[Ann1975]

Hit me with the pro's and con's.

[Santa]

What you should buy depends on several things:

• Your budget
• Your average mileage
• Availability of charging at home
• LEZs

Hybrids are more readily available secondhand.
High mileage users may find recharging a problem.
Pure electric is most economical to users who can charge them at home.
If you drive in a Low Emission Zone there may be savings for pure electric.

I am sure there are a lot of other factors, but that's a start.

[Mark07]

Originally Posted by Ann1975

Hit me with the pro's and con's.

This article should point you in the right direction, it's a few years old so some of the cons are less of an issue (depending on where you live).

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric...-electric-car/

The range of electric cars is increasing and the availability of charging points across the UK is improving.

Costs are also coming down, but upfront costs hybrids and electric (compared to solely petrol/diesel cars) remain higher.

[Drivingforfun]

I kind of think that hybrids are the "worst of both worlds"

You get an electric range of maybe 25 miles, then when you use that up, you've got the fuel economy of a big. heavy car with 2 power sources, so you'll be doing like 30mpg

They seem to be invented as a way of doing well in emissions tests, so that company car drivers (who pay benefit in kind tax based on the car's economy) could acquire them cheaply, knowing full well they'd be used on the petrol engine 99% of the time and not be doing 200mpg in the real world

[Ann1975]

I don’t know much about cars, I thought a Prius used both at engines at the same time. Electric to accelerate and petrol to maintain speed.

my sisterin-law has one and the picture on the dashboard seemed to show that. I thought all hybrids would be like that.

[Grimm]

Hybrids can give you a bit of both worlds, but if you can charge at home, pure electric might save you more in the long run and help you with those Low Emission Zones.

[NMNeil]

You would think that a hybrid would have a battery bank to give you a 200 mile range but a very small petrol engine in case the batteries got too low. Just enough to charge the batteries and get you to the next charging station, albeit slowly.
Having a petrol engine as the main power plant and the batteries as just a backup seems to be the wrong way round.

[Rolebama]

FWIW: Most of the minicab companies locally use Priuses, (Prii?) and these last few years I have travelled in quite a few. They seem comfortable enough, and have a reasonable rear leg room, but they seem to me to be quite noisy. Bearing in mind it is pretty much downhill to the local town centre. I would strongly recommend a test drive in any of them you consider. A few years ago we used an electric black cab on a ride home from a London hospital. 19 miles on mixed roads. Noticed how quiet it was although the whine got louder as speed increased, but this was soon drowned out by tyre noise. Neither noise was overly intrusive.