The World of Electric Vehicles: A Guide to Options and Considerations

When it comes to electric vehicles (EVs), there are many options available on the market, each with its own set of characteristics and benefits. One question that has been on the minds of many EV enthusiasts is whether a plug-in hybrid SUV can be as efficient as a full EV. The answer is not a simple one, but rather it depends on several factors.

For instance, consider the Honda Pilot Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). This vehicle offers excellent fuel economy, with an estimated 38 mpg combined and 30 mpg in electric mode. However, its battery pack size is relatively small, which means it may not be as efficient as a full EV over long distances. Additionally, its price tag starts at around $40,000, making it a more affordable option than many other PHEVs on the market.

Another option to consider is the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. This vehicle offers exceptional fuel economy, with an estimated 36 mpg combined and 35 mpg in hybrid mode. Its battery pack size is also relatively small compared to full EVs, but its price tag starts at around $40,000, making it a more affordable option than many other hybrid SUVs on the market.

However, if you're looking for a three-row EV with decent range available for under $50,000, your options are limited. The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is one of the few options that comes close, but its price tag starts at around $39,000 and its battery pack size is relatively small. Another option to consider is the Rivian R1S, which offers a range of up to 400 miles on a single charge, but its price tag starts at around $70,000.

One alternative that may be worth considering is the Sorrento Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). This vehicle offers excellent fuel economy, with an estimated 36 mpg combined and 29 mpg in electric mode. Its battery pack size is relatively small compared to full EVs, but its price tag starts at around $33,000, making it a more affordable option than many other PHEVs on the market.

Ultimately, whether or not a plug-in hybrid SUV can be as efficient as a full EV depends on your specific needs and preferences. If you're looking for excellent fuel economy and are willing to compromise on range, a plug-in hybrid SUV may be a great option for you. However, if you prioritize range above all else, a full EV may be the better choice.

But there is another option that can take into account some of the previous mentioned points that can give you a 3 row electric vehicle with a reasonable price which is the Toyota Model Y and Rivian R1S.

One thing to consider when choosing an EV or plug-in hybrid SUV is the availability of charging infrastructure in your area. If you don't have access to fast-charging stations, a full EV may not be the best option for you. On the other hand, if you live in an area with plenty of charging infrastructure, a plug-in hybrid SUV may be a great compromise between range and affordability.

Another consideration is the overall size and practicality of the vehicle. If you have a large family or plan to use the vehicle frequently for road trips, a larger EV or plug-in hybrid SUV may be more suitable than a smaller option.

Ultimately, the choice between an EV and a plug-in hybrid SUV will depend on your specific needs and preferences. By considering factors such as range, affordability, size, and charging infrastructure, you can make an informed decision that meets your unique requirements.

Note: While there are other options available for those looking to purchase three row electric vehicles with decent range available for under $50,000, it may be a good idea to look into the used market or consider purchasing a higher priced vehicle as they often have better specs.

