Electric car cost warning
 

When buying a car, there's lots of aspects to consider. All of these aspects can be roughly calculated and divided into "cost per mile" which gives a rough idea of what your car will cost in it's life, or as long as you own it.

Electric cars are not always that easy. They are marketed in a way to make you think you will save endless amounts of money on fuel costs, but this is not always true! The biggest cost to electric cars is depreciation, in fact, of the 14 different sectors from Supercars, SUV's, Coupes, and family hatchbacks, Electric cars end up at the bottom of the table retaining just 20% of their original price when new. Given that electric cars are quite expensive anyway, this is a HUGE factor for potential owners assuming they are going to save money on fuel.

Then there's the battery lease itself, of which many manufactures now insist on. For some cars, this is as much as £80 ($107) a month, sometimes less, sometimes more depending on how long you want to keep the car and annual mileage. For those that let you buy the car with the battery, one must consider the cost for replacing this battery after a decade or so. Although battery investment and technology is constantly improving, a replacement for a Renault Fluence is currently worth about £7000 ($9400) which again can make any fuel savings over the years pointless.

Here are some examples I found currently for sale.

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A 2012 Renault Fluence with just 20,000 miles on the clock. For sale at £3500 ($4700) it's lost roughly £5000 a year in depreciation, when you factor in the compulsory £80 a month battery lease, it's cost has been £458 a month ($614) or roughly £1.20 a mile! ($1.60) And that's before you've thought about insurance, servicing oh and charging of course.

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Another example, the popular Nissan Leaf. A 3 year old example with 32,000 miles for just £4990 ($6686) Nissan charge £103 per month for a 12,000 mile per annum battery lease, and a mid range Leaf costs around £20,000 ($26800) the cost per mile for depreciation/battery lease is better as this example has done more miles in a shorter time, but it still works out at over £6200 a year ($8350) not forgetting if you charge at home, you'll also be paying about £200 ($270) a year in electricity.

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The just as popular Renault Zoe, a nice low mileage example just 3 years old with 5500 miles on the clock. The price matches the mileage on this one, just £5500 ($7370) The retail price when new, lets assume the battery is included this time, is £20,500 ($27500) so the poor previous owner of this car lost £2.72 ($3.65) a mile in depreciation alone.

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What about a van? Well the popular Kangoo ZE electric van starts at £17298 ($23000) but I spotted an example with 3800 miles on the clock for just £4800 ($6432) a whooping £3.29 ($4.40) per mile before battery leasing costs.

It seems for most models, buying the battery will cost you about an extra £5000 ($6700) which might be a better option, but as you can see, you would be loosing money and lots of it almost immediately! This will of course even out over time, the longer you keep the car, the better in most cases.

So a friendly warning to anyone wanting to adopt this exciting new technology. I'm not trying to scare anyone off, most of us understand electric is the future, but jump on board too early and you could end up a lot worse off.

The good news is that as we all know, the global investment in battery technology will bring the costs down in the future. Perhaps buying a second hand almost new electric car is a wise choice, given the huge initial depreciation, you are likely not to loose anymore on the vehicle itself.

Shop cautiously and be smart and you can pick up a true bargain.

Wow. That is crazy. It definitely makes you think.

What losses we talking about with a Tesla?

My Mirage took a $5k depreciation hit the first year I owned the car, current fuel cost is $.034 US per mile. $3400 for 100k miles. Insurance is about the same. If I just toss the car in the trash at 100k, that would be $.129 ($12.900 total purchase including all taxes, fees, etc. Works out to 21 cents a mile.

A Leaf with 20k miles depreciates about the same amount I paid for the Mirage.

Most Electric Cars will not be worth the cost of a replacement battery when they need one and the figures previously stated make it perfectly clear I made the right choice, understanding I did not want to keep an old car running with frequent repairs.

Tesla are at the top end of the market and have the best product on the market. They are still pretty fresh and relatively rare so depreciation hasn't really affected them yet. It's more your common run of the mill mass produced cars that are taking the hit, and will continue to do so. Who's going to buy a second hand leaf that can only do 60 miles per charge when the new model can do a tickle over 100? As battery tech continues, the range increases every year or so, making the old models less valuable on the 2nd hand market.

