While electric vehicles require both range and power from the battery pack, hybrids require similar power with far less energy. You might think that the battery pack of any electrified vehicle — hybrid, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), or pure electric (BEV) —is pretty much the same, other than its size.
You might think that the battery pack of any electrified vehicle — hybrid, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), or pure electric (BEV) —is pretty much the same, other than its size. But that overlooks two key differences in the way batteries are used in different types of electrified vehicles.
One way to control this is to limit how much of a battery’s capacity is used during a charge/discharge cycle. For a hybrid such as the F-150, which sees the maximum number of cycles, the “state-of-charge window (the fraction of the battery capacity that is actually used) is probably around 50 percent today.”
Plug-in hybrids typically use larger battery packs than comparable conventional hybrids, however, and thus require more resources. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has suggested that utilities could purchase used batteries for backup and load leveling purposes.
A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) or simply plug-in hybrid is a type of hybrid electric vehicle equipped with a rechargeable battery pack that can be directly replenished via a charging cable plugged into an external electric power source, in addition to charging internally by its on-board internal combustion engine -powered generator.
In the United States, plug-in hybrids represent 47.2% of the 506,450 plug-in electric cars sold between 2008 and August 2016. In November 2013 the Netherlands became the first country where a plug-in hybrid topped the monthly ranking of new car sales.