Hope this article gives you some insight on what can be an efficient way of travelling.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everybody welcome to another episode I'm Mike Monticello I'm Ryan polakowski and I'm Alex and Isaac so today the vehicle we're going to talk about is the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk 4xe now just for a bit of background the Grand Cherokee is a two-row midsize SUV uh a little bit more on the Burley side for some off-road ability than your average you know two-row midsize SUV but and also kind of more on the luxurious side in terms of the cabin and we the Grand Cherokee was redesigned for 2022 we have already tested it and we tested ours with the naturally aspirated V6 uh 3.6 Liter V6 that makes 293 horsepower with an 8-speed automatic Transit transmission but what we're going to talk about today is this Trailhawk four by heat four by E it says 4xe but they Jeep says you're supposed to stay at four by e so these are our first impressions of a version that we rented from Jeep so Alex tell us what makes the Trailhawk version special and what four by e means if you don't mind yeah okay so starting with Trailhawk Trailhawk basically as the name kind of implies anyway that this is the most off-road capable version of the Grand Cherokee that you can get there are a couple different versions that you can get with the p or the four by E powertrain but um yeah so the the Trailhawk itself the main things that this gets over a regular Grand Cherokee um are the biggest one is the disconnecting front sway bar um that's the only trim you can get that on and basically what that means is at the touch of a button you can disconnect that front bar that's there for roll stability and roll control disconnects that and that way when you're climbing up giant Boulders and things like that you get more suspension articulation out of the the front axle which is super cool it's never been on the Grand Cherokee before yeah some other things that you can get on or that come with the the Trailhawk are basically a whatever Jeep calls it but it's an off-road cruise control so you can set the cruise control at like half mile an hour increment starting at literally half a mile an hour and it will try to control the vehicle going down a hill but it also works going up a hill which is kind of neat so it's not just Hill descent control it's it's kind of in a sense more advanced than that yeah exactly so the regular Grand Cherokees come with a hill descent control typically anyway and then this one gets it basically in both directions which is interesting and it works pretty well um you get some tow hooks that are exposed at the front um limited slip rear differential which you can get on other Grand Cherokees but this one comes with it by default um air suspension so this thing can raise up pretty good um and then it's the only one I think that comes with this specific set of all-terrain tires so it's got some fairly aggressive all-terrain tires on it um 31 inches in diameter and then it does get some um different bumpers that change the approach and departure angles which is good for off-roading because it helps you avoid hitting rocks and stuff so that's Trailhawk um four by e is a little more interesting this at least in 2022 this means a Jeep plug-in hybrid electric vehicle um and the reason I'm specifying that is because recently uh they also talked about electric vehicles that are coming out for the Jeep brand and so they might be using this four by E name elsewhere in other full electric vehicles in the future but for now uh it means a plug-in hybrid um and it uses the same uh powertrain as the Wrangler 4xe that we tested so it's a two liter turbo four-cylinder connected to an eight-speed automatic but then it's got two Motors and bear with me and use some geeky terms here but in the P0 position which means that the motor is on the front basically it's an accessory so it's a starter motor like a mild hybrid essentially that adds some power but then you also have another electric motor in What's called the P2 position so that's in between the engine and the transmission you have another electric motor in there um and basically all this combined makes 375 horsepower so it's pretty pretty stout actually compared um to some of the other versions uh and it uses a battery to power um you know the the hybrid system and allows you to drive a little bit on electric only range which we will definitely talk about that kind of low 25 miles of of EV range that it lets you do but yeah that that's pretty much it in a nutshell so um we'll talk about whether the four by E is worth it or not but yeah thank you thanks for that Ryan let's talk about let's talk about what it's like to just drive as a regular vehicle first and then we can get into kind of in a sense the more fun stuff because I mean the reality is a Grand Cherokee is pretty capable off-road anyway so but I so we definitely want to talk about how much more cable the Trailhawk is but let's talk about it the way most people are honestly going to use it which is on the road how does this hybrid powertrain in in particular work with the big heavy Grand Cherokee so first of all I think I'm a big fan of the regular Grand Cherokee um I've I've liked the last few editions of it and then there's this one right uh it's it's heavier uh you can definitely feel the weight right but I thought it did it was quite nice to drive um the the Hybrid Power supplements the regular uh engine quite nicely and it feels very eager it's got a lot of power like it really wants to go and it um it's it's very smooth it's it's instantaneous that being said I mean you know handling wise you know this has some um you know mild off uh all-terrain tires on it uh meaning they're they're all terrain tires they