The fast depreciation for plug in cars is a temporary thing. Driven in part by the incentives for buying new. In California and Colorado, the total incentives on a new Leaf is close too or over $10k. That isn't calculated into the new price that depreciation is calculated from, but does driven the price of used cars down.

The PICG (plug in car grant) has just been reduced here by 50%, now £2500 instead of £5000, but the prices quoted are including that anyway. At £5000 a year average depreciation, you could actually buy the UK's cheapest new car every year and afford to scrap it for the same cost!

By coincidence, I stumbled across this article today, this poor guy lost £15,000 in just a year and a half and wants to warn others too:

Man warns of electric vehicle depreciation after losing £15,000 on Nissan Leaf in 18 months (From The Northern Echo)

There was a used Tesla for sale in Washington DC, about $30k off sticker in 2 years.
No thanks.

I considered a plug in hybrid, and would have preferred one if available. I never considered pure electric, but that was due to short range, charge time and rarity of charge points. All these other costs, i think i would have put up with if you could get 500 miles on a charge and plug in overnight at any Travelodge.
The battery lease thing just doesnt sit right at all though.
But nice article Paul!

I think plug ins will retain slightly more value as they appeal to a wider market and are more versatile in general. As the popular plug in hybrids haven't been out that long now, it's hard to tell if they are taking a hit or not, but again, they still use big expensive batteries of which the range keeps increasing and the cost keeps falling, so it could be a similar story. It's like when you buy a new phone and 2 years later a bigger better one comes along and yours is worth £20 trade in haha.

Actually I just checked the UK's best selling plug in, the Mitsubishi Outlander. 1 year old with 8,000 miles for just £15,990, that's a sickening 50% loss in a year! (or £1.87 per mile) Oh jeez, this is quite scary...

Looking at the whole e-everything conglomerate of products, it is very frustrating to me to watch how the cordless industry refuses to get together and consider themselves as an industry or group and compete against ICE technologies. And I'm referring to every group of product, from cordless trimmers and hedge clippers, to 50-something passenger buses.

Imagine if you will if after the first 20 years of development, ICE product manufacturers continued to compete with each other on the matter of how fuel would be dispensed in to fuel tanks requiring that certain vehicles or tools have a particular dispenser that is quite expensive and rare and may become discontinued in just a few years in favor of a new fuel-dispensing device, even from the same manufacturer, so that, even if I've got a good base product that is reliable, I may not be able to charge a good battery if my charger goes bad ( my current weed eater), or I may not be able to replace my battery, because even my manufactured product brand may not have a replacement battery.

I've got a Dewalt cordless drill; came with a charger and two 1.5 amp/hr batteries. B&D ( which is the parent company of Dewalt) makes some good weedeaters. I thought I'd choose one of those and have a couple of chargers and three interchangeable batteries, but not even B&D makes their own two brands compatible. Moreover, everything cordless gets a smaller fuel tank over time. Think about how are cell phones start needing recharge more and more often, but small devices are okay in this regard, because new batteries and even some devices are pretty cheap to replace. But if I were to lose my mind and buy an e-car, how long could I use it for a round trip, 58-mile Hwy commute before I must replace the fuel tank, which turns out to be the most expensive part of the car.

To me, battery technology is only part of the problem for full consumer acceptance. These companies have got to get together and standardize alot of things to make them viable and competitive, and as much as I love electric motors over ICEs for most applications, I cannot commit to anything above a weed eater in price. And as much as I hate loud and fumy and over powered gas weedeaters, I'm almost tempted to suck it up (literally) and go out and get one. At least I can count on fuelling the same way, in the same tank, with a commodity product until the product itself dies.

The predictions of battery capacity increasing exponentially have flopped. a sub $20 weed eater and 200 feet of cord bought for 10 bucks at garage sales covers my 18k square foot property nicely. The battery in this computer is dead, no more updates due to obsolete operating system. I'll keep using it until it's trash, thank you.

Nice Makita cordless drill sitting in the garage, batteries shot, not worth a penny, cost many times more than the corded ones I buy for a couple of bucks.

Nissan Leafs have been out for half a decade and their range has increased by how much? The predictions when they first came out was double the range every five years?

How much value does any new car lose just by being driven off the lot?

The steady improvement in batteries is another factor to consider in the depreciation of plug ins. Tesla will be coming out with a battery upgrade for their Roadster, but that simply isn't a consideration with the other companies. They don't sell the hardware and software to plug and play their new, more efficient transmission into your old ICE car now.

