Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are marketed as a way to minimize harmful carbon pollution by using gasoline as a backup, with the goal of running primarily on electric power.
However, groundbreaking findings from the "largest real-world study yet" cast significant doubt on those claims, according to Electrek.
The prestigious Fraunhofer Institute explained in its study that PHEVs were critical to automakers, helping them lower fleet pollution to meet European Union standards.
As Electrek noted, the research was the most comprehensive to date, but not the first.
On Oct. 16, the European Federation for Transport and Environment published a report alleging that not only did PHEVs generate "nearly five times" more pollution than previously claimed, but that the gap in reported levels had "been widening" for years.
Electrek cited years of similar PHEV findings that had been largely attributed to drivers' failure to charge their vehicles as often as they should.
However, the study found that during "average use," PHEVs used three times more gasoline than standing estimates suggested and that plug-in hybrids "even use more fossil fuels in electric power mode than previously claimed."
Trust in automakers to honestly disclose such data fell precipitously following Volkswagen's Dieselgate scandal in 2015, which unfolded after the Environmental Protection Agency caught the brand using "defeat devices" to falsify pollution data in lab tests.
In 2021, the European Union mandated On-Board Fuel Consumption Monitoring, in part due to persistent discrepancies between reported PHEV pollution levels and real-world data.
The new study used OBFCM data from 981,035 European cars.
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Save $1,000 this year 💸 "The average real-world fuel consumption is … about 300% above" EU regulatory standards, the researchers wrote, adding that "PHEVs thus show fuel consumption on the road in the same order of magnitude as conventional internal combustion vehicles."
OBFCM data from over 30 automakers appeared in the dataset, suggesting an industry-wide problem rather than an isolated instance of misreporting, as one commenter pointed out.
"This is pretty damning evidence from a large dataset and the extremely well-respected Fraunhofer Institute," they began. "Frustratingly, automakers already knew all of this data. They have precise telemetry on every vehicle. They have been hiding it."
Ultimately, the commenter asserted that "governments should stop incentivizing PHEVs."
"Wow. This is way more awful than what I thought. But I 100% believe it," another reader wrote.
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