Who is Andy Palmer and why is he saying “Hybrids are a road to hell?” Admittedly, Palmer is not a household name, but he is well known in the auto industry. He went to work for Nissan in 2002 and rose quickly to become the chief operating officer and head of global planning for the company. In 2014, he became CEO of Aston Martin, a position he held for six years.
Some call him “the godfather of the electric car” because during his time at Nissan he pushed for the development of the LEAF, the world’s first mass market electric car. He told Business Insider recently, “I wish I could say that it was driven by a motivation to better the world. But actually, it was driven by the Toyota Prius kicking our ass.” Rather than just copying Toyota’s success with its hybrid drivetrain, Palmer said he pushed Nissan to build a fully electric vehicle, a plan that resulted in the LEAF after CEO Carlos Ghosn added his support for the idea.
Palmer told Business Insider that delaying transitioning to EVs in favor of selling hybrids was a “fool’s errand” and warned that automakers doing so risked falling even further behind Chinese EV companies. “Hybrids are a road to hell. They are a transition strategy, and the longer you stay on that transition, the less quickly you ramp up into the new world. If you just delay transitioning to EVs by diluting it with hybrids then you are more uncompetitive for longer, and you allow the Chinese to continue to develop their market and their leadership. I honestly think it’s a fool’s errand.”
Sure, but are they the ones you need? the F150 gets maybe 100 miles (200km) if you are towing a trailer. The id.buzz is rated for about 200 miles (it is new in the US so real world range is still unknown). Both are currently the only thing available in their category (other trucks are coming, but AFAIK not available yet). Sure you can charge, but that takes a lot longer than filling with gas and you have to do it more often (gas engines get more fuel efficient under load, while electric stays the same - which means you go don’t lose as much range with heavy duty use)
Note that the above is about the US. There are lots of EVs around the world that we cannot get in the US. So that they exist means nothing to this discussion.
If it takes an hour to charge, you should be resting at least that long on a 5+ hr drive. For day to day use it just changes how you use it, you plug it in at night and trickle it, or you plug it in at the shopping center and it charges while you do your groceries, the destination is never to “fill it up”
You will get the technological leaps eventually when your local producers build an equivalent, or you get a sane government that allows free trade