The truth about buying a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) in 2022 and 2023
QUESTION
Hi John,
I work overseas and will be back home in Australia at the end of 2023, with plans to buy a new car in advance.
The four vehicles on our shortlist are Kia Sportage PHEV and Sorento PHEV, the Ford Escape PHEV and Mini Countryman Hybrid. We want a delivery date of January 2024, if possible. But because of the disruption to supply chains, the Australian auto market seems a bit wobbly and expensive at the moment. What do you recommend?
Although there is 19+ months to go between now and then, we are interested in getting the PHEV SUV upon our return at the end of next year. We don’t want to have to wait around to get ours delivered. We don’t want to overpay, either.
On which model could you get us the best deal?
What would be the risks of a blowout in delivery time?
What are the risks that these models could be superseded by the time we get back?
And do you think it’s worth getting a plug-in hybrid? Surely they have to be worth the money given how urgently we all need to stop emitting carbon dioxide.
Thanks for your advice.
Donald
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ANSWER
Hi Donald,
Okay, unfortunately I cannot predict the future, but that would be a valuable skill. Insiders tell me supply chain recovery for the car market is looking like 2024, Q1. But you have to ask ‘how would they know?’
So the obvious risk here for you is: You lock yourself in now at some fairly steep price because supply is eclipsed by demand, then the market returns to normal and you feel ripped-off because the price you agreed to pay in 2022 is higher than you could get as a walk-up start in Jan 2024. Obviously everything could worsen again, because the future is un-knowable.
Obviously if things improve dramatically and the car is suddenly available $5k cheaper, or something, you’d just walk away from the contract, lose your $1k deposit (or whatever) and buy it $5k cheaper from another dealer. In other words, the only risk is the deposit, or the risk that despite your meticulous pre-planning, everything goes to hell again.
If you really need a car when you arrive back in Australia, there’s no choice, really. You have to order one now - and here’s what you need to know about buying right now >>.
The supply chains are fragile. Anything could happen. So if you don’t buy new now, you could get back here with no car, meaning you rent one or buy a late-model used car in the interim.
Let’s address your shortlist:
You’re not seriously considering a MINI or a Ford, are you? Ford is appalling at customer service and reliability, and MINI is commercially nowhere in Australia, so it’s a depreciation disaster.
When you ask about the ‘best deal’, consider that Sportage and Sorento are different-sized cars, at different price points. It’s probably better to think in terms of buying a car that’s the right size. Less important is obsessing about a powertrain type with, let’s face it, questionable environmental virtue.
So exactly what’s the benefit to you of a PHEV? Let me clarify why I’m not raving about PHEVs.
If you put a 14kWh battery and electric motor (or similar) in a car, you add about 200kg of mass, which, by the way, means expensive materials that have to be mined and intensively industrially processed at significant enviro cost. This extra weight impacts tyre wear, and other in-service ‘wear’ related matters.
Sure, you can drive it in EV mode, for about 50km - provided you drive gently, and provided the battery is full. Keep in mind, charging batteries to 100% reduces their life. If you demand more than the electric motor’s peak capacity of 67kW, at any time, the combustion engine will activate.
The ‘green economics’ of these vehicles, the point at which they overtake ICE equivalents on lifecycle CO2, are unclear. Also, they’re $15k more than ICE, so you have to drive well-over a hundred thousand kilometres to break even on price. So, 100,000-150,000km+ is a typical break-even point.
It depends where the electricity comes from, and how much EV-only driving actually gets done. PHEVs on the highway, for long trips, the battery is quickly exhausted, and there’s very little regenerative braking, so the extra 200kg is just excess baggage in those operating conditions. Most people go into ‘green virtue’ mode without considering the physics here. The two advantages of (EVs and) PHEVs are: Clean air in densely populated cities, and national fuel security (if widely adopted). Everything else is just greenwashing marketing spin.
If a MINI is big enough for you, then a Sorento is too big, and the extra mass will destroy any vestigial enviro-type advantage of the underlying tech. Why? Because the 1st law of thermodynamics is funny like that. As a mechanical engineer, obsessed by the facts, if you just want a PHEV, that’s okay. But it’s probably better if there’s some defensible logic underpinning this nice-sounding idea.
Sorento and Sportage PHEV are unlikely to be superseded by early 2024. They’re fairly new in terms of the respective platforms' lifecycles. The Ford and MINI? Well, they’re unlikely, because carmakers are keen to latch on to all the purported green virtue they can. Of course, with all of them, features, spec and price might change during the meantime.
Hope this helps you understand the reality a bit better.
Good luck.
John Cadogan
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