Charging

The car industry begins going all-in on electric, phasing out hybrids

Tuesday, August 13, 2019 by Snacks

Can I borrow your car charger?... GM and Volkswagen are ditching the hybrid technology that Toyota made famous with the Prius back in the 90s. Here's a cheat sheet on conventional vs. hybrid vs. electric as they go long on plug-ins.

  • Conventional: An engine burns gasoline, which pumps pistons up and down, which spins your wheels (we skipped over some physics and engineering).
  • Electric: A battery powers a motor which vrooms you forward. The downside — pricey batteries make e-cars $6K-10K more expensive than conventional ones on average (but tax incentives and gas savings make up for some/all of that).
  • Hybrid: A little bit of both. Drivers want to help Mother Earth, but crave the warm-fuzzy feeling of an engine. Hybrid tech costs about $2K extra compared to a conventional car.

Hybrid upped America's MPG... but barely. According to the WSJ, the carmakers are realizing hybrid isn't cutting greenhouse gases enough for the future, especially with Europe and China's aggressive environmental plans. Ford, Volvo, and Toyota though are sticking to hybrid because some customers aren't ready to go cold turkey with regular unleaded.

THE TAKEAWAY

Companies can only make so many bets... A car CEO has a ridiculous menu of expensive things she could invest in — autonomous driving, car sharing, pickup trucks, hybrids, and electric. Each buck spent on hybrid tech is a buck not spent on those other things. More car bosses believe hybrid's era is coming to a close soon.

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