Environment

5392 readers

4 users here now

Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim, analysis finds (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/environment@beehaw.org

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) use much more fuel on the road than officially stated by their manufacturers, a large-scale analysis of about a million vehicles of this type has shown.

The Fraunhofer Institute carried out what is thought to be the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, using the data transmitted wirelessly by PHEVs from a variety of manufacturers while they were on the road.

The cars involved were all produced between 2021 and 2023. The data transmitted enabled analysts to determine their precise and real-world fuel consumption, as opposed to that stated in the vehicles’ official EU approved certification.

PHEVs, cars which combine a petrol or diesel engine with a battery-powered electric motor that is charged from an external energy point, give drivers the flexibility to be able to switch between the ecologically safer power source, and the more conventional, but environmentally more damaging one, as and when conditions allow. Manufacturers typically market the vehicles as energy efficient. On paper at least, the vehicles are said to use much less fuel, between one and two litres per 100km, than conventional cars. However environmental groups have long since voiced scepticism over the claims.

According to the study, the vehicles require on average six litres per 100km, or about 300%, more fuel to run than previously cited.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] eltoukan@jlai.lu 0 points 6 months ago

It really depends on the owner and how they are driven

I'm not sure about this study (can't read any German oops), but expected vs real-life usage of PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid) is exactly the problem brought up by T&E and others at the end of last year, see for example this report from October 2025:

The [fuel consumption and CO2 emissions] gap is mostly caused by flawed assumptions on the share of electric driving mode (the ‘utility factor’, UF) which leads to a drastic underestimate of official PHEV emissions. The UF overestimated the electric driving share, assuming 84% over 2021-2023, whereas real-world data shows this to be just 27%.

I'm not doubting at all that you outperform the expected consumption, but sadly on average it seems like there's more of a systematic (and significant) under-performance. However, this is comparing WLTP testing to real-life driving EU data, for cars sold in the EU. I'm sure that this might be region-dependent as models and driving habits might be radically different.