PHEV Owners Do Plug In Their Cars, New Data Suggests

Plug-in hybrid powertrains were developed to be the best of both worlds: a combustion engine and fuel tank that can handle those longer journeys exactly the same as a non-hybrid car, with an electric motor and a battery large enough for most or all of someone’s daily driving range. But only if you plug it in. And it is often taken as a statement of fact that plug-in hybrid owners don’t plug in their plug-in hybrids.

Instead, they were seduced into buying a car with far too big a battery, no doubt as a result of generous incentives, the theory goes. And if those drivers aren’t going to plug in and therefore enjoy at least some entirely electric driving, they should have bought a parallel hybrid instead, which often delivers better efficiency than a PHEV with an empty battery, at a significantly lower price.

But what if that take is wrong? As it turns out, there’s some more evidence that PHEV drivers do in fact plug in their plug-ins, and the latest data point is from one of the most prolific PHEV pushers: Toyota.

In the past, Toyota has declined to provide numbers when asked by journalists about the frequency of PHEV plugging. But a pair of researchers at Toyota Research Institute North America have now crunched some data, and, after looking at anonymized data from more than 6,000 RAV4 Prime and Lexus NX 450h+ (between model years 2021–2024), the results are encouraging.

RAV4 Prime drivers plug their cars in on seven out of 10 driving days, with Lexus NX owners plugging in more frequently, between eight and nine times out of 10 driving days. They say that only 9 percent of Toyota PHEV drivers and 4 percent of Lexus PHEV drivers “rarely” plug in.

Anyone else?

In fact, Toyota’s findings match up quite well with the other automakers that have made their PHEV customers’ charging habits public. According to the Autopian, more than half of BMW PHEV owners charge “at least 2-4 times a week,” and Kia said that 93 percent of its PHEV owners charge, mostly at home. Hyundai reported even higher charger usage—99 percent of Tucson PHEV drivers charge their cars, it said, with half charging once or more per day.

Which is not to say that the skeptics’ complaints are ungrounded. The four OEMs above are a start, yet many more have sold or do sell PHEVs but don’t provide any information on whether they’re actually being plugged in. To those companies, we say it’s time to show some numbers, please.