Hybrids vs EVs - of time, energy, cost and... happiness!

It occurs to me, thinking about ICE cars versus hybrids versus EVs yet again that, in addition to all the points I’ve covered so far in my video series, that there’s also a time and convenience factor.

Time is a factor when recharging takes much of it, of course. And convenience is hit if there’s a significant time penalty, plus there’s the inconvenience of having to stop to charge more often in the first place. But I’m not bashing EVs here, as I’ll explain after a couple of data points.

First of all, traditional ICE (internal combustion engine) cars, typified by my outgoing Ford C-Max family car: I managed to get 40mpg out of it across all journeys, it cost £70 (and about three minutes) to fill its sizeable tank from scratch, giving me 450 miles of range. 

Then we have my current ‘self-charging’ Toyota Yaris Cross hybrid, with a much smaller petrol tank but a 1kWh hybrid battery, constantly renewed within the battery ‘sweet’ range when the engine is on. I’m getting 75mpg average across all journeys, and it costs exactly £35 (and about two minutes) to fill from empty, giving me near enough 500 miles of range.

So roughly twice as efficient, for the same range per pit-stop, as it were.

Then we have EVs, which vary a lot from the formula. I’ve been gathering data from friends, and things depend hugely, you won’t be surprised to learn, according to whether charging is done at home or on the road, at service stations. Both in cost, with at home or work charging differing from on-the-road charging by being often ten times as expensive. In my questioning, I found costs as low as £10, pro rata, to charge at home overnight, right up to £140, pro rata, for 500 miles on a long road trip at public points. So my £35 for 500 miles in the hybrid is in between the two, as expected.

But it’s time which is the interesting bit here. I mean, cost is something everyone is aware of, though you wouldn’t buy an EV in the first place unless you knew you could charge it at home or work and thus largely avoid expensive service station charge points. But time and convenience also weigh in here.

When charging at home, it’ll be overnight, of course, when you’re tucked up in bed and when your electricity rate is cheapest. And there’s zero inconvenience to you, as it’s happening on your own drive. The relative nightmare is having to charge on the road, at the mercy of available and working chargers and exaggerated charging tariffs, plus also having to hang around for 30 minutes to an hour while the charging happens. 

Happily, with EV range being typically 300 miles plus - though less in the UK winter and at night - most owners hopefully won’t need to tackle public chargers very often. Extrapolating to my own situation, If I had an EV then every regular local and semi-local journey could be easily covered by - say - a 200 mile guaranteed all-weather ‘there and back’ range. 

And a couple of times a year, I face a 250 mile each way trek, to two different rural places, in each case with no domestic charging possible at my destination. So in each case there would be at least one, one-hour public charge station stop. But two lots of an hour and two lots of the best part of £100 in a year of driving is quite bearable, I think.

So no, I’m not knocking EVs here. More pointing out the semi-obvious point that EVs only make sense if you can charge fully at home, on a drive or in a garage, and on EV-aware energy tariffs. Although this does apply to me, I felt I couldn’t justify the extra cost - and taxes - of going all electric in one go. And I contend that a really good hybrid gets a lot of the way there at lower initial cost and with more flexibility.

At least in the short to medium term. And yes, after all, being able to top up 500 miles of fuel in two minutes for £35, with no planning, in any village or town in any country, does have a certain appeal!

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