The Three Types of Electric Vehicles

When exploring your options, perhaps the best way to start is by identifying the different types of electric vehicles available for purchase. As you’ll see, just because it includes the words “electric vehicle” in the description doesn’t mean you won’t have to keep buying gasoline.

In fact, some “electric vehicles” aren’t even the kind you have to plug in so that it can charge.

If the car has a battery, and that battery at some point supplies power to the drivetrain, then it’s technically an electric vehicle. But within that broad definition is room for lots of EV subcategories, each of which defines how often the drivetrain is powered by a battery. The following describes three such categories.

Hybrid electric vehicles

HEV is the acronym for a hybrid electric vehicle. Any vehicle that has hybrid in its model name describes a car with both a gasoline motor and a (relatively small) battery that powers an electric motor.

As a rule, the power from the electric motor allows the car to use a smaller internal combustion engine, thus reducing emissions from the tailpipe.

One of the most important characteristics of a hybrid electric vehicle is that all energy for the battery comes from either regenerative braking or the gasoline engine itself. (The process is similar to how a fully internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle charges the 12-volt lead-acid battery needed for starting.)

As such, you don't power the HEV battery by plugging it in.

Hybrid electric vehicles are considered low-emission vehicles because their gasoline engines do, indeed, emit everything a non-EV does, although at a much lower rate.

You’ll also notice that I don’t/won’t talk much about much hybrid electrics in my book Electric Cars For Dummies, favoring instead coverage of fully electric vehicles. First of all, hybrids are an over 20-year-old propulsion technology. And, while a hybrid car has better emissions than a traditional ICE car, if the whole world was going to go hybrid, there’s been plenty of time for the transition; i.e., the “book” on hybrids was written many, many years ago.

Second, even HEVs are likely to be become functionally obsolete by decade’s end — they have a combustion engine, after all, and the future of combustion engines for personal transportation isn’t bright.

Do keep in mind that, as of today, HEVs remain some of the cleanest vehicles available, and because many have already been manufactured, buyers of an HEV can take comfort in the fact that their purchase isn’t directly resulting in any additional carbon from product manufacturing.

If you’re looking to lower your carbon footprint and lower out-of-pocket expense for the vehicle, a hybrid can be a fantastic choice.

HEV options

Compared to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and, certainly, battery electric vehicles (BEVs), buyers have more options for choosing a HEV vehicle. For example, the only way to drive an electrified pickup truck at the time of this writing is to opt for something like the Toyota Tundra Hybrid or the Ford F-150 Hybrid.

And even though some manufacturers, like Ford and General Motors, have discontinued their HEV offerings, you still have some compelling new HEV choices from automakers like Hyundai (Elantra and Sonata), Honda (Accord and CR-V) and Toyota (Highlander, Camry, and, of course, the venerable Prius).

Now, let’s tackle the question of cost. As a general rule, a new hybrid electric costs less than its PHEV equivalent. For example, I’m pricing a Toyota RAV4 as a reference point and seeing that the 2022 RAV4 Hybrid (an HEV) starts at $29,075 as I write this sentence — and that the RAV4 Prime (a PHEV) starts at $39,800.

What’s more, the fact that hybrids have been on the road for about 20 years now means that the used-vehicle market is similarly awash with choices. If you have a teen in your life looking for their first car to get to work and school, you can find very affordable options to get them from point A to point B, and to do so with less environmental impact than a gasoline-only car.

Were I so inclined, I could set my budget with a maximum of $10,000 and go shopping for a used 2013 Toyota Prius, a 2012 Honda Civic Hybrid, a 2016 Ford Fusion Hybrid, a 2016 Hyundai Sonata, or many others.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles

As with hybrid electric vehicles, the hybrid here refers to a vehicle with both an electric motor and a gasoline engine. The difference is that, with a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, driver’s will — you guessed it — plug in the car in order to charge the battery. Note that plug-in hybrids also can recharge their batteries using regenerative braking.

Whereas the typical range of a HEV is just 1 to 2 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in, a PHEV can typically go anywhere between 10 to 40 miles before needing help from the internal combustion engine. This is more than enough range for most daily driving in the United States.

You can easily handle 10 to 40 miles of range with an overnight charge in most any Level 1 wall outlet, but plug-in hybrid vehicles can take advantage of Level 2 charging as well. (Level 2 charging means plugging into a 240-volt outlet — the same kind that powers appliances like dryers.)

PHEV options

You have lots of PHEVs to choose from in today’s market — over 30 available in the U.S. alone — so it’s difficult to spot the pioneer of the PHEV space in quite the same way you can for an HEV.

If I had to say, though, I’d point to the Chevrolet Volt, which was brought to market in late 2010 (the first Volts were of the 2011 model-year vintage). When the Volt was introduced, it was a standout in the hybrid space by virtue of its plug. It could go about 35 miles on its electric power alone, a range that was improved to just over 50 miles in more recent model years.

Other prominent examples of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are the Ford C-Max, the Fusion Energi, the Hyundai IONIQ PHEV, and the Kia Optima PHEV. All of these have been discontinued, though, so they might present an affordable electric option if you’re in the used-car market. Once again, it’s not just me who thinks that we’ve reached the end of an era when it comes to ICE vehicles. The auto manufacturers seem to be telling us something.

PHEVs allow you to be ecofriendly while driving around and taking the kids to school, while still carting those same kids to hockey tournaments in far-flung locations without allowing for an hour or more of charging time to those hockey tournament road trips. The image below shows one potential soccer-team-chauffering machine.

It is worth bearing in mind, however, that PHEVs (and HEVs) require all the maintenance of an ICE, because they are ICE cars. Gas stations, oil changes, spark plugs, timing belts … it’s all part of the package when using a hybrid.

Battery electric vehicles

What sets a BEV apart is that it contains nothing that produces tailpipe emissions — it uses rechargeable batteries that draw their power either from regenerative braking (while driving) or from the electric grid (while parked).

In sum, all BEVs are zero-emission vehicles, and will therefore play a vital role in humanity’s collective effort to keep the earth a habitable place (or at least habitable by humans).

As an added benefit, BEVs tend to be easier to maintain and simply more fun to drive. If you have children right now under the age of 10, chances are rather good that those children will never drive anything other than an electric vehicle.

Looking to pinpoint the quintessential BEV? Well, as much as I might like to report, dear reader, that the leader in the EV space is General Motors, which parlayed its groundbreaking work with the EV1 into a decade of innovation and market dominance, facts simply don’t support this assertion.

The leader in BEVs right now is Tesla — full stop. Its 2012 Model S was the EV that put EVs on the map. As of this writing, in early 2022, the general expert consensus is that everyone else is playing catch-up.

Why might you consider a BEV? Let me count the ways. You’d consider an EV if you:

• Never want to stop at a gas station again
• Want to reduce carbon emissions into the environment
• Want a quieter ride
• Want lower total cost of ownership over the life of the vehicle

What I’m saying is that if you have the financing or cash that can accommodate an EV in your budget, I can’t think of a reason not to drive a fully electric car (or truck, assuming that the truck you want/need is available).