The incentives will come to an end, and Li-ion battery improvements will also slow down. In the US, the plug in market is growing faster than the hybrid one did. The depreciation rate should improve when that happens. It is something to consider when buying new now, and it makes buying used now a deal. A decrease in value doesn't automatically mean the car's reliability and utility has decreased.

There are universal standards for the level 1 and 2 chargers and plugs for plug in cars. The standards could be different between different markets(North America, Europe, Japan, etc.), but that's because of different specifications between the power grids.

Transferring electricity into a battery is completely different than simply pouring a liquid into a tank. Statements along the lines of, "I won't consider a BEV until it can go 500 miles and charge in 15 minutes,' might has well be, "I am ignorant."

We got three different fast DC standards because of timing and greed. Tesla developed their Supercharger standard because everything available at the time was too slow for them.

Chademo is the first one, but had high licensing fees in the beginning. Car manufacturers were even charged this fee if they simply wanted to experiment with using the standard. The fees also meant high charger costs.

The American and European manufacturers didn't want to pay those fees, and worked with the SAE to develop the CSS(frankenplug) standard.

For such applications, the manufacturers want proprietary batteries and chargers to keep you stuck with their brand. Apple could have used a basic USB, a standard they developed, plug for their iPhone, but didn't. Then replacement chargers and batteries are pricey, so they can make more profit selling an entirely new drill.

If you possess basic soldering skills, you can beat them at this game. The individual battery cells are just of the shelf parts, that are really cheap compared to what a company charges for their entire battery pack. Most of that price is to buy their special plastic case and metal connectors.

Depends on design and use conditions, like any part on the car. For many, the battery capacity will be sufficient for many years. The Leaf is the only note worthy example of faster capacity loss. The first battery chemistry Nissan used didn't hold up well under South Desert heat when the pack has only a fan for cooling.

What else do they need to standardize? The parts of the ICE and transmission are not standardized across manufacturers.

Perhaps a pack for battery swapping, but the issue on how the handling the different conditions between the traded in and replacement pack need to be addressed first. Tesla's solution was to charge you for a new pack, minus the value of your original one, if you didn't swap your original pack back in. The only other company to try this has gone under.

Where did these predictions come from? Did the doubling the Leaf range actually mean that the battery capacity would increase without increasing the pack size?

The next Leaf will have a range over 200 miles, which was around 85 miles when introduced.

The only prediction I am familiar with for batteries was that the costs for Li-ion would be decreasing 7% a year. They have actually improved at a better rate.

An electric cars looses up between 80% and 90% of it's value after 3 years, that compared to a petrol/diesel car which looses 40% average, so it's twice as bad, and given that electric cars are usually more expensive initially, then it's actually a lot worse than that.

I think the previous poster is referring to the different types of chargers on each car, they should all be universal, but each manufacture seems to have their own connector, which from what I've read can lead to episodes where the car will not charge at all on certain charging stations, leading to the car being towed.

Another thing that affect depreciation is the battery is only warrantied for 5 years here, even though it will last way longer, most people are still under the illusion that once a warranty expires, you're instantly going to have to fork out on expensive repairs, meaning a 5 year old EV will put a lot of people off just for the uncertainty of battery repairs.

Major breakthroughs in batteries are being made, just the other day I heard of a Silicone type technology, still in early development, but is expected to increase battery capacity by around 50%. Great for the future, but as per my observations, terrible for current owners of EV's and their already bad deprecation.

I'd just like to add, although charging cars will one day be just as convenient as filling up with fuel, at the moment it's still pretty impractical for a lot of people. In the UK about 50% of the population or 30,000,000 of us, live in houses 100 years old or older. Cars weren't that popular then, so most of these properties don't have driveways, garages or even parking spaces making charging from home almost impossible for a lot of people.

Although the small range may be enough for most people for the majority of thier journies, owning an electric car requires alot of thinking, everytime you get in the car you will be thinking how much charge do I have, where's my next nearest charge point, are the leads in the car, will I have enough to get here, what if someone is charging at that point, where's the next nearest one etc. That kind of makes it inconvenient, and an extra worry to the working day that people don't want.

