EV vs Plug-in Hybrid

To start off, let's debunk the biggest differences between these two modern vehicles.

A fully electric vehicle (EV) requires external charging after a period of time, runs on a lithium battery and is completely petrol free.A PHEV or Plug-in Hybrid Electric will initially run off the battery power and will automatically switch over to petrol when needed, should you be on particularly a long drive or haven't charged your car recently. The difference between a PHEV and a regular hybrid is that it still requires you to manually charge the vehicle via an external cable and port.

During this transition period, we are seeing a large selection of PHEVs throughout all of our popular brands, much like the Mitsubishi Outlander and Eclipse-Cross. Electric Vehicles on the other hand are still largely exclusive to luxury brands like Volvo, Porsche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Tesla. However there are a few exceptions such as the Kia Niro, the Nissan Leaf and the Hyundai Kona and Ioniq which are great options for everyday buyers. It should be mentioned that in today's climate It's likely that buying electric will require ordering in advance and may incur wait times.

The range of an EV can vary immensely depending on the vehicle and the size of the battery. On a single charge it can differentiate from 6.1 kWh of power for 90km to a whopping 100kWh for 600km. Hybrid Vehicles have a smaller battery and therefore a shorter range and are best suited for people with daily commutes under 30 minutes. Discovering the capacity of your car of choice will require a bit of further research, for EVs and PHEVs both.

The most important similarity between these options is that they both reduce petrol consumption and its correlating costs and damaging emission outputs.