritize getting heat out through the vents quickly. I’ve never accelerated fast enough, nor gone fast enough to trigger the ICE engine taking over. It’s straight up an EV for my first ~40 miles every day.
jader201 7mo ago
> Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range. That sounds like the real issue, vs. EVs. This sounds like you basically have to plug it in every time you park it. And there’s no way you could do any sort of (even small) road trip without using gas. (For comparison, our EV6 has about 200-250 mile range, and we charge it about once a week or so, give or take, unless we take a road trip.) Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles.
- Marsymars 7mo ago
  > Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles. I keep seeing this repeated, but I kept a detailed decade-plus spreadsheet of maintenace costs for my last ICE car, and ~2/3 of the costs were for components that are common to EVs.
  - jader201 7mo ago
    1. Maintenance isn’t just about cost. It’s about the number of things that move and/or need fluids, and can fail/leak. It’s about dealing with service centers trying to upsell you on every little possible thing that could go wrong. When I take my EV in, it’s for one of two things: I need my tires rotated, or I need new tires. That’s it. There’s no “curtsy inspection” that comes back with literally 40 different things that I could have done to it. 2. Our household has four vehicles: one EV, three ICE vehicles. There’s no way the occasional new tires (rotations are free where we bought our tires) amount to 2/3 the cost of the maintenance needed on our ICE vehicles. It’s probably closer to 1/10. I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV.
    - devmor 7mo ago
      I think you also might be overestimating what the average ICE owner has to take care of. Most Americans don’t keep a car long enough to even pay it off - they’re in an endless loop of trade-ins, meaning that most non-accident damage is covered by warranty. I’ve had my current ICE car for just over 5 years now and finally paid my first out of pocket repair cost: $40 for a new washable air filter. Other than that, my expenditures have been tires and a couple hundred bucks in oil changes that I didn’t want to do myself.
r00fus 7mo ago
I rented a BYD M9 PHEV minivan while on vacation in Cancun, Mexico and other than the vehicle winning over my family in, like 2 days, the mileage was amazing. 1000km range, of which, 180km was battery (that's 520mi of gas + 100mi battery range). PHEVs in the US are gimped by poor regulatory incentives - we should be forcing manufacturers to increase overall range + EV range. If this model were sold in the US by a US manufacturer, I bet the ranges would be halved (and still considered good/decent in comparison to existing alternatives).

by baumy 7mo ago

dalyons 7mo ago

Toyotas hybrid uses gas when you accelerate hard to get that 0-60, it’s a combined system horsepower. Unlike phevs, EREVs are only driven by the electric drive, and the gas system is a series generator, so the EV is fully capable & always doing 100% of the work. PHEVs fundamentally aren’t. Anyway, the real world data from PHEV usage shows you are the outlier, most people don’t bother plugging them in regularly due to their limitations.

