Wooster

Wooster , 3 months ago

When I saw the headline, I thought this was clickbait, since the headline and the linked article avoided quantifying how much CO2 the vehicles said they consumed vs the real world usage.

Table in Question

If you dig into the cited materials, it turns out it wasn’t hyperbole.

That said, I still consider it extremely poor form to omit the information the study was centering its argument around.

Wooster , 3 months ago

To be fair, I’m really just judging the EC’s article writer. Not the trustworthiness of EC or the study itself.

Wooster , 3 months ago

TBH, the most astonishing reveal from the study for me was that Hybrid owners weren’t charging their vehicles. Unfortunately, the why isn’t covered in the study since it seems to just be hard math and statistical analysis.

Are they just not plugging in at night?

Too frustrated with the battery draining too quickly?

Driving too far for the battery to meaningfully contribute between charges?

Is the extra hardware mass making the ICE that much less efficient?

Laziness from having to fill both the battery and the gas tank?

Wooster , 3 months ago

I feel like this is a large portion of the missing puzzle pieces. The difference between real world and advertised ICE stats are somewhat padded, but not significantly. You'd expect the hybrids to have a similar degree of discrepancy, but it's wildly out of range of expectations. It may simply be that the manufacturers are giving idealized stats, since while testing they would have access to their personal charger in a laboratory environment. But in the real world, owners cannot guarantee working/accessable chargers or even that they can charge at home, which would dramatically impact the results of this study.

Or at least, I'd assume that's the case in the US. I don't know what EU's charging infrastructure is like, where the study was preformed.