Not quite at the electric vehicle stage? How about a hybrid?

By Rob Shorrock, Moruya resident and Southcoast Health and Sustainability Alliance (SHASA) committee member

If you are thinking about moving to an electric vehicle (EV), and you can’t wait for the battery range to rise to your comfort zone, you may want to consider hybrids, or better still, plug-in hybrids.

Hybrid cars have petrol motors boosted by a powerful electric motor. They have small batteries which can only be charged by the on-board generator and very limited electric-only range. But, the combination gives good performance and very low fuel consumption. The Toyota Corolla hybrid sells for around $30,000 and it only uses 4.2 L/100km and has a 600km range. There are a lot of hybrid cars sold in Australia now.

Plugin hybrids are similar but have larger batteries which can be charged at home or from a charge station and give around 60-70km of electric range. So, if your daily commute is within this range your fuel cost would be dramatically reduced. A 60km battery charge would cost $3 or only $1 if you can charge from your solar. The Hyundai Ioniq Plug-in has 77kw petrol engine, a 44kw electric motor and a 9kwh lithium iron battery, which gives it 60km electric range and 900km range on a tank of fuel. The quoted consumption figure is 1.1L/100km, but I suspect that this figure is achieved with a lot of short electric-only trips. The fuel consumption would be around 4 to 5 L/100km on a trip. There are not many plug-in hybrids for sale. I found only the Hyundai Ioniq plug-in, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, Ford Escape Hybrid, Mini Countryman Hybrid, Mercedes A250e, Mercedes C300e and Volvo XC40 Recharge, Volvo XC60 T7 Polestar, BMW 330e and BMW530e. See here for details.

I must mention my Holden Volt, that we bought second hand. It’s a bit different to from other hybrids as it is always driven by the 110kw electric motor. It has a 1.4 litre petrol motor, which only drives a generator and supplies power to the electric drive motor and charges the battery. So, when in hybrid mode the electric drive pulls power from both the battery and the generator and when braking or going downhill, it stores power back in the battery. The Volt gives me around 70km electric range and 800km range in hybrid mode with fuel consumption around 6L/100km in hybrid mode. I charge my Volt from my solar panels and get most of my local driving without using any petrol.

Suzanne Shorrock with her Holden Volt hybrid