Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Americans are Buying Twice as Many Hybrids as Fully Electric Vehicles.
Is The Next Step Synthetic Fuels?

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/0616...

As recently as 2021, GM "all but eliminated" hybrids from its future product
plans, reports the New York Times. "But then a funny thing happened." Car
shoppers balked at the high prices of fully electric models and the
challenges of charging them. In the last few years, sales of electric
vehicles have grown at a much slower rate than automakers once expected. And
hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap, accounting for a large and growing
share of new car sales... In the first three months of this year, hybrids -
including cars that can and cannot be plugged in - made up about 14 percent
of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department
of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles
in that period... Several automakers are slowing the introduction of new
electric vehicles, and have accelerated development of new hybrids. Robb
Report looks at the current status of hybrids - and a possible future: "The
charging infrastructure in most countries is not yet mature enough to support
convenient mass adoption of battery-electric vehicles, and in some
territories never will be," says Jonathan Hall, head of research and advanced
engineering at U.K.-based consulting group Mahle Powertrain.... Porsche,
active in this space since 2010, just hybridized its iconic 911 for this
model year. Lamborghini also joined the trend with the debut of its 1,000 hp
Revuelto hybrid in 2023. "The company doesn't plan to give up the internal-
combustion engine anytime soon," says CTO Rouven Mohr. "We are also
considering synthetic fuels to keep ICE vehicles running after 2030." Hall
concurs: "With the emergence of bio-based and even fully synthetic fuels, the
link between the ICE and climate change can be broken." Combined with the
development of better batteries, this progressive hybrid model could offer
the best of both worlds for years to come.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528