EV or hybrid?

The automotive world is moving towards electric power but there are still some companies that still strongly support the internal combustion engine such as Mazda who firmly believe in the internal combustion engine. The rest of the world have either started their EV line up or have a hybrid in their current model offering.

The question now is which is a better option, the EV or the hybrid?

Many argue that the hybrid gives better flexibility in terms of usage since it does away with the range anxiety issue that is common with EVs. However, the hybrids of late have been plagued with problems stemming from the relays, power delivery switch module and battery itself. These problems are not isolated to the new hybrid adopters like BMW, Porsche, Mercedes but it also have appeared on Toyotas. There have been numerous reports on the Camry hybrid giving problems when the car's mileage hit 60,000km which is quite surprising since Toyota's record for reliability is the best in the industry.

The EV's problem is charging infrastructure, range anxiety, charging time (now much faster than before), and cost of battery replacement. Not everyone lives in a landed property that can facilitate EV charging and there aren't enough public charging stations. This is truly an inconvenience for EV owners. EVs are also more expensive to buy than regular cars due to their smaller production volume. In countries like Norway the emphasis have been on EVs and the government have put a lot of money into building the charging infrastructure to support it. In other countries the adoption is far slower as the cost of building the infrastructure is high.

there is no right or wrong option for these 2 types of cars but one must weigh out the pros and cons of both before committing to the purchase. Seeing that many countries have announced bans on fossil fuel cars by a certain year, it is very likely that the EV will be choice. The question is when is the right time to make the switch? In countries where the geographic area is huge and the distance between cities or towns is far the EVs will struggle to sell until there is sufficient charging infrastructure installed. Countries like Australia where the distance between cities can be over 1000km there are no EVs that can exceed 600km on a single charge, the driver will need to make at least 1 stop. Even with a rated 600km driving range the real world driving range will be at least 20% less due to the use of air conditioning and other electrical functions in the car. This means that the driver will need to stop twice for the same journey while the hybrid owner can just make just one quick stop for fuel.

From what is observed, the EVs make a lot of sense in highly populated cities to cut air pollution and since the required driving range isn't very far the EVs will be very suitable.

Audi recently made an announcement claiming that they have pioneered the technology to convert CO2 to fuel which can have a massive impact on the automotive industry. The conversion of CO2 into fuel can reverse the amount of carbon in the air and essentially kill the EVs. Many things may change in the next 10 years. It is too early to say what will happen and if governments will reverse their ban on fossil fuel cars.