I am skeptical. My wife drives a plug in hybrid. She buys gas ever six weeks or so now. She used to buy gas about every ten days. I wonder what conservative think tank is sponsoring the bias in the research results.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Plug-in hybrids if plugged in often are able to drastically reduce emissions and fuel use. The studies seem to indicate that most plug-in hybrid owners are not plugging in their hybrids often, and thus do not efficiently use them. It's an issue of user-error, not the technology itself.
Nothing wrong with carrying a battery that reduces your consumption. The bigger the better.
I don't watch videos but I clicked on the links to the sources.
The ICCT report shows that hybrid passenger vehicles produce about 20% less emissions than a similar gasoline vehicle. That still seems significant, even if there are even lower emissions available.
And that seems obviously true, the way that hybrids tend to use lower power, higher efficiency internal combustion engines than similarly sized full gasoline vehicles, and recapture some portion of the energy that would otherwise be wasted.
They are certainly still better than ICE vehicles, but it could be argued the climate situation is so dire, a 20% is wholly inadequate compared to the more substantial reductions of pure EVs (though even then, we really shouldn't be trying to replace the world's cars 1 to 1 with EV cars, but instead transition to public transport as much as possible, with EV's being useful for areas where public transport may not be viable).
I have a hybrid. I really wish I didn't have to have it, but it's unfortunately the best I can have in my circumstances.
I'd rather not need a car at all, but public transportation is abysmal in my city. I'd rather have an EV over a hybrid, but there are next to no charging spots available to me, and I simply cannot afford a new car, let alone an EV.
The root source of the problem is mismanagement of city resource, and capitalism.
For what it's worth I am working on switching to my e-bike for trips that are possible with it.
If a hybrid is the most viable option in your circumstances, it's still definitely better than a non-hybrid ICE :)
I'm not a fan of hybrids, but I drove one once for a week and it was massively cheaper/used less fuel. So I can't believe there aren't some benefits overall... but I'm still massively on team BEV. Just keep it simple! Get over your blimmin range anxiety people.
Plug-in hybrids can reduce usage if mostly used for short urban trips, and hybrids can use less gas overall compared to regular ICE vehicles since they tend to use small engines, but the study suggests that the people who use plug-in hybrids like they're intended (i.e, plugging it in frequently to avoid the engine turning on) is a minority of users, unfortunately.
This is the problem with halfway solutions. The people that buy them don’t want to change their behaviour, and unsurprisingly, don’t change the behaviour.
I got a PHEV and two months (that was at the start of covid, it took ages) before it finally arrived my city got rid of the charger near my house. Cool cool, thanks.
The next one wasn't extremely far away, but you'll think twice if you want to walk ten minutes through a hail storm.
Hybrids (at least Toyota hybrids; unclear about other brands) don't just use a smaller engine - it's a much more efficient engine design. However, this design also requires performance compromises that are only acceptable because there's an electric motor supplementing it.
Someone else already linked the Technology Connections video that covers it in much greater detail.
I have a PHEV, and try very hard to avoid the gas engine from starting. I can go about every other day without gasoline, and even on the days where I go further than my range it’s not too much. I measure my effectiveness overall on miles between fill-ups (7 gallons). 1000 miles is what I consider good.
As I say, you appear to be in the minority by being mindful of plugging it in regularly.
Then the title is stupid. It should say PHEV and not Hybrids
The studies appear to show that regular, non-plugin hybrids are even worse at lowering emissions than the poorly utilized PHEVs :\
Overall it seems to suggest that hybrids aren't a terribly good solution for lowering emissions overall, since only PHEV's have the capability to drastically lower them, and only for a minority who are mindful enough to take advantage of that.
Worse than something people don't utilize? Im calling bullshit.
I can get 700+ kms on 35 litres on a 2015 Prius V.
Every other vehicle that was ice I've used at work could. Barely break 600kms on 55 litres.
If phevs aren't good because people don't use them correctly and only use the ICE component of them, having an always on hybrid reducing fuel consumption by over 50% is absolutely better in every way.
Whatever they are using in your examples are misleading at the very least and outright bullshit at the worst.
I also think the conclusion is suspect. But note that they are comparing “emissions”, not amount of fuel used. One would think they’d go hand-in-hand, but maybe not.
