Pitched as a great compromise for the environmentally conscious yet road-tripping driver, plug-in hybrids — or PHEVs — have a few problems.
For one, people aren’t plugging them in.
Study after study show these vehicles — which boast an electric motor for emission-free rides and a gas engine for longer range — are actually being used more in gas mode. This means they’re polluting a lot more than a customer might think.
Critics argue this discrepancy lets manufacturers get an attractive fuel consumption rating based on ideal conditions that aren’t being met by many drivers.
And as Canada considers the future of its electric vehicle regulations, there are questions about how plug-ins should count.
Lab vs. real world
PHEVs are about one per cent to three per cent of new Canadian car registrations in the last five years. Despite being the smallest chunk of electric car sales, that still amounts to hundreds of thousands of these vehicles on Canadian roads.
The most recent criticism of PHEVs comes from an umbrella group of environmental NGOs, which used real-world fuel consumption data from hundreds of thousands of plug-in hybrids in Europe. The data is collected in the EU as part of regulation to prevent misrepresentation and fraud, taken wirelessly or during maintenance on any new cars after 2021.
The analysis found that electric mode was only used around 30 per cent of the time, despite official assumptions it would be used more than 80 per cent of the time. Carbon emissions were nearly five times higher than projected, and driver behaviour was part of the problem.
“The first generation of plug-in hybrids was not used in electric mode very much,” said Colin McKerracher, who leads the Transport and Energy Storage Group at Bloomberg NEF.
Typically, they had battery ranges of 50 to 80 kilometres and couldn’t fast charge, making it inconvenient for drivers to keep them topped up. In Europe, he says, a lot of these were company cars, further disincentivizing drivers who didn’t have to pay for gas anyway.
Compliance cars
For manufacturers, the incentive to make these cars was clear, experts say. As governments pushed to decarbonize transportation, PHEVs helped meet those new standards, McKerracher says.
“A lot of the early plug-in hybrids that were on the market were really compliance cars,” he told CBC News from Oslo. “They were either to satisfy [environmentally stricter] California regulations or European vehicle CO2 regulations to try and allow automakers to comply with tightening targets.”
At the same time, adding an electric motor could allow cost-savings through the same manufacturing process as non-electric models.
In Canada, PHEVs helped manufacturers meet the Trudeau government’s roadmap to make all new car sales electric by 2035 — a mandate currently paused by the Carney government.
Under that plan, both fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars count towards a manufacturer’s zero-emissions fleet, while traditional hybrids would not. PHEVs could be as much as 45 per cent of a carmaker’s offerings until 2026, eventually decreasing to 20 per cent after a few years.
By 2035, every new car sold in Canada is supposed to be electric or hybrid. But how exactly will the federal government’s electric vehicle mandate work? CBC’s David Thurton explains.
In a statement, Environment and Climate Change Canada said the pause on the EV mandate will “help reduce the economic pressure due to tariffs” and that its review “will consider the way PHEVs are treated under the regulations, among all other relevant considerations.”
David Adams, president and CEO of Global Automakers of Canada, a trade association, said that some flexibility is likely required when applying emissions credits to plug-in hybrids.
At the same time, he warns against treating PHEVs too equally, as automakers have invested heavily into full EV platforms.
“You don’t necessarily want your commitment in that regard undermined by governments providing almost an equivalent credit for something that’s not the same cost,” Adams explained.
The promise of compromise
For consumers, PHEVs can represent a stepping stone between traditional hybrid cars and fully battery-electric vehicles, addressing both range anxiety and a scarcity of charging stations.
As McKerracher puts it, “So that you can still go on that long road trip, but get some of the benefits of electric driving.”
That’s the reality for Marcia Scrimgeour, a retired senior living in Ottawa.
Scrimgeour’s city driving is served well by her 2024 Kia Niro’s 55 kilometre electric range, which she charges at her condo. But when she travels to a cottage in the summer, “there’s no electrical facility — period,” she said.
Canada’s electric charging infrastructure has improved over the years, but forecasts suggest a completely electric future requires hundreds of thousands more charging stations.
On a fixed income, Scrimgeour says her plug-in hybrid helps her save money and she only filled it with gas twice last winter. But Scrimgeour did confirm the other criticism of PHEVs and their greater-than-advertised fuel consumption: the sudden switchover from electric motor to engine.
“The only time it does it unexpectedly is if I accelerate unexpectedly. Like, from a stoplight, if I start up too quickly, despite the fact that I’ve still got lots of electrical charge available,” Scrimgeour said, adding that it switches back after braking.
Scrimgeour is the ideal use-case. But unlike in Europe, there is no widely available data about charging habits of Canadian plug-in drivers. Adam Thorn, director of the transportation program at the Pembina Institute, says it represents an “educational opportunity.”
“To really make sure that those who purchase those vehicles are aware of that opportunity to charge the vehicles overnight, for example,” Thorn explained, “[and] recognize that they’re really not going to get the full fuel savings if they don’t do so.”
In that recent European analysis, the authors also found the real-world consumption meant paying about $800 more than expected at the pump.
After the speed bumps
Thorn sees a future for PHEVs in Canada, which doesn’t involve completely scrapping the mandate, as automakers have called for.
“We really do think it’s a key policy to drive down emissions,” Thorn told CBC News from Oakville, Ont. Pembina’s position recommends letting PHEV models count towards 45 per cent of a manufacturer’s fleet until 2030.
Despite tariff uncertainty and the dismantling of EV supports in the U.S., there is still promise in this category.
McKerracher expects around eight million PHEVs to be sold globally this year, compared to 14 million battery electric cars. What’s more, even with the loss of consumer rebates earlier this year, PHEV sales seem to be holding year over year, especially compared to fully electric cars, which are down by 28,000 registrations compared to the same time last year.
“Right now, the mood seems to be that these represent actually potentially a growing segment of the zero emission vehicle portfolio,” Adams said.