look a little more aggressive and they're meant for uh some off-road use they're not true all-terrain tires which would be like you know more aggressive and whatever but still these tires um I think they do hinder the handling a little they're typically all-terrain tires um you know they have a little more of aggressive tread pattern so they're a little looser uh naturally um and handling Dynamics you know because because that try to also you know to help off-road it has to kind of be that way there's a bigger more void um and whatnot sorry I had to get my tires feeling yeah actually it sort sometimes Ryan it felt to me like almost like the car's turning on its axis you know immediately like yeah are the tread blocks softer yeah they score them it feels like it's warms when you first turn in and nothing terrible but just a little squirming sensation is that from the soft tread blocks or what is that yeah and it's not necessarily that they're soft I mean they they could be and um that can be the case but it's it's often an all-terrain tire has a deeper non-skid meaning they're just deeper tread so you have taller blocks and the blocks are spread out so they're not deporting each other there's gaps between them so when you turn they're rolling a little bit and now that translates through the rest of the tire through the suspension all the way to the steering wheel so now you have this little bit of a delay right um where if you think of like a high performance summer Tire the complete other end of the spectrum that they're very blocky and it's all you know it's all it's just more surface area touching each other so they're very rigid right so all terrain tires just have that kind of a characteristic which is fine and it's not bad at all but uh the weight added weight and then that um makes this thing I you're not going to drive it at uh aggressively and get a satisfying result I don't think it'll roll a little bit it kind of starts to understeer when it gets you know you start to really push it to that point but but are you driving a car like this like that um all the time no and you shouldn't be it's not that type of a vehicle right more off-roading stuff like this that's how it's going to feel and that's kind of uh why you're buying it if you if you want to do that off-road stuff but I I thought uh all in all you know the plug-in hybrid part you can you can run this thing on some battery you know it's odd but when you're driving in the woods and you're crawling slowly I mean I knew Monty we've talked about this yeah it's kind of neat to not hear anything except for the tires kind of crunching over leaves and crawling up stuff um in electric power as we know is just sheer torque instantly uh all the way up to whatever I don't know you know as a plug-in hybrid um I think that's really the only time you're going to use that kind of uh that you know because it's a short range from what I what from what I gather it's like 20 25 miles right so maybe maybe if you have a short commute to work that's cool but um what's neat about these four by E's is you can preserve that battery until you get to a trail or um or or whatever you want to save it for you can actually preserve it it doesn't use it right off the top um so you can just drive around in hybrid mode and then you can disperse that uh straight electric power at a certain point which I think is neat because it makes that kind of sets us apart from others plug-in hybrids I think yeah they they give you a lot of control over how you want to use the Hybrid Power the plug-in hybrid powertrain which to your point right yeah that's a bit different than some other plugins you kind of just have to roll with it whatever it wants to do um yeah you can save the power like you mentioned or you can even just force it to charge the battery which is kind of cool takes power away from the engine of course but um you can do that if you want it does feel a little bit wasted to me like I love being able to kind of get that into the detail and manage it in that way but then the fact that you're only managing 20 miles 25 miles of range would be nice if it was something like 40 or 50 um that you got to play with but um it's cool that they let you do it yeah so that on the left side of the driver's Dash are some buttons you can press and one of those is exactly what you guys are talking about so if you you press this button called e-save and that will save you know all of your electric power for off-roading uh which we can get into a little bit as well but but that's just like you said it's kind of cool that you can you've got that flexibility to kind of control when when you use that electric power and when you don't uh Alex any other um uh in inputs from you on the powertrain and and what you did and didn't like about it yeah so you you I assume you got to run it in full EV yeah and I actually made it all the way home I'm about 20 miles from the track um I was able to starting with a 100 full charge I was able to roll into my driveway with like two miles left of of EV you know without and it wasn't like I was hyper-miling it if that's possible in this vehicle you know just driving it normally I was able to get home but otherwise yeah you know I I like the regular Grand Cherokee like Ryan was talking about I think this new one the the new chassis is quite good you know yes it's a big pretty heavy SUV but you can tell that it has a nice rear-wheel drive character to it good suspension Dynamics especially you get it on on the track and yeah it's not going to be a sports car or anything but you can just feel that it's got a nice setup and it rotates nicely and I thought that the most of that held true for the um Trailhawk even with the different tires and you know maybe different suspension setup and all that um I thought it