For The US Auto Market, What Is The Next Step, Battery Electric Vehicles Or Hybrids?

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I’ve been driving electric vehicles (EVs) for 15 years, so you may think this is a strange question for me to ask, but I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for the “regular Joe” in the US. If everyone was like me, it would be easy to answer — EVs all day and twice on Sunday. But everyone isn’t like me, so I’ll present the evidence that we should go all electric from here and the evidence that we should take a gradual approach. The answer is of course that some people will take each path if given a choice. In this article, I show how highly efficient hybrids like Geely’s new i-HEV could slow full EV adoption among average buyers. While EVs offer lower maintenance, greater longevity, and environmental benefits, most people resist change and may not prioritize these advantages when hybrids reduce fuel use with minimal “disruption.”

Why Hybrids Might Be The Next Step

• The biggest reason is most people hate change, so if you buy a hybrid, you save some money on fuel and you don’t change anything (like finding charging stations or installing a home charger), except you go to the gas station less often. People do change when they see something clearly worth the effort, and people have embraced things like smartphones because the perceived benefit is worth the effort and cost to adopt. What could change people’s resistance to change? The biggest factor is if their friends, family, or coworkers go electric and tell them how great it is (preferably without being annoying). [Editor’s note: I would also note that it did take many people a long time to adopt cell phones and smartphones. It’s not like that happened overnight. It’s just that because the transition is essentially complete, we don’t think much about the laggards any more. —ZS]
• There are still places in the US that don’t have many chargers. If there are no fast chargers where you drive on long trips but you have two cars, you could just buy one EV and keep a gas car or hybrid for longer trips. Most people don’t do that because they don’t like change, not because it wouldn’t work. But not having chargers doesn’t help. Another factor is there are a ton of chargers in some places that an EV owner knows about because they are on PlugShare, but gas car owners don’t know they are there because they typically don’t have huge signs like gas stations.

•  Geely Auto announced that the fifth-generation Emgrand i-HEV hybrid sedan will officially launch on June 16, 2026. As the video above explains, this car flips the idea of a hybrid on its head. For many years, automakers thought of a hybrid as a gas car with a small electric motor that assists the gas engine. This car is designed as an electric car with a gas engine assist if additional range is needed. The 48.41% efficiency is dramatically higher than the 20% to 25% of a gas car or the 35% to 40% of most hybrids. What does this mean in miles per gallon? It is rated at 61 MPG in the official test in China, but it completed a highway test at 106 mpg, breaking a Guinness World Record! They use a deep Miller cycle to greatly improve the efficiency. The video explains that they do this by opening the intake values much later than most cars and somewhat later than most hybrids. The disadvantage is the engine is less responsive and less powerful. If Geely didn’t have a powerful electric motor and decent sized battery, the car would have very poor drivability, but with the electric motor providing plenty of power, the driver will never know the gas engine is low power (unless they used the car in extreme conditions). If more automakers move to this architecture and achieve this level of efficiency, the average driver covering 12,000 miles a year at 60 mpg would only use 200 gallons of gas — at $4.00 a gallon, that’s $800. An EV would use about 3000 kWh to go 12,000 miles — at about 20 cents per kWh, that is $600 a year to fuel; and a lot more if you can’t charge at home. That kills the fuel savings unless gas prices go up or electricity rates go down (like if your utility offers cheap charging at certain times of the day).

Why Electric Vehicles Might Be The Next Step

I asked Grok to compare the costs to build the same size car with 4 different powertrains:

• Wright’s law says that every time the cumulative production of anything doubles, the price is reduced by a given amount. This reduction in costs and price is about 15%, driven primary by reductions in battery costs. So, every 2 to 3 years, cumulative production doubles and costs go down about 12% for EVs, while gas car prices tend to stay flat or even go up a bit. You can see that in 2 to 3 years the costs of all 4 powertrains (ICE, HEV, PHEV/EREV, and BEV) will be about the same, since the PHEV/EREV/BEV prices will be coming down and the ICE/HEV ones won’t.
• Fuel costs are dramatically lower for EVs than gas cars or regular hybrids.
• Maintenance costs are a lot lower on EVs. But most people don’t know this and just hear propaganda like “you will need a new expensive battery in a few years” or “the battery is likely to catch fire.”
• EVs are likely to last a lot longer than gas cars. This article talks about how today’s EVs are designed to last over 200,000 miles. This contrasts with gas cars seeing more issues at 100,000 miles, with turbos one culprit, and the 10,000 mile oil change is also a problem. Most people don’t worry about this when they buy a new car, so this is unlikely to change buying behavior.
• The environmental impact of EVs is much less than it is for a hybrid, but most people don’t care.

Conclusion

If many automakers follow Geely’s lead and bring highly efficient hybrids to market, and gas prices remain relatively stable, it will continue to be challenging to persuade most buyers to switch fully to electric. While the environmental, longevity, and maintenance advantages of EVs are real and meaningful, unfortunately, most people either aren’t fully aware of these benefits or simply don’t prioritize them when choosing a vehicle. For the average buyer who values familiarity, convenience, and minimizing upfront hassle, a well-designed hybrid can feel like the more practical and lower-risk option. On the other hand, if EV owners keep educating their friends, family, and coworkers, we can convince more to move to EVs.