The boost plug-in hybrids needed? Huge driving ranges are making PHEVs even more viable for Australia

For quite some time, it seemed like plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs) were doomed to remain a niche gap-filler between petrol cars and electric vehicles, but recent happenings might shift that.

In the first 11 months of 2024, plug-in hybrid sales more than doubled in Australia compared to the same period in 2023: 17,953 this year versus 8811 last year.

And while increased awareness, acceptance and infrastructure for electrification will have been an influence on this, there’s more improvement to come on the plug-in front.

As driving ranges for PHEVs improve, the extra cost that comes with the complexity of a plug-in system — large battery, and combustion engine all in one car — starts to be more justified.

If updates to PHEV models overseas this year are anything to go by, ranges for some models could improve dramatically.

Two of the world’s best-known cars, the BMW 3 Series and the Volkswagen Golf, both have PHEV variants that both copped significant battery upgrades.

The BMW 330e plug-in hybrid went from a 12kWh battery with a 57km electric driving range up to 19.5kWh battery with driving range now 101km.

Even more impressive is the Golf eHybrid’s glow-up. A 19.7kWh battery replaces the previous 10.6kWh unit, so the 150kW front-drive hatchback now boasts a range of 143km (or 131km in 200kW GTE hot hatch form). It was 64km before this.

It might be the wake-up call some established favourites in Australia need to become more competitive in the future — in October 2024 Mitsubishi announced an update to the Outlander PHEV that brought the EV range up from 84km under the NEDC testing cycle to 86km under the (usually more accurate) WLTP test cycle.

The NEDC cycle will typically result in higher range claims, so it’s likely the Outlander’s range improvement isn’t insignificant, but the improvement thanks to the new 22.7kWh unit might not even have been the most Mitsubishi was able to do.

Improved electric ranges could see plug-ins become more popular in Australia — a 103.8 per cent increase in sales year-on-year so far already bests that of traditional hybrids which saw an 83.3 per cent rise, albeit from a much higher base (144,071 up to the end of November 2024 vs 78,614 for 2023).

Even one of Toyota Australia’s execs — the Big T being the highest-selling car brand and one which doesn’t currently sell a plug-in hybrid variant here in Australia — has called PHEVs ‘the next big thing’.

Toyota Australia Vice President of Sales and Marketing Sean Hanley has told CarsGuide multiple times he expects PHEV tech to improve, and sales to follow.

"If you had asked me five or seven years ago about plug-ins, I might have said something like, 'I'm not sure Australia's ready to plug in yet'. There are reasons for that, because the technology just wasn't quite there at that point," he said in late 2023.

In 2024, he backed it up by saying he thinks “hybrid technology generally will be accelerated” and that “plug-ins will definitely increase in volume and sales”.

He said Toyota Australia would bring plug-ins to Australia when they best meet four criteria he says customers use to consider a purchase: one, “it's affordable”, two, “there's no compromise”, three, “it's cheaper to run” and last “reducing their CO2 emissions” in that order.

It seems that improved ranges at similar prices can help all of those criteria. It remains to be seen if PHEVs truly enter the mainstream but if Toyota is investing, they probably will.