When people talk about cars, they throw around a lot of TLAs (three-letter acronyms), which can be CAH (confusing as heck) for IDC (I don’t care) drivers. So what is the difference between an ICE,HEV, EV, andPHEV? Does it matter, and if it does, how will it affect me?
It will certainly affect your bank balance, both in what you pay for a car and what it will cost to run. It will also affect your driving experience, and if you care about it, yourimpact on the environment.
Here is a short list of the options you have, what they are in very non-technical terms, their benefits, and drawbacks. This list is arranged in how long each kind of tech has been available in the modern sense. Old-timey cars were quant, but terrible to drive, and we are not busy with a history lesson.
The pictures in this list all correspond to the power train described in that section. The feature picture is of a Rivian R1S EV, the truck is Ford F-150 Raptor, the hybrid is an Aston Martin Valkyrie, the EV is aFord Mustang Mach-ERally, the PHEV is a Koenigsegg Regera, and the last picture is a Porsche Taycan EV.
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5ICE – Internal Combustion Engines
Mature tech, but losing relevance
Internal combustion engineshave been around since cars, and they explode gas and air in a cylinder, turning the pressure created into mechanical movement. This movement is converted until it reaches the wheels, which turn, and there you go. There are loads of stuff that happens in between, but you don’t really care, do you?
Benefits of ICE
ICE has been around forever, and technology is pretty much mature. We know how to make it work at its best, and there is a whole aftermarket industry focused on making high-performance engines a bit more powerful, or sound a lot better in the ear of the beholder.
ICE vehicles cost less to manufacture than other power sources, and are generally cheaper to maintain or repair. Until about 25 years ago, ICE was the only option if you wanted to drive a car, and there is a whole industry supporting it. There are still around because:
Drawbacks of ICE
ICE is a dead-end. Any improvements will be marginal at best, and probably cost more than the resulting benefits. They really suck at fuel economy, because almost all the energy they produce is wasted as heat, moving all the mechanical bits up and down or round and round. Eighty percent of the gas burned by the ICE is turned into heat that escapes into the atmosphere. Just look at the shimmer of heat over your hood on a cold day, or the exhaust fumes. For every dollar you spend on gas, 80 cents is wasted. Unlike the other power sources, no energy used to make the gas car move is recovered.
ICE cars are also environmentally bad. That 80% of gas wasted does not only become heat, it becomes smog and greenhouse gases too. Running an ICE vehicle is:
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4HEV – hybrid electric vehicles
A very efficient compromise for now
Hybrid cas are all the rage now, but it was not always the case. Back in the late 1990s, Toyota and Honda pioneered the hybrid engine and launched the first production models soon after. Unfortunately, both the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight at first were odd-looking, slow, and the handling was not great. Although they were considered a bit of a joke, fuel efficiency was great, and soon after hybrids appeared inbigger cars like SUVs.
The benefits of HEVs
The mainstream hybrid drive still used by Toyota and Honda uses a combination of ICE, electric motor, and a smallish battery to power the vehicle, which allows regenerative braking. Regenerative braking slows the car when you lift your foot off the accelerator when you want to stop or go down a hill. The electric motor that helped propel the car is now turned into a generator, which feeds energy used to slow the car back into the battery.
A hybrid drive can run on both ICE and the battery together, or just with ICE, or on battery alone for very short distances. The benefits of hybrid engines are obvious:
Drawbacks of a hybrid
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3EV – electric vehicle
On the cusp of dominance
The Tesla Roadster was launched in 2008, the first EV to go over 240 miles on a single charge. The roadster was a sexy car, with the body designed by Lotus, and all greenies went gaga. It completely overshadowed the hybrid and the plug-in hybrid that followed, promising a new age of responsible motoring. But the Roadster was hideously expensive, and a couple of years later, Nissan dropped the affordable, if somewhat underwhelming, Leaf.
The Leaf prevailed, and Tesla launched a handful of new models over the next decade, but the promised EV revolution stalled, creating a gap for the hybrid and plug-in hybrid. However, over the past few years, battery prices dropped and performance skyrocketed, and a host of new EVs came to the fore to join Tesla and Nissan.
The EV is on the verge of completely taking over, but the timelines are blurry. The tech is still very new, and there is some work to be done. So at the moment, the EV has the following advantages:
Disadvantages
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2PHEV – plug-in hybrid vehicles
A complex compromise
The PHEV was launched a couple of years after the first Tesla, as acompromise between an EV and a hybrid. They have bigger batteries than the HEV, which gives them real-world miles of range, with the fallback of driving as a hybrid when the battery runs out. The battery can be charged at home, and during driving would charge via regenerative braking or via the ICE engine.
With most US drivers averaging 37 miles per day, including 24-mile commutes, a PHEV with a 50 to 60-mile range will not use any gas most of the time. When you have to drive a longer distance, you have the fallback of the ICE engine, which has the same regen benefits for fuel efficiency. Plug-in hybrids are popular because they:
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1So, what is next?
Within the next two or three years, EVs will reach price parity with ICE, meaning it will cost the same to make an EV as a similar ICE vehicle. That will be the last nail in the ICE coffin. Very fast charging and super-long driving distancesshould get rid of PHEVs as well. HEVs will last longer, initially in working trucks to carry or tow, and later in remote areas where charging infrastructure is still lacking.
I can see ICE, HEVs, and PHEVs hanging around in niche cars, like dragsters or formula racing. But in the end, cost and efficiency will have the final say.
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