Hybrid vs Electric Car: Which Is REALLY Cheaper?

foreign ago I tested this Honda Civic ehev and I was very impressed not with the handling or the looks or the performance which are all pretty decent I was impressed by the fuel economy yes in my hands this car managed an astonishing 80 miles per gallon and that got me thinking could a really efficient full hybrid like this actually be cheaper to run than an electric car first of all here's how it works Honda's new ehev hybrid powertrain uses a 2-liter petrol engine and two electric motors the first acts as a generator to send electricity into the second motor to drive the wheels or into a Lithium-Ion battery pack the engine can drive the wheels directly or with the help of the motors and the battery because the petrol engine isn't working alone the idea is that it doesn't have to work as hard or use as much petrol the official MPG figure in this car is 56.5 miles per gallon wltp if you know anything about wltp though then you know that it's very difficult normally in the real world to achieve anywhere close to that number normally you get a lot lower however in the Honda Civic ehev it is incredibly easy to get more than what they claim wltp driving around normal roads at 30 miles an hour this thing can very easily achieve between 60 and 80 miles per gallon that's incredible how does it compare with other cars specifically electric and plug-in hybrid first here's what the Civic itself costs to run this latest model has a smallish 40 liter fuel tank that's 8.4 UK gallons at today's fuel price of 148.4 Pence per liter it costs 59 pounds 36 Pence to fill at a conservative and realistic 60 miles per gallon over the course of one year doing 10 000 miles a year your total cost for fuel will be 1124 pounds at the less likely but still possible 80 miles per gallon that cost is 843 pounds so what about plug-in hybrids well they're quite tricky to compare and give you wildly different fuel economy depending on how you drive them in the case of the Vauxhall Astra plug-in hybrid you can apparently get a whopping 256 miles per gallon in the case of the DS4 230 miles per gallon sounds impressive right but hold up a second these figures are basically nonsense realistically all you're going to manage in the real world is 80 to 150 miles per gallon and that's only if you have charge in the battery if you have a home charger that's fine if you don't have one of these well then you're in trouble realistically you're more likely to manage somewhere between 30 to 45 miles per gallon which means plug-in hybrid figures aren't all they're cracked up to be if you use a plug-in hybrid correctly and plug it in every single night at home or every single day at the office a full battery can help you get extraordinary running costs in the case of the Astra delivering its claims and very ambitious 256 miles per gallon at today's fuel prices it'll cost you 263 pounds 56 Pence per year in petrol but then there's the cost of charging the 12.4 kilowatt hour battery pack which done overnight on a tariff of 16.09 Pence per kilowatt hour is one pound 99 Pence a day or 764 pounds including 5 vat plus the 263 pounds 56 for the petrol that's 1028 pounds a year best case or 185 pounds more than the Civic worst case if you don't plug in your plug-in hybrid which could lead to low economy of around 35 miles per gallon it's 1927 pounds and 51 Pence per year in petrol so how does an electric car compared to our Honda Civic he have well I've got a Mercedes eqs 53 next to me very fancy not comparable in terms of price but how do they compare in terms of efficiency well I've got some notes Here in My trusty notebook and it says here that the Mercedes will do 358 miles on a single charge and the battery is 107 kilowatt hours you measure the efficiency of electric car in miles per kilowatt hour and if you combine those two figures what you end up with is this car doing 3.3 miles per kilowatt hour which is what I normally experience in most EVS I tend to average somewhere around three miles per kilowatt hour now let's do some more mass in the UK the average standard single metering rate for electricity is 32.42 Pence per kilowatt hour excluding vat each provider can then apply a discount of their choosing as especially if they offer an economy 7 tariff which means you get cheaper electricity at night as opposed to more expensive electricity during the daytime if you don't have an economy 7 tariff for some reason and you're using the standard rate then you're going to be spending 1080 pounds charging this electric car and if you add the vat that's 1 296 pounds way worse than a Honda Civic ehev that's the worst case home charging scenario if you only ever charge your EV from a public charge Point things are even worse according to that map the average price for rapid and Ultra rapid charging or speeds above 25 kilowatts is 73 Pence per kilowatt hour which works out to be 2433 pounds per year over 10 000 miles more than double the cost of running the Civic ehab let's go for best case charging only from an economy 7 tariff specifically one for electric car drivers here things are a bit better for the EV let's use the same 16.09 Pence per kilowatt hour night rate that I use for the plug-in hybrid which incidentally is what I was quoted from octopus energy driving 10 000 miles a year at 3 miles per kilowatt hour that's the equivalent of using 333.3 kilowatt hours multiply that by 16.09 Pence and you get 562 pounds in electrical fuel costs every year including vat at five percent cheaper than the best case scenario for the Civic but only by 281 pounds a year or 23 pounds a month using the more realistic 60 mile per gallon economy figure and ev's running cost is roughly half if charged at home but 1 309 pounds worse every year if charged exclusively from a rapid charger don't do this of course there are other factors to consider EVS generally cost more to buy than hybrid so you'll save money on fuel but pay more for the car the cheapest Civic for example is 32 000 pounds the cheapest Tesla Model 3 is approximately 42 000 pounds paying off that 10 grand difference using the 23 pounds and 25 Pence a month running cost saving might take you about 36 years it's interesting isn't it we're constantly told that the most efficient cars are full battery electric or plug-in hybrid and normal quote unquote hybrids often don't get the same amount of Love they're just not as cool however having done the maths it would appear that a normal hybrid like this Honda Civic is definitely worth considering depending on how you drive it now this is a very deep topic and it's fair to say that all three types of car hybrid plug-in hybrid and full EV have their place and will suit different needs in different scenarios EVS are also Greener at a tailpipe level and have lower maintenance costs what is clear however is that there's no definitive solution and all three of these options are a solid economical and Greener alternative to Pure petrol let us know what you think of this video in the comments below hit the like button if you enjoyed it and don't forget to watch our full review of the Civic the link is in the description thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 261,021

Keywords: honda civic, Honda Civic e:hev review, hybrid vs electric, hybrid vs phev, hybrid vs plugin hybrid, cheaper than ev, are evs cheaper, ev running costs, hybrid running costs, should I buy a hybrid, best hybrid, best ev, are evs cheap, ev vs petrol, hybrid vs petrol, Rory reid, autotrader

Id: KJs3ntc8DBQ

Length: 8min 34sec (514 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023