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cgyvbunjiyesterday at 11:52 PM2 repliesview on HN

> mechanically you inherit all the problems from both sides

Not really. The transmission is an e-CVT in hybrids which has no torque converter, the main part that breaks first in an automatic transmission. Unlike a regular CVT, the e-CVT has no belt, either. The e-CVT basically never breaks, so you basically never have a transmission go bad in a hybrid. On top of that, because the traction battery is so small, it's replaceable for $1-2k instead of $10k+ for a BEV. If anything, hybrids are the best of both worlds. Had you specified plugin hybrids you would have been correct.


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bryanlarsentoday at 1:38 AM

The joke is that you have to replace the traction battery twice in a Prius but you never have to replace the traction battery in a Tesla. But that's an indictment of the Tesla, not the Prius.

A Prius battery will last 150k km or so, but since the car can go 500k km +, that's a couple of battery replacements. A Tesla battery will last about 300k km, but that's longer than the rest of the car will typically last, so you never have to replace it.

FabCHtoday at 3:12 AM

Non-plugin hybrids are pointless in the context of the paper from the OP, since they don’t help with climate change.

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