Quote:
Originally Posted by 8sPOT
But even if you dont bother plugging in, wont the battery still charge through re-gen braking? Essentially operating similar to a regular hybrid? I dont understand how or why the battery would be at 0%.
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It is essentially just a normal hybrid if you don't plug in. The reason that study found 5-7x worse emissions was because the EPA emissions number comes from assuming very regular plugging in and only occasional is off the gas engine. A regular hybrid would emit 5-7x more CO2 than a plug in hybrid if plugged in every day.
I'd caution reading applying that study to North America though as it looked at 3 vehicles in Europe where a) the ownership model was mostly company vehicles which is way more common there and meant that the people driving them didn't choose that vehicle, and b) many people didn't have a place at home to plug in anyways. Neither of those are as common here. Most people owning a plug in hybrid here will have a place to plug it in and will pay for it themselves so they'll know about the savings of charging it at home.