PHEV Is Fine: Mitsubishi Says It Knows What Green Buyers Want

I've driven the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV several times and I like it quite a bit, but at the end of the day it's the same compromise as almost every other PHEV: you get quite short electric range, and asking for all but modest acceleration kicks in the raucous gas engine, and it's not all that efficient once the battery's dead. The Chevy Volt is literally the only PHEV to get it right. The gas engine never comes on until the battery is dead, and the battery is big enough that it never goes dead in typical daily driving. So for your weekday commute and errands, you have a fully electric car that's a joy to drive and uses no gas. But on a road trip, when you do exceed that battery range, the car magically transforms into an efficient hybrid, so you have effectively unlimited range with no need to look for charging stations. It's magic. It's what a PHEV should be. If Mitsubishi can make the next Outlander PHEV go 50 miles on a charge, with a gas engine that stays locked out even at full throttle, and a 0-60 time and highway MPG competitive with the gas model, then it will fulfill the car's promise and keep buyers interested. If not, then maybe their strategy is a blind alley.

@HotPotato I agree on the issue of the engine kicking in when exceeding 60kW demand, but once yiu get used, it's manageable. Regarding the pure hybrid efficiency, the new 2.4 l should improve the mileage, putting it on par with the Toyota RAV4 hybrid.

Yes, if your life is that of million other workers with a 9-17 job some 10-15 miles away and some kids to bring around in the same range, then the PHEV choice makes lot of sense. Once the battery is big enough to sustain the peak power demand without calling in the ICE and to allow errands with some height difference too, then the PHEV may represent a good alternative to the pure EV.

@HotPotato, the general term for the hybrid type of the Volt is a "series hybrid". It is not, however, the only one of that type. My BMW i3 Rex is a series hybrid as well, for example. You have hit the nail on the head, though. Most of the PHEVs on the market have very small electric motors. That means they will perform very poorly acceleration-wise when in electric only mode. So, to say that they are going to increase the electric only range to 50 miles could result in a lot of disappointed consumers if they aren't aware of this. And they sure don't tend to mention it in their marketing. To get full performance you have to use both the electric motor and ICE engine in parallel (duh, that's why these are called "parallel hybrids"). Series hybrids have full performance whether you're using power from the battery, the ICE engine, or both. I definitely prefer the latter, though both designs have their place.