If most of your journeys are longer motorway drives, a pure electric car with a long range could be suitable as long as you’re able to replenish its batteries after each long drive. This is because you’re lugging around the additional weight of its electric battery pack.Īdd this to the fact that PHEVs tend to cost more to buy than petrol or diesel rivals, and this could mean your motoring costs are higher than they could be. The main downside of owning a PHEV is that it’s likely to have poorer fuel economy than a conventionally-powered alternative when it’s driven using the engine rather than the electric motor. What are the disadvantages of plug-in hybrid cars? On average it costs 12p per mile to drive a petrol-engined car, this drops to just 5p per mile for trips made on electric power if you charge up at home at a rate of 14p per kilowatt hour.Īnother advantage of both conventional hybrids and PHEVs is that they do away with the ‘range anxiety’ associated with electric vehicles: because there’s also a combustion engine, you won’t suddenly run out of range.

The benefits will be most keenly felt if you are able to make shorter journeys using all or mostly electric power, and as long as you remember to charge up the car’s batteries in-between every trip. The main advantage of running any PHEV is that it will have better fuel economy (and lower CO2 emissions) than a conventional combustion-engined car. This is great for anyone who wants a quick top-up, but it costs around five times as much as charging up at home. There are more than 35,000 public charge points at 13,000 locations around the UK, and a growing number of them offer very high rates of charging.Įcotricity's ageing motorway service station charging network is being replaced by Gridserve, and this company's 350kW ultra-rapid chargers can provide a 10% to 80% charge for a compatible electric car in just 20 minutes. A 7.4kW wall charger of the type commonly installed in homes or workplace car parks will complete a charge around three hours.Īlternatively, you may be able to get a faster energy fix at a rapid public charging point if your PHEV is able to charge at a higher speed. Using a 3kW household plug is the slowest option a full charge is likely to take five or six hours, depending on the size of your car’s battery pack. You can charge a PHEV with a conventional, household three-pin plug, a wall charger or a public charging point.

What is a plug in hybrid vehicle