Finding convenient time can be an issue, although most people will be charging overnight. Here's a quick comparison for you. It will take me 7 minutes to fill my car. Driving carefully, it will last 800 miles. An electric car takes 8 hours charging to do about 80 miles. A quick bit of maths tells me that an electric car needs roughly 4800 minutes V's my 7 minutes to do the same miles, time wise that 68000% more to get the same result!

I know theres a lot more to consider besides time, but hey its fun to compare.

I also want to point out, some people buy these cars thinking it'll help the environment (I'm far from it). But what they don't know is these battery's for these cars are more acidic and corrosive than even my two batteries in my diesel truck. Also by having to charge the cars for fuel you are spending a lot on electricity and increasing your bill, which now the electric plants have to work harder, so in turn by just manufacturing these batteries and charging them it's worse than my driving my truck 12 hours a day, and plugging my truck in at night.
But that is a good factor to recognize on the MPG, would a gas/electric hybrid or Diesel/electric hybrid get better MPG? So far from what I've seen in magazines, the answer is yes, run the diesel or gas on the highway charging the batteries and then running the batteries in the city, but hopefully I'll see the Diesel/Electric hybrid here soon at the next electrical/construction expo

There's lots of conflicting data out there. It's true that the production of an electric car, especially the battery causes more than double the pollution of a regular car, but that starts to average out immediately, especially if the electricity is generated via nuclear, wind, hydro/tidal or other green generation.

Don't forget extracting, refining and transporting diesel/gas is quite a carbon intensive procedure too, and burning it in an engine adds further carbon (and other) emissions to the atmosphere. It's thought an electric car here is about 10% greener than a similar sized car with a normal engine, that's because cars here are already low emission and very efficient. In the US, the benefit of electric cars will be much higher due to the lack of carbon emissions, and the fact that most cars are big, heavy and are inefficient with high emissions in direct comparison.

It doesn't even equal out, the acid they use, harmed the environment worse than when you extract oil from the ground, via fracking. It's a lot more harmful than turning oil into gasoline, which Diesel is just a by product, of the production of gasoline. So it doesn't even out.... Toyotas plant that produces the Prius doesn't even have a green foot

I'm not sure where you read that, do you have a link to the article? I 100% agree that electric cars are not as "green" as they make themselves out to be, but there are lots of benefits such as zero tailpipe emissions, which is handy in cities where cars with engines are banned (which will soon be the norm) BUT they are still responsible for a lot of particulate matter from tyres and breaks, which manufactures are now designing vacuum cleaners around the brakes for (yes, it's getting silly)

Next Green car have a cool emissions calculator, using real world data, they estimate the emissions of a car, it's production and the generation of the fuel used, be it fossil or renewable. Electric cars have a big carbon footprint and fuel production in the UK as parts of the UK still use natural gas/coal for energy.

Car emissions calculator UK &#45 compare total CO2 and NOx emissions

I don't know about conventional cars with fossil fuel engines being banned in cities, I know in the US it's not going to happen, for a long time. But here is an article proving my point, if you need some more, I can easily pull up more articles
Tesla’s Electric Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think | WIRED

Note if they do become banned, then you might as well ride a pedal bike

How much does a smart phone depreciate? Right now, electric cars are suffering from the fast battery development, like other high tech items, when it comes to depreciation. Which is compounded by high government incentives on the cars.

For those that plan to buy and keep a new EV car for some time, the incentives make the cars very affordable in some states. In most cases, the battery will be usable for the 'life' of the car; pushing 100k miles and 10 years of age. Most cars will only be worth a fraction of their new price by that point.

For those that only plan to keep a new EV for a short time, leasing is the best deal. The incentives' value are usually included in the lease rate, and they don't have to worry about the depreciation.

For the more frugal that want to try a BEV, the current depreciation means they can get used cheap.

In the US, there is one standard for level 2 charging. You'll have to wait longer for a charge, but you won't have to call for a tow. There are the two competing fast charging standards, but many of the chargers getting installed now have both plugs.

Well, people are ignorant. It wasn't that long age that ICE power trains only had 36k or 60k mile warranties. So makes still have that. Do those people think they have to rebuilt the engine after the warranty expires?

But bless those current owners for making it worthwhile for the companies to invest in bettering batteries.