Worse than something people don’t utilize? Im calling bullshit.
A regular hybrid is always using its ICE to charge its battery. A PHEV can either charge via the grid, or with its ICE.
The minority of people who do opt to mostly charge their PHEV via the grid and do not constantly take long distance trips are able to fully utilize a PHEV's advantages, and thus they help bring the overall average down for the PHEV category, but since there are so many more who do not, the average is still quite poor despite PHEVs having the real potential to be much better.
a non-PHEV hybrid, by not having the grid as an option, does not have the benefit of that mindful minority of people helping to bring the average down as much, thus it is worse than PHEV, but still better than ICE.
A regular hybrid still generally have reducd emissions compared to an ICE vehicle if used in an urban setting, and due to how small their ICE engines tend to be, they usually use less fuel even on long-distance trips compared to the average ICE vehicle.
The point of the study is not that they don't emit less than ICE vehicles, it is that, overall, due to how most people use them, they don't save all that much carbon over their lifetime compared to non-hybrid EVs (which, I will mention, also pale in comparison to public transport). And in the case of PHEV's, they could be used to great effect, but the majority of buyers appear to not do so, thus making them similar in carbon reduction to regular hybrids.
If you would rather not watch the video itself which goes over the studies and their conclusions, the creator provided sources to all the studies in the text description, which I will provide here for you to look through:
Sources
An even stronger warning from professionals who service electric vehicles https://evclinic.eu/2025/09/27/if-you...
National Vehicle Solutions https://www.nationalvehiclesolutions/....
GridServe https://www.gridserve.com/2025-averag...
ZapMap https://www.zapmap.com/ev-stats/charg...
Fraunhofer / ICCT White Paper https://theicct.org/wp-content/upload...
ICCT European Analysis https://theicct.org/wp-content/upload...
T&E Analysis https://www.transportenvironment.org/...
Carbon Brief https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-...
I wonder what the ratios of hybrids are. My in law has a hybrid SUV that barely gets better gas mileage than the equivalent gas model on the highway, which is most of their mileage. If the majority of hybrids are those, not Priuses, then I wouldn't be at all surprised if the extra materials from the battery and engine offset the extra 3-4 mpg gain.
I dont think it's fair or appropriate comparison. If you want to open that door, then you have to compare your in laws hybrid to an equally shitty ive engine, which I think is a huge disparity in the comparison you presented
I don't get why I can't compare the hybrid to its identical non-hybrid sibling? People aren't cross-shopping Priuses and Ford f-350s.
Regardless, my point is that there are cases where an overlap of poor hybrid implementation and driving habits make some hybrids roughly equal to equivalent ICE vehicles from a lifetime emissions standpoint. If those cases make up a large portion of the hybrids on the road then it is perfectly reasonable that the current hybrid fleet is only negligibly better from an emissions standpoint than the equivalent gas fleet.
Technology Connections also did a video on this.
The basic conclusions I got from it in terms of efficiency:
-
Conventional hydrid cars are not all created equal, with parallel hybrids typically being more efficient than serial hybrids
-
Plug in hybrids are frequently less efficient than a well designed conventional hybrid, if they are not charged regularly by electricity
-
Both are very inefficient compared to battery electric vehicles by nature of engines being inherently inefficient
For us, it's an infrastructure problem that wouldn't be hard to solve, if people weren't so obstinate about it. Whatever solution you come up with for enabling us to charge our PiH, I'm pretty sure we've thought about it and got shot down by the local fossils, with the usual range of "concerns": Fire, expenses, ugly charging stations, just a fad among the ignorant youth...
Oh, and apparently a local progressive politician is bad because she's going all influencer and such. God forbid millennials do millennial things to reach millennial voters for millennial policies.
How? A 200hp hybrid puts out less emissions than a 200hp ice.
Per the study, most owners of hybrids are not effectively utilizing their hybrids in ways that actually drastically reduce carbon emissions, only a minority do.
I don't think this was the case early on. Prius owners were the hypermiles thing sorta got going.
we need more bus access
Did this account for car class? Weight?
