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Author Topic: Majority of hybrid cars never use their electric motors  (Read 1188 times)
Manky Monkey
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« on: November 09, 2018, 11:03:26 PM »

A BBC News Online story:

Government-subsidised plug-in cars may never have been charged

Most plug-in hybrids in the UK are bought for company fleets.
Tens of thousands of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) bought with generous government grants may be burning as much fuel as combustion-engine cars.
Data compiled for the BBC suggests that such vehicles in corporate fleets averaged just 40 miles per gallon (mpg), when they could have done 130.
Many drivers may never have unwrapped their charging cables, The Miles Consultancy said.
Subsidies for new PHEVs were recently scrapped, after seven years.
The plug-in grant was introduced in 2011, gifting buyers up to £4,500 off new cars.
The incentive helped the UK become the biggest market for PHEVs in Europe.
The majority of the tens of thousands of eligible vehicles sold were bought by company fleets, including more than 70% of the 37,000 plug-in hybrids sold so far in 2018, but data from The Miles Consultancy, a Cheshire firm which advises 300 blue-chip companies on fuel management, reveals that many businesses simply used the grant to save on buying regular cars.

When regularly charged, PHEVs can achieve more than 130 miles per gallon, mileage records from 1,500 models, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Volvo vehicles, showed an average real-world mpg of 39.27, against an average manufacturer advertised mpg of 129.68.

Figures for 2,432 hybrids - including non plug-in varieties - showed an average real-world mpg of 49.06, still vastly lower than the potential range.

"There are some examples where employees aren't even charging these vehicles up," said Paul Hollick, The Miles Consultancy's managing director.
"The charge cables are still in the boot, in a cellophane wrapper, while the company and the employee are going in and out of petrol stations, paying for all of this additional fuel.
This practice, he added, was "ridiculous".

The UK government subsidised plug in hybrids for seven years
The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), which represents many fleets, said higher taxes on diesel cars incentivised companies to buy plug-ins, even if they had no intention of using their electric capability.
"We unfortunately have got a situation where a poorly designed tax regime is driving some poor behaviours," said Toby Poston, ​the BVRLA's communications director.
"We have got some situations where company drivers are choosing the vehicle based on their tax liability, rather than having the right vehicle for the right job."
Some companies, he explained, were buying PHEVs - which are best suited to local trips - for employees who did a lot of motorway driving.

When presented with The Miles Consultancy's findings, a Department for Transport spokesperson said the government believed plug-in hybrids "bring significant environmental benefits", but would "now focus its support on zero emission models like pure electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars".

Plug-in hybrid vehicles continue to receive some government support, through lower car tax rates, grants for charging infrastructure and, in some local authorities, free parking.
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stinkey
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« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2018, 07:15:12 AM »

It never ceases to amaze me that Government simply can't Govern ? Always years behind the general population and one air brained scheme after another and always costs more than than any so called savings ?
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« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2018, 07:39:46 AM »

None of this surprises me. Daft schemes seem to be our Gov. speciality.
Been trying to understand vehicle excise duty rate tables and it really makes my brain hurt. They bring in one set of rules, change them after a couple of years but leave existing vehicles with the old rules.
Example. Light Commercial Vehicles. Registered before 2001 rate is based on engine size. After 1-3-2001 it's a flat rate of £230 unless it's euro 4 registered between 1-3-2003 and 31-12 2006 where it's £140 or euro 5 registered between 1-1-2009 and 31-12- 2010 where it again £140. Not sure what happened in 2007 and 2008 or after 2010 that they reverted to the flat rate.
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« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2018, 06:27:13 PM »

i call bulls**t on most of this report.

government getting hissy about losing tax from the hard working man( sorry person)
« Last Edit: November 10, 2018, 06:28:47 PM by poprodder » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2018, 01:20:28 PM »

The really funny (not - actually very annoying at the time) one was Alistair Darling (he of the white hair black eybrows) who decided to tax cars by their emmissions, but didn't have the brains to realise he could only do that to people buying these cars NEW. So if you had an oldish v6 like my zs, the tax was going to go from £150 a year to £400 a year overnight. I did ponder on driving mine up to the gates of his mansion and putting a match to it.
Anyway, presumably someone cleverer than him must have eventually seen this was impossible to bring in (probably illegal I would have thought), and the plans were quietly dropped, with it being imposed on new cars only - that way people had a choice, fair enough.
So theres the answer to why all of this is different for different model years, it doesn't explain why the idiots can't see what effect the supid tax liability rules will have though. Zero tax brackets have cost them (us) £millions - oops another cockup...
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