Plug in hybrid vehicles

[Brad]

Amidst all the talk about self driving and electrics, the plug in hybrid is getting overlooked.  Sure it's an interim solution but we are going to see more of these on the road before electrics become common.  Let's face it, if you have to drive 500 miles pretty regularly over a weekend to check up on aging parents a pure EV isn't going to cut it.

http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/phevnews.shtml

[ergophobe]

Add to that the fact that we're moving toward autonomous cars and the huge power draw reduces range, which has many people saying that until the hardware gets more energy efficient, plug-in hybrids will be the only viable alternative except for second, commuter cars for short distance
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/driverless-cars-are-giving-engineers-a-fuel-economy-headache

Also, there was an article saying that a recent study showed that owners of highly efficient cars typically own a second car that's a gas guzzler and is used on long trips, so the true fleet average is worse than we think it. The range

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Pigging-out-on-donuts-and-gasoline-is-kind-of-the-12230742.php

The range problem just exacerbates that