> At this moment in time, Plug-in hybrids are the superior technology for nearly every application. I don't understand why they get so overlooked by consumers and manufacturers alike.
Plugin hybrids cars are expensive, not at the least because they require both a traditional ICE drivetrain and a large battery and electric motor, and specialized power split transmissions to make those work together.
Therefore, most plugin hybrids are higher end (just like EVs) and marketed at wealthier people who want to drive electric most of the time but have range anxiety or don't want to deal with DC fast charging. Look for yourself:
That said, they can make a lot of sense if you need 1 car that can do everything, both short daily drives and long trips. The sleeper hit here is the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The new ones have 38miles electric range and seat 7.
However, the falling price of batteries and growth of DC fast charging infrastructure means that they will PHEVs will be a bridge technology.
Many city buses however are starting to convert to some form of plugin hybrid, although even their
However, even city buses are moving towards full electrification since the maintenance and fuel costs tend to dominate the total cost of ownership for them, and those are much lower with full electric.
> I don't know anything about a "power split" transmission, but isn't that the sort of thing a differential gear set does very well at?
A planetary gear set is often a component of a power split transmission, but there are other components. The key thing is that it is able to blend power from multiple sources [1]
> The thought occurs to me to make the rear wheels powered by the ICE and the front wheels electric.
> Then no wacky transmissions.
The problem is you then have a car that switches the basic drive characteristics (FWD to RWD) depending on what fuel you are using. Everything from the chassis to the suspension in a car is designed according to where the power is coming from.
Mitsubishi addressed this problem in their Outlander PHEV by using 2 electric motors, 1 on each axle, with the front axle being supplemented by the ICE engine (via a 1 way clutch) when more power is needed than the small battery can output, or when the battery is depleted [2]. This doesn't completely solve the problem but makes it less noticeable, and eliminates the need for a mechanical driveshaft between the front and rear.
Also, this approach only switches the vehicle from FWD to AWD, not from FWD to RWD. It's the same with dual motor EVs, they switch from 1 axle drive to 2 axle drive - they don't switch from one axle completely to the other. Imagine your car suddenly becoming RWD when the battery was depleted. That would be weird, and potentially even dangerous.
In that case you would still need a transmission for the engine which would likely increase cost and complexity compared to the surprisingly simple and elegant planetary gear transmissions used in most modern hybrids e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
By using two electric motors connected to a planetary gearset you can replace the starter and alternator, allow for electric drive and regenerative braking, and provide a continuously variable transmission for the gas engine all with a set of constantly meshed gears (i.e. no shifting components).
It's VERY hard to keep a vehicle run straight with non-mechanically-tied wheels, you'll almost never get a "perfect enough" balance ending up in an engine pushing/pulling against the other.
That's why for instance we do not have much multi-motors EVs without a mechanical coupling...
Plugin hybrids cars are expensive, not at the least because they require both a traditional ICE drivetrain and a large battery and electric motor, and specialized power split transmissions to make those work together.
Therefore, most plugin hybrids are higher end (just like EVs) and marketed at wealthier people who want to drive electric most of the time but have range anxiety or don't want to deal with DC fast charging. Look for yourself:
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15377500/plug-in-hybr...
That said, they can make a lot of sense if you need 1 car that can do everything, both short daily drives and long trips. The sleeper hit here is the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The new ones have 38miles electric range and seat 7.
However, the falling price of batteries and growth of DC fast charging infrastructure means that they will PHEVs will be a bridge technology.
Many city buses however are starting to convert to some form of plugin hybrid, although even their
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_bus#List_of_tr...
However, even city buses are moving towards full electrification since the maintenance and fuel costs tend to dominate the total cost of ownership for them, and those are much lower with full electric.