That's an issue for the UK, and likely most of Europe. In the US, something like 40% of households could make use the of the a short range BEV available today. They have garages or private parking, and multiple cars in the household. So having one BEV for a commute isn't a burden.

And if that many households had a BEV, it would have a big impact on reducing emissions. We don't need BEV to replace all the ICE cars. Just a part, and get some of those ICE replaced by a plug in hybrid.

Most people likely overestimate exactly how far they drive in a regular day. The current bunch of sub 100 mile BEVs might require planning when a person has an errand outside their regular travels, but we will see 200 miles BEVs soon. Those should require planning only for long trips.

If 200 miles isn't enough for a regular day, that person should consider a PHEV or hybrid instead, perhaps a diesel.

Many look at their individual situation, see that a BEV won't work, and declare BEVs won't work for anybody. It simply isn't true.

Even among the time issue there is more to consider. For those 7 minutes of filling your ICE car, you stuck in that spot, waiting for the tank to fill. You might be able to check texts and such, but you might have to deal with the weather.

The weather might have to be dealt with in charging a BEV without a garage, but it you would have to deal with it to get into your house. But once plugged in, you can walk away from the car. In some jurisdictions that is illegal to do with an ICE. For those 8 hours, you can being watching TV, eating dinner, sleeping, or having a snog.:)

These aren't lead acid batteries, so there isn't acid to worry about. The NiMH ones might actually be alkaline, and before the nickel mine is brought up, a tiny fraction of it's output goes to batteries. The vast majority goes to stainless steel that we use in just about everything.

The big traction packs in cars are valuable as scrap. Before they are scrapped, batteries without enough capacity for a car use are still good for use in cell towers and such for back up power. Then the size difference means a 12 volt starter battery is more likely to be improperably disposed of than one of these traction packs.

That article is a little skewed, or I should say its title is. Take, "In fact, manufacturing an electric vehicle generates more carbon emissions than building a conventional car, mostly because of its battery, the Union of Concerned Scientists has found." If the link is followed back to the UCS article, "We found that battery electric cars generate half the emissions of the average comparable gasoline car, even when pollution from battery manufacturing is accounted for." is what you will find in the introduction.

Yes, more energy goes into making an electric car, but it uses far less while in use than an ICE one.

There are lots of benefits to electric cars, there are lots of downsides too, the same for any car regardless of how/where it's made and the fuel it uses. At the end of the day, most people only care about the end product, we have all become a bit naive and "hungry" for the latest tech, most of us give very little regard as to how that product was produced and how it got here. When we buy a smartphone, we don't consider the children working in mines in third world countries, a lot of whom die young from being crushed. We don't think much about the poor Asian workers who manufacture iphones, forced to work 19 hours a day without a break, most of which fall asleep on the production line. 17 iPhone manufacturing employees have committed suicide due to poor working conditions and being overworked etc, no-body cares, we still want tomorrows tech yesterday don't we? Who knows the true cost of creating an electric car? Who cares? Probably just those who cant afford one yet ;)

You'd be surprised just how many places are going "car free" over here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places

I was suprised to see the MPGe figure for the electric cars posted as around 100-130. Is that saying the cost of charging equates to that amount of fuel?
If so, i had always supposed electric cars to work out more like several hundred mpg equivalent.

I'm not sure if that's equivalent cost or equivalent per Kilojoule of fuel?! It apparently costs about £2 for a full charge on a leaf that will do about 80 miles.

This is the Wikipedia article on MPGe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_...ine_equivalent

So around 2.5 pence per mile, equivalent to closer to 200 mpg in cost? I realise I've replied to the wrong thread, the MPGe figures were in that list of 10 electric cars!

Nice link Charlie - a lot to take in on a lunchtime, but comforting to see that my Prius is no more expensive to run than a pure electric vehicle (according to the table) - and I can get nearly 600 miles on each 5 minute "charge"!

Yes, MPGe is the measure of efficiency based on energy content compared to gasoline.

Your Prius is going to emit more CO2 per mile over time as we have to switch to oil that needs more energy to get and refine. If your grid is installing renewables, a plug in will emit less over time.