Don't post random YouTube videos without defending the source, if you think is valid. "Independent organizations" blah
The video makes its conclusion based on 8 studies from different sources, I can't list each one in the title. You can look at them here if you'd rather not look at the video:
::spoiler Sources
An even stronger warning from professionals who service electric vehicles https://evclinic.eu/2025/09/27/if-you...
National Vehicle Solutions https://www.nationalvehiclesolutions/....
GridServe https://www.gridserve.com/2025-averag...
ZapMap https://www.zapmap.com/ev-stats/charg...
Fraunhofer / ICCT White Paper https://theicct.org/wp-content/upload...
ICCT European Analysis https://theicct.org/wp-content/upload...
T&E Analysis https://www.transportenvironment.org/...
Carbon Brief https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-...
:::
The point was who is the source of the youtube video first, otherwise you would be attempting passthrough credibility by proxy for whatever their bias may be in presentation of your cited sources, but further from that, you're giving nothing on if the orgs you list themselves are credible. Are they lobbying groups? Landing pages hosting outright purchased white papers from corporations directly?
And thew you go, first link I clicked on from your listed sources is an EV charging network - I.E. a group that does not profit from more self contained, regenerative hybrids on the road. That's context worth having.
Until you can do the above for the channel and all of your cited sources, this is simply a wall of text hoping to abuse the basic appeal to perceived authority most of us hold as humans. 4 of 5 dentists agree.
The point was who is the source of the youtube video first
The youtube channel's name is in the title: Just Have a Think.
The rest of your comment is suggesting I should personally write up a rather compelling case for both the sources and the youtuber himself before it's worth considering watching the content itself, which would in effect be repeating all of the information in the video itself. That is a time investment I am personally not willing to do, but I would certainly welcome anyone else with the inclination to do so.
Qualifying the author prior to blind posting a link is the point. YouTube is full of misinformation landmines and, as I mentioned, you already mentioned one source that would obviously have a conflict here.
I'm familiar with the youtuber and find him to be a pretty trustworthy science explainer, and he does acknowledge that one of the studies has a conflict of interest, but it appears to be in line with other studies that do not have that conflict (though he probably would've been better off not including biased studies at all).
But I am a rando on the internet, so my vouching for him to be fairly trust-worthy should not hold much weight. Ultimately people will need to take a look at the studies and determine for themselves if the youtuber is coming to a solid conclusion based on his arguments and interpretation of the data.
If you are concerned about potential misinformation being spread, then, if you happen to have the time and inclination, you yourself could investigate each source and its trustworthiness, watch the video, and come to your own conclusion as to the veracity of the youtuber's conclusion, and then detail your own conclusion in a comment here.
Internet trust is about stacking positive signals until you take a calculated risk to a degree. You providing context of your own history and trust, while not definitive, would have been a great push in the right direction, as you are on Lemmy. Which again, is not full qualification by any means, but says a lot about your general technical competency, analytical thinking and likely stronger relationship with reason compared to the general population.
So just try to give a little beyond a link is all.
You're doing good work, and it's largely thankless, I'm sorry. 🙇🏽♂️
From my perspective, someone declaring being familiar with and trusting a youtuber when posting their link does not appear to provide a terribly useful function, or add any positive signals.
To elaborate; If I am unfamiliar with a poster, their opinion is practically irrelevant, as I do not know their level of competency in the subject they are posting, their critical thinking ability, their research skills, nor their biases. If I find the subject interesting enough to click, I will still need to determine its merit through my own analysis.
If I am already familiar with a poster themselves and they have shown a history of posting good quality links, then declaring they trust a specific youtuber is now irrelevant for me, since I can already assume the poster is continuing their trend of sharing high quality information.
If someone added "I know this youtuber, he's legit" to their post body, and that altered my perception of whether the video is worth watching or how on-guard I need to be with the information presented without being familiar with the poster at all, then that would, in my opinion, just indicate that I am susceptible to suggestion. You would ultimately still need to determine the worth of the argument on your own, or defer to someone else doing that legwork, if they take the time to present a compelling case.
I do not think it unreasonable to expect others to determine the merits of a link I post for themselves.
I do think it unreasonable to expect someone to do a deep dive on every source referenced in a video and present their findings to a perspective watcher. If that was the standard we adopted here, it would absolutely have a chilling effect on people's incentive or inclination to post anything at all.