This may not be great news for the climate. Someone who swaps a gasoline truck for a hybrid truck will reduce their emissions. A 2020 analysis of pickup trucks found that a hybrid truck emits nearly 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases over its lifetime than its gas-only counterpart. But global climate goals generally require not only fully electrifying most drivers, but also significantly reducing driving. In the short term, hybrids could help auto companies meet stricter emissions regulations. But ultimately, “the hybrid is a gasoline car,” says Gil Tal, who directs UC Davis’ Electric Vehicle Research Center. The goal should be to get more people to switch to battery-electric vehicles and hybrids that plug into a wall socket, he says.
Right now, though, the popularity of hybrid trucks is rooted in the realization that many car buyers still don’t feel ready to drive an electric car, says Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at automotive research firm Edmunds. Going from gas to a charging station can be easy for some drivers, especially those who have access to chargers at home. But going electric requires someone to have a very different relationship with their car, she says, and that can be scary. “While there is a rush to battery-electric vehicles, there is a group of people who say, ‘I’m not ready to take that leap yet. I want to take small steps.’” Bambino, this hybrid truck is for you.
Ford’s pitch for the new hybrid F-150 model remains focused on what the hybrid can do – muscle trucks – with better fuel economy than the gas-only model, rather than saving the planet. (At an EPA-reported 25 miles per gallon, the 2023 version of the vehicle was below the national fleet average.) It’s the greenish truck for truck people. Aside from the supercharged Raptor model, the hybrid F-150’s electric motor boost gives it the most power and torque in the range, meaning it can do a lot of practical towing work. The battery can function as the equivalent of a 2.4 kilowatt electric generator – enough to power or charge a few small appliances at once – and 72 percent of hybrid customers have switched to 7.2 kilowatts, Ford says, which can power a number of appliances. power tools at the same time.
For people who use their trucks for work, that could make the hybrid a better choice than the battery-electric version, said John Emmert, general manager of Ford Trucks. “If you live in a rural area without charging infrastructure, and you use the truck for frequent, daily long-distance towing, which is common among truck owners, then that hybrid is probably a better choice. than Lightning,” he says. It helps that the hybrid version will likely cost thousands less than the battery-only version.
If you need a new truck, a plug in A hybrid that uses its gas engine only when the battery is empty would be a better compromise for the climate, says Tal, the UC Davis researcher. “For years we called plug-in hybrids a gateway drug” to battery electricity, he says, a stepping stone to a zero-emissions future. But now his research shows that once car buyers get used to plugging their cars in for a period of time, they’ll transition fluidly between battery-electric systems and plug-in hybrids, making these hybrids a more permanent tool in the driving toolbox. car decarbonization. But for now, plug-in hybrid pickup trucks face the same practical problems as battery-electric pickups: their heavy batteries mean they can tow less weight. No one sells a plug-in pickup in the US right now.
So today, hybrid pickups represent a common American approach to buying, well, anything: more, please. “This is what Americans want: the maximum, just in case,” said Brian Moody, editor-in-chief of Autotrader. Electricity is the future of both driving and decarbonizing the economy, he says, but hybrid trucks “could be the solution for now.”