Plug-In Hybrid-Electric Vehicle Owners Plug Them In Most Days - Here’s How We Know

One very interesting type of electrified vehicle is the plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle, also called a PHEV. This type of vehicle can operate only on electricity, or it can act as a hybrid-electric vehicle. At no time do PHEVs act “like old-fashioned gas cars.” Lately, advocacy publications and advocates for battery-only vehicles have been publishing stories that question whether these vehicles are ever actually plugged in. Let’s examine that challenge by jumping right into some polls we conducted. You can view the results here and join the Facebook groups yourself if you wish.

J.D. Power and PlugShare Team Up To Highlight How PHEVs Are Used
Now that we’ve looked at what owners themselves say in informal polls we conducted let’s examine what the professionals find when they seek to determine how often PHEV owners plug in. We spoke to Frank Hanley, Senior Director of Auto Benchmarking at J.D. Power. We simply asked Mr. Hanley if J.D. Power had any information on how PHEV owners use their vehicles and how often they plug them in. He replied, “Yes.” 

Mr. Hanley went on to explain that JD. Power had conducted two separate studies of EV owners, specifically PHEV owners, to determine how often they plug them in. “During a typical week, a PHEV owner charges their vehicle 5.5 days,” he told us on the record. That indicates that PHEV owners are using the EV mode and traction battery quite a bit. We also learned from Mr. Hanley that “The average (PHEV) owner is getting 35 miles on a full charge.  With the low being 24 miles and the high being 45 miles.” This jives very closely with our own testing of vehicles like the Toyota RAV4 Prime. 

J.D. Power gleaned this information from two surveys it conducted. The mileage data comes from the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, and the charging frequency is from the J.D. Power Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Ownership Study. That second study was conducted in partnership with PlugShare. These studies are primarily conducted for manufacturers who pay for the full study content. However, J.D. Power releases summaries free for public and media use. You can jump directly to the studies by clicking the links provided. 

Have Manufacturers Ever Released Data on PHEV Usage?
Yes, Ford was one of the first manufacturers to go hard with PHEVs. They did so in Europe, and their top seller was the Kuga crossover, which we know as the Escape PHEV here in America. Ford created the infographic you see above to help answer questions related to how owners use their PHEVs. Ford's data showed that PHEV owners were plugging in 89 out of 100 days. No other manufacturer has released any similar data that we are aware of. 

Why Buy a PHEV In the First Place?
PHEVs cost a bit more than hybrid-electric vehicles. They have batteries that are larger than hybrid-electric vehicles’ and a charging port. Aside from those two differences, they are basically identical to hybrid-electrics. Plugging in has multiple benefits. These include

1. More power and torque when the hybrid battery has enough state of charge to allow for EV-only driving. 
2. A quieter and smoother powertrain sensation when EV mode is engaged.
3. Local emissions-free driving.
4. In areas where electricity is less expensive, the cost per mile of energy can be lower. (The inverse is true in markets like Metro Boston).
5. The ability to add no-cost energy in certain situations, such as in the workplace and at retail outlets. 
6. Greater total range.
7. The ability to provide power to a home during a power outage. Case in point, Jeep’s Powerbox. 

Since PHEVs cost more than equivalent hybrid-electric models, it only makes sense that buyers would plug them in regularly to take advantage of the many benefits offered by the all-electric mode of operation. 

Why Do EV-only Advocates Think PHEV Owners Don’t Charge Them?
PHEVs seem to annoy a vocal minority of green vehicle advocates who feel everyone in all situations should be mandated to drive a battery-only vehicle. They list many reasons for feeling this way. Included among their annoyances are the following: We have added our thoughts to accompany these.

