Well, the Leaf is electric but the Volt and Prius are parallel hybrids. Why do they always include or obscure their true nature?
Because this is an article about plug-in vehicles. Plug-ins just hit the market with volume last year, and the fact that consumers are willing to pay for a car they plug in is useful. It lets us determine consumer acceptance, plot trends and forecast how many additional public chargers to build.
The Volt and Plug-in Prius are "electric vehicles" in the not-so-general sense of being able to move the car a significant distance without using petroleum, which is the fundamental purpose of electric vehicles. You can't simply ignore them.
Almost every uses EVs in a hybrid mode at some time. The Leaf is just a garage-hybrid.. when they owners need to go farther than the EV range some other vehicle is used. The Volt can drive almost as many EPA EV miles, on a single charge, as the average Leaf driver uses per day (37). And many Volt drivers are doing much more with mid-day charging. The EV study found Volt drivers actually drove more EV miles per day than Leaf drivers.. and charged more often. Hmm I wonder which fleet, Volt or Leaf, has ore EV miles logged now. The Plug in Prius is less EV and more parallel hybrid, but it is still a plug in, and with some people getting > 100MPG out of it, its still important. maybe more important for the infrastructure driving element. More plug-in, especially those that need to feed frequently during the day, will help drive more chargers, from which all plug-ins and BEVs will benifit.
that was a terrible way to lay out the numbers, why can't they put it in a chart or spreadsheet? what do they mean by 'june leaf sales well below last may's level'?
So . . . . . . . a hybrid become more parallel (or less parallel) if it simply gets less or more ev range? ? See, I'd never heard that criteria. Someone's going to have to add that fact to wikipedia. who knew! .
Nissan is trying to increase sales with a new lease, IMHO most will still wait for the 2013. Nissan Announces LEAF Lease Special Rate of $289 | PluginCars.com
In my view when its in EV mode, its not operating as parallel hybrid as at that time it is only using one source of fuel. And since that is an extended enough period of time, 10-15 miles, its worth separating out the EV, followed by hybrid modes of operations. You are correct that I was imprecise/incorrect, I shouldhave saig the Plug in Prius spends less time operating as an EV and more time as a parallel hybrid. Austin.. interesting about the lease. Glad to see they are doing something about lagging sales. I think its could help a lot as many are uncertain about the full BEV lifestyle impact and resale value.. and this gets them an easy out after a few years. That and the out of pocket costs are a bit easier to manage.