We have a lot of wind farms in Yorkshire - at least 3 big sites within 10 miles, including off shore, and plenty more as you travel.
I would prefer a plug in - but probably won't be able to afford to upgrade to a Prime when they come out, as it is the wifes turn for the next new car.
She wants a 4x4 SUV (Which she thought stood for "Suburban Urban Vehicle!), so I am trying my hardest to convince her a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is what she really wants...!
She can't stand the wishy washy pale blue they seem to favour, but spotting a black example she liked it, thought it looked completely different.
However, she also likes the idea of a new kitchen, and there is nothing wrong with, and plenty of years left in our diesel Honda CR-V.

"Suburban Urban Vehicle" is probably a better name in view of how most are used.

The missus has now accused me of portraying her on the internet as a dumb blonde.
I said you guys don't know what colour her hair is, right?

Or "seriously underloaded vehicle" given the size and the fact that they usually just have one person on-board...

Well I just learned today that Ecotricity in the UK, one of the main suppliers of electric charging stations, has now decided to charge a whopping £5 for just 20 minutes of charging at their charge points. Up until now, it's always been free. That means to get a 80% charge, it will cost owners £10. As an example a Leaf will do about 66 miles on an 80% charge, so charging publically will now cost owners 15 pence per mile, about twice as much as a diesel car in fuel. Now add that massive depreciation I was talking about earlier.

For plug in owners, this is even worse, having to buy expensive fuel AND electricity too. What a stupid move, this will harm the sales on EV's Bigtime as free fuel was always a big incentive. No such thing as a free lunch I guess...

Speaking for pure cost saving, heating oil is hard to beat! It generally costs one third the price of diesel - actually £1.60 a gallon at todays price compared to £4.60 at the pump.
Though filling was vague, i estimate very similar economy to regular diesel.
Red diesel used to be about half the price of pump diesel, but the risk of a crushed car if caught with it in your tank meant it was rarely used.
I looked at straight veggie oil (which i think needed an additive any way), but even catering drums still were about two thirds the price of diesel. That was when diesel was much higher, so maybe no saving.
Pre mixed used veggie oil used to be 20% cheaper than diesel, but with a worse loss in efficiency, not worthwhile (apart from more pleasant exhaust fumes!).
I wouldnt use heating oil now, as i am generally a less shady guy than i was 10 years ago, but i ran a half dozen cars on it pretty much exclusively for 5 years.
In a cost saving term, it would have given my old i20 an equivalent figure of 192 miles to the gallon, let any electric or hybrid beat that for economy! At the time my main rides were a Citroen ZX and a Nissan Terrano, reporting equivalent economy of 216 mpg and 81 mpg respectively.
Not as environmentally sound as solar powered home charging, but surely a contender cost wise!

Yes diesels are more versatile, although I think the penalties for running on "chip fat" are just as heavy as those for running on Red diesel. I did look at making my own diesel at one point, really not that difficult to setup and the government allows you to make so many "tax free" litre a year, no idea how they would check how much you're making anyway. To be honest, when you priced up the ingredients, it didn't really work out that much cheaper, you know like when you make a cake to "save money" and you end up spending like £12 on ingredients when you could have just bought one for £5 ;)

That seems to be an issue here in regards to the public chargers; they are free or too expensive. The few slow chargers a business might install aside, free isn't going to work forever. Yet, there might be local regulations that limit who can measure and charge for kilowatts; like only the power company can. So these charger companies have to price based on the max power draw a plug in might draw and parking.

Once filtered, you could also use your used motor oil and transmission fluid. I've heard modern diesels aren't as flexible in fuel sources anymore, though.

Well,anytime you cheat on the taxes will be better financially.:coolsmiley: CNG is popular for buses and centralized truck fleets here. It's cleaner than gasoline and diesel, and also skips on road tax legally.

The secret to making your own biodiesel cheap is to get friendly with a local restaurant. They are likely paying someone to take their used cooking oil and lard. Then the only ingredient cost for the biodiesel is methanol and lye.

Maybe I should look into homemade diesel again then, as 2 doors down from me is a Turkish Kebab shop! :D

Something else that's bugging EV owners are Plug in owners "hogging" charge stations. In supermarkets and large department stores, there are usually only a small handful of charge stations. EV's need electricity obviously, but Plug in owners can just regular gasoline if they run out of Electric. Now EV owners are getting upset that plug in owners are hogging all the charge stations that they need.

That is also an issue in some places here, too.

If a person does get their PHEV use to 100% electric, they are just going to waste ICE fuel when the car does a maintenance cycle.