• Automotive manufacturers are reluctant to share data related to how often owners charge and how many miles are all-electric. Our Thoughts—Why are these advocates so concerned about this? Do they also wring their hands about how many track days Corvettes have, how many days three-row SUVs are driven completely full with eight passengers, or how many days Ford Broncos spend off-road? 
• Battery-only advocates fret about the possibility that federal tax incentives or local EV subsidies may be shared with PHEV buyers. Our Thoughts - None of the EV incentives we know of have limits. What harm is done by incentivizing the purchase of the second-most efficient autos available? 
• Battery-Only advocates say quite commonly on social media posts that a PHEV that is not plugged in is less efficient than a conventional vehicle or that they operate “as gas-powered vehicles” when they are not plugged in. Our Take - This is either ignorance of how PHEVs operate or deliberate misinformation. PHEVs revert to being hybrids when they are not all-electric. They operate on a combination of gas, ethanol, and electricity gained from regenerative braking, just as all hybrid-electric vehicles do. 
• Battery-only advocates often comment, "PHEVs have double the complexity and twice the problems of EVs or conventional vehicles.” Our Take: It is easy to understand how folks unfamiliar with hybrids and PHEVs come to this conclusion. It seems logical at a glance. However, if you look deeper, it is simply incorrect. In the case of the best and most widely made PHEVs, Toyota, for example, the PHEV and hybrid-electric components replace parts of the conventional powertrain design. They do not layer on top of the old stuff. For example, there is no starter, no alternator, no accessory belts, no timing belts, and no front-to-rear driveshaft in the powertrain. The electric motors reside in the transmission and replace more complex parts. They are not added to the powertrain. Toyota has been making PHEVs for the longest time, and its track record of reliability is the best in the industry. Battery-only vehicles, by contrast, have much lower reliability in real-world studies based on owner-supplied data.

Who Did We Poll?
We polled about 25,000 members of three active Facebook Groups. The groups include owners and fans of the Toyota RAV4 Prime, Honda Clarity, and Toyota Prius Prime. All three vehicles are PHEVs. You can see the number of votes in the screenshots that are higher up in this story. We were not looking for volume or details here. What we wanted to find out was what percent of respondents plug in daily and drive mostly on electricity and what percent don’t. You can be the judge of the polling results. This is far from a scientific poll, but if you look at the comments, you can learn a lot about how owners actually use these plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles. What we found in our informal polling matched up very closely with what PlugShare, J.D. Power, and Ford report. 

What Is Journalism and What Is Activism?
Is journalism waiting for a meteorologist to report the weather and then commenting on how much you dislike rain? I’d say no to that, but this seems to be what the battery-only advocates are doing. They want automakers to “release data” so they can criticize green vehicles that don’t fit their narrow vision of how our vehicles should be powered. 

What We Know For Sure About PHEV Owners
We know from interacting online with owners of PHEVs that many try very hard to maximize the electric-only range their vehicles provide. Many brag about not buying gas for months at a time. Others actually worry that they use so little gas it may go stale in the vehicle. This is just one type of PHEV owner. Yet, we know they are there because they post images and charts of their operation. They pride themselves on using their PHEV primarily as an electric-only vehicle. 

At the other end of the spectrum, some PHEV owners will tell you without hesitation that they wish they had simply bought a hybrid version of their particular model because they can’t or don’t bother to charge very often. 

What Do We Experience When Testing PHEVs?
We’ve tested many different plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle models over the past decade. In the case of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV and Prius Prime, we have tested multiple generations of that same vehicle. We can charge from home, so our experience would be that of a person who has that luxury. In our testing, we normally charge the vehicles every time we park. The exception being if we do a short local run of only a few miles. 

By charging often, we experience the full capability of the PHEV model we are testing. Most have their maximum power and torque when both the electric motor(s) and the liquid fuel engine are operating at once. In our normal driving, we usually use EV-only mode. Sometimes, on longer trips that will exceed the PHEV’s all-electric range, we will opt to use the liquid-fuel engine on the highway and save the EV range for suburban and city driving. This makes the most of one’s charge. On some very long trips, we use up the EV range and then have the luxury of covering a lot of miles in hybrid mode. On occasion, we will charge locally on level 2 chargers if it is convenient. However, that is not usually necessary, so we purposely save that charging spot for a driver burdened with a battery-only powertrain who may be in need. 

Summary - PHEV Usage
We hope this overview, which cites multiple sources and source types, helps our readers understand how plug-in owners use hybrid-electric vehicles. If you own one, feel free to post a comment about your usage profile. We value your comments. 
 

Source & Research Notes: Our thanks for J.D. Power's assistance and data sharing. We also wish to point out that we reached out to Consumer Reports to see if any added data could be incorporated. As always, CR was very helpful and provided us with some suggestions on where data may be uncovered. Thank you, Douglas Love and Frank Hanley. We reached out to manufacturers other than Ford and received polite answers from multiple manufacturers, but none were willing to share firm data. Multiple manufacturers did offer informal comments such as "We remain committed to providing a choice of green vehicle powertrains to our valued customers." 

John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading. 

Image of plug-in hybrid logo by John Goreham. Kuga infographic courtesy of Ford. Outlander PHEV charging image by John Goreham.