'When they did the real-life study they found for private cars the electric motor kicked in 50 per cent of the time.'Īnd for company cars, which are driven more often and for longer distances, the electric motor was only used 15 per cent of the time.
'The testing procedure said the vehicle would drive around 70–80 per cent on electric motor,' Professor Dia said. The combustion engine generally kicked in much more often than realised when the car was driven in 'real-world' conditions. It found PHEVs consumed three to five times more fuel than had been officially declared and communicated to consumers One of these, a 2022 study by the Washington DC-based International Council of Clean Transportation (ICCCT), tested 9,000 private and company PHEVs in Europe. In recent years, a series of studies has shown PHEVs are much dirtier than previously thought PHEV sales are still rising, but their market share is falling sharply. In the past year, however, fully battery electric SUV sales have outstripped those of plug-in hybrid SUVs. 'From a sustainability point of view they were meant as a transition technology, not the end game.' 'A lot of people have become sceptical of PHEVs,' Professor Dia said.
To an extent, EV statistics were hiding an increase in the sale of large cars that continued to burn fossil fuels. This was concerning on environmental grounds, as a PHEV SUV can be just as polluting as some low-emission ICEVs.