baumy 7mo ago
Again, false. You can clearly hear when the combustion engine kicks in and it's indicated in the dash. I can floor it in electric mode and it still gets up to 60 in around 6 seconds, no gas involved. Hybrid mode is probably slightly faster but it's a very marginal difference. I don't believe your last statement because you've been wrong about everything else, and it doesn't make sense. Plugging it in is exactly as easy as literally any electric car, and it simply doesn't have the limitations you claim it does. I don't know what you've been reading, but you should evaluate the veracity of it as a source and talk to actual owners. I know several others who have one and we're all quite happy with them and don't get gas often
- dalyons 7mo ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-... “ The researchers attributed most of the gap to overestimates of the “utility factor” – the ratio of miles travelled in electric mode to the total miles travelled – finding that 27% of driving was done in electric mode even though official estimates assumed 84%. ” Perhaps the rav4 prime @ 41ml max ev range is a better system than all the other low range PHEVs like it, and has better real world usage data than them. I doubt it though, but I don’t have the data on just the rav.
  - wanderr 7mo ago
    0 mention of rav4 in this article which seems to be about European cars.
    - dalyons 7mo ago
      European registered cars. The RAV4 PHEV is a popular car in Europe so is assuredly well represented in this data set of 800,000 phevs.
      - freetime2 7mo ago
        It's an interesting article - thanks for sharing! The original report is worth reading too. [1] I agree with the premise. The "utility factor" used to estimate fuel efficiency for PHEVs does not line up with real-world data, which effectively creates a loophole to avoid emissions regulations and keep selling gas guzzlers. This is a problem, and should be fixed. In regards to which cars are most to blame: > Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW account for the lion’s share of fines avoided over the past three years, together responsible for 89% of the total. This is a recent trend where luxury carmakers are using PHEVs to circumvent emissions regulations. The latest BMW M5 [2], for example, is a PHEV with a monster 4.4L V8 engine. Car enthusiasts actually hate it compared to the old model because the hybrid system increased the weight by 1000 lbs. But making it a PHEV is probably the only way that BMW is still able to sell a V8. It seems kind of stupid all around. The RAV4 PHEV is also a big, heavy (4,500 lb) car with a large (by European standards) 2.5L engine. But I would hesitate to lump it in with luxury cars from BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, etc. I would also hesitate to apply findings from a European study to the US market, where large gasoline cars are currently very popular (not that every discussion needs to be about the US - but the RAV4 is the best selling car in the US so it's important to that market). Not saying you're wrong about RAV4 PHEV emissions relative to the gasoline RAV4, just that the study you linked doesn't really support making any specific claims about that model. The report only mentions Toyota once, where it is lumped into an "others" category on a chart along with Ford, Hyundai, JLR, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Suzuki. [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-the-growing-phev-emissions-scandal https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q_dlfQFyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q_dlfQFyg
olyjohn 7mo ago
What limitations stop someone from plugging them in regularly? If you have a charger at home, what stops people from plugging them in at night? And who cares if this guy is the outlier? You're going to bash on the car because people are dumb and don't know how to operate their cars?
- dalyons 7mo ago
  The cars fine. It’s great it works for him. I wouldn’t personally buy one today when lots of options for real BEVs exist, but you do you. What I do care about, and why I care that he’s an outlier, is that low range PHEVs mainly exist to get emissions credits for manufacturers so that they can sell more gas cars, and those emission savings aren’t real [1]. You could say everyone’s dumb for using them this way, but clearly the ergonomics of the electrical capabilities in this category are lacking in important ways. And I can’t prove it but I bet the manufacturers have known this for a long time. But adding a plug to a hybrid with a tiny battery was an awfully cheap way to get your existing car counted as “green” for credits, so too tempting. (1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

armadsen 7mo ago

My experience with my Prius PHEV is the same. I don’t even have a level 2 charger. I just plug it in in the garage overnight, and most days I don’t use any gas. The only time the ICE turns on before my EV range is up is if I hit the windshield defrost button when it’s cold. That’s presumably to prioritize getting heat out through the vents quickly. I’ve never accelerated fast enough, nor gone fast enough to trigger the ICE engine taking over. It’s straight up an EV for my first ~40 miles every day.

jader201 7mo ago

> Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range. That sounds like the real issue, vs. EVs. This sounds like you basically have to plug it in every time you park it. And there’s no way you could do any sort of (even small) road trip without using gas. (For comparison, our EV6 has about 200-250 mile range, and we charge it about once a week or so, give or take, unless we take a road trip.) Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles.

Marsymars 7mo ago
> Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles. I keep seeing this repeated, but I kept a detailed decade-plus spreadsheet of maintenace costs for my last ICE car, and ~2/3 of the costs were for components that are common to EVs.
- jader201 7mo ago
  1. Maintenance isn’t just about cost. It’s about the number of things that move and/or need fluids, and can fail/leak. It’s about dealing with service centers trying to upsell you on every little possible thing that could go wrong. When I take my EV in, it’s for one of two things: I need my tires rotated, or I need new tires. That’s it. There’s no “curtsy inspection” that comes back with literally 40 different things that I could have done to it. 2. Our household has four vehicles: one EV, three ICE vehicles. There’s no way the occasional new tires (rotations are free where we bought our tires) amount to 2/3 the cost of the maintenance needed on our ICE vehicles. It’s probably closer to 1/10. I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV.
  - devmor 7mo ago
    I think you also might be overestimating what the average ICE owner has to take care of. Most Americans don’t keep a car long enough to even pay it off - they’re in an endless loop of trade-ins, meaning that most non-accident damage is covered by warranty. I’ve had my current ICE car for just over 5 years now and finally paid my first out of pocket repair cost: $40 for a new washable air filter. Other than that, my expenditures have been tires and a couple hundred bucks in oil changes that I didn’t want to do myself.

r00fus 7mo ago

I rented a BYD M9 PHEV minivan while on vacation in Cancun, Mexico and other than the vehicle winning over my family in, like 2 days, the mileage was amazing. 1000km range, of which, 180km was battery (that's 520mi of gas + 100mi battery range). PHEVs in the US are gimped by poor regulatory incentives - we should be forcing manufacturers to increase overall range + EV range. If this model were sold in the US by a US manufacturer, I bet the ranges would be halved (and still considered good/decent in comparison to existing alternatives).