Interest in PHEVs increased to 60 per cent from 54 per cent last year, according to recent data from AutoTrader.Jeremy Sinek/The Globe and Mail
Not all Canadians are amped up about electric cars, but there’s growing buzz about plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which combine an electric battery big enough to handle most daily drives with a gas engine for longer trips.
According to recent data from AutoTrader, interest in buying an electric vehicle, a category that includes full battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and PHEVs, dropped to 46 per cent in 2024, from 56 per cent in 2023 and 68 per cent in 2022. But of those people considering going electric, interest in PHEVs increased to 60 per cent from 54 per cent last year, while interest in BEVs, which rely entirely on electric power, decreased to 50 per cent from 53 per cent.
You’ve been sending us lots of questions about how PHEVs work, and we encourage you to keep them coming. Here are just a few:
When does the gas engine kick in on PHEVs? Does it ever produce zero tailpipe emissions while driving? – Ben, Calgary
It depends on the PHEV. Most PHEVs, including Toyota’s, offer an electric-only mode (Toyota calls it EV mode) that uses the battery alone until it runs out of juice (after about 68 kilometres on the RAV4 Prime PHEV). Then the gas engine kicks in.
“When driving in EV mode, our Toyota and Lexus PHEVs are entirely zero-emissions vehicles,” Romaric Lartilleux, a spokesman for Toyota Canada, said in an e-mail.
But you’ll be kicked out of Toyota’s EV mode and the gas engine will kick in if you’re driving faster than 135 kilometres an hour, if you turn on the heater when it’s below -10 C outside or if you turn on the windshield defogger, Lartilleux said.
Some PHEVs’ EV modes are mostly electric. In Kia’s PHEVs, for example, the engine may kick in briefly in EV mode any time the car needs more power – for example, if you hit the accelerator to pass another vehicle or crank up the heat.
If you’re not in EV mode, most PHEVs default to a hybrid mode, where the car switches between the gas engine and electric motor, or lets them work together, depending on your battery level and speed.
“We’ve found that PHEV drivers spend about 55 per cent of their drive in electric mode,” Jennifer Okoeguale, a spokeswoman for Volvo Canada, said in an e-mail.
I rented an EV with one-pedal driving and I liked the feature. My partner hated it. Do PHEVs have it? – Terry, Winnipeg
All PHEVs have regenerative braking, also known as regen, but not many have true one-pedal driving.
In simple terms, regenerative braking captures the energy from braking to recharge the battery. On most hybrids and PHEVs, it’s barely noticeable – you hit the brakes like you would in any car. But on some PHEVs, you can set the force of the regen. The stronger it is, the more the car will slow down as you ease off the gas pedal.
If the car has one-pedal driving, however, you can use regen to slow down to a complete stop without using the brake pedal at all. So, you can drive with just the gas pedal, like you can with a golf cart.
Some other PHEVs, such as the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, have a setting that will slow the car down almost to a stop, but isn’t truly one-pedal. You still need to use the brakes.
While the regen will give power back to the battery, it’s typically not enough to fully recharge it.
Can I charge a PHEV at a DC fast charger? – Barbara, Moncton
In most instances, no.
There are three levels of charging. From slowest to fastest, Level 1 (a standard 120-volt outlet), Level 2 (a 240-volt outlet) and Level 3 (commonly known as DC fast chargers).
Home charging is either Level 1 or Level 2 (if you have a 240-volt outlet). Public chargers are Level 2 or DC fast charging. A fast charge can generally take most full battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) to an 80 per cent charge from 10 per cent in 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the car and the charger.
But most PHEVs can use only Level 1 and Level 2 chargers; they’re not equipped for Level 3 DC fast charging.
“A PHEV is a hybrid with the added benefit of being able to drive in electric mode first,” Jennifer Szmilko, a spokeswoman for Kia Canada, said in an e-mail. “You can take longer trips in a PHEV without having to stop to charge the battery and still have efficient [gasoline] fuel economy.”
One PHEV that does allow DC fast charging is Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV. Its 20-kilowatt-hour battery, with up to 61 kilometres of range, will charge up to 80 per cent in about 38 minutes at a DC fast charger – compared with 6.5 hours at a Level 2 charger or 16 hours at a Level 1.
Should I be charging a PHEV every night? What happens if I don’t? Will the car itself still recharge the battery for me? – Jon, Edmonton
How often you need to plug in depends on how far you need to drive on an average day, Toyota’s Romaric Lartilleux said.
“If the commute is short, the range [of up to 68 kilometres for Toyota’s RAV4 Prime or 72 kilometres for the Prius Prime] might be enough for a few days,” Lartilleux said. “If the commuting distance is longer, then yes, charging the vehicle every night would make sense.”
If the battery runs down while you’re driving, the car then drives like a normal hybrid – it will switch between gas and electric drive automatically, he said.
But you likely won’t gain back enough juice while driving to run it with zero emissions in EV mode, he said.
“The vehicle will use regenerative braking to recharge the battery, but [it can’t capture] enough to give a significant amount of electricity to increase the EV range,” Lartilleux said. “So, with a depleted battery, a RAV4 Prime will drive like a RAV4 hybrid.”
(A little context: Conventional hybrids, such as the RAV4 hybrid and the Toyota Prius, run on gasoline and never need to be plugged in. While they use regenerative braking to power a small electric motor that makes them more energy efficient, they’re not in the same league as BEVs and PHEVs, since they can’t run solely on electric power.)
While a PHEV will run like a conventional hybrid even if you never plug it in, it will emit more CO2 and use more gas than advertised.
“The best way to get the most out of a plug-in hybrid is to charge it regularly,” Kia’s Szmilko said.
Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and put ‘Driving Concerns’ in your subject line. E-mails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada’s a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.