still drove and and rode pretty nicely kind of has a little bit of a you know multiple personality type uh character to it I guess it goes up the Rock Hill pretty good um you know no problems there uh but then like like I said pretty good on the track as far as just having neutral Dynamics um but then if you do have some of that uh Eevee range you can quiet the thing down and just Cruise uh you know comfortably quietly so you said that you drove it home and you had just a few miles left of of battery power so did you have it in electric mode when you did that is that what you were trying to do see if you can make it into electric mode and did it ever did the gas engine ever come on because for the most part it won't come on but if you floor it in electric mode it's still gonna come on correct yeah correct because those I'm gonna flip my paper paper over here those electric motors only make like 131 horsepower for the main motor and 40 for the other one which is not a combined number but um so yes when you totally mat the throttle it will kick the uh engine on and it'll give you that extra power which does take a minute that if you do that it takes a minute for everything to wake up and downshift and engage but yes it will do that so were you actually able to drive it without the gas engine ever coming on on your trip home yeah oh you are yeah it makes enough power work yeah granted I never had to do like pass anybody or do any evasive maneuvers or anything it was a pretty uh uneventful ride but so when I had it in um I guess hybrid mode I I it really first of all I think it's a really intriguing powertrain uh just as we found with the with the Wrangler 4xe and one of the things that I thought was first of all it really does have plenty of power but in hybrid mode it sort of does almost seems like between the turbo and and the electric power when it comes on it almost seemed like it needed to sort of spool up a little bit like when I first floored it it was going pretty good but then it almost seemed like it like there was more of a rush than I was expecting like it pushed harder even than I was expecting which was kind of kind of fun like almost like the EVS like the electric power is like oh okay oh yeah he really wants this and the turbo's like oh a little bit of Turbo lag oh okay we're going anyway I kind of enjoyed it but and I thought it had plenty of power for for tons of power yeah so let's talk about so we've kind of talked about the four by E and well there's other things we need to talk about with how rational it really is but let's save that for for the end let's talk about the off-road stuff because Ryan you touched on it and and I I I uh did use the East I was lucky I think it had something like 22 miles of electric range it was showing when I got in it and I put it in its e-save mode because I was I knew I was gonna go do some mild off-road stuff not nothing like our Rock Hill or anything like that but just a mild off-roading on some trails near me and I saved all the power for that and then again as with the Wrangler 4B it was just so cool to you know I put the windows down and you're in electric full electric power and it's so quiet I swear I was in an area that um some off-roading area where I'm not sure if people were supposed to be camping or not but anyway there were some people camping like just through the trees and I kind of went near them and turned around and left and I swear they never even heard me never even knew that I was there um and then just the ability of this Trail Hawk and you can talk more about it Alex because you did the Oracle and I didn't but you know the ability to raise up the the ride height is just so cool and it actually has quite a lot of you know it's really far off the ground yeah oh yeah and then like I said it's and it's got lots of traction from those you know pretty Burly altering tires the only thing I noticed was when I got into sort of some pretty steep uh uphill sections and I was trying to be in full EV like it just kind of stopped because it I think it was running out of power or traction so then ice I can't remember I switched it to hybrid and then it it just worked much better because there wasn't this delay where like oh I've got to turn the gas engine on to get up that did you did that happen at all in the on the Rock Hill or were you able to do not or did you not try driving it in full EV up Rock Hill yeah I left it in EV or I mean hybrid mode excuse me um for that exact reason because I had previously experienced the delay that it might take to get and that Hill's pretty steep so I just kind of left it in hybrid which it did pretty well but um so the point is it actually can't do everything off-road in EV is that because there are certain situations where it needs more power than the electric motors can give is that what's going on yeah I mean it does have low range gearing um but yeah the power and torque of those Motors is only part of the equation so depending on how steeper whether you drop one of the tires into a pretty big hole or whatever it is you might you might not have enough I didn't experience that myself but probably mostly for for quite serious situations and and not that I was doing quite serious but uh anyway most of the time when you're off-road you're going to be able to be an EV and it's going to be pretty awesome um so it was good but so anything else about Rock Hill you want to add like yeah the it did it did pretty well so the um I did try that off-road um you know cruise control if you will it worked really well going down as a hill descent um it worked about the same as these other systems not unique to Jeep there's others that allow you to set the speed and um you basically just steer it up the hill um it did a pretty good job managing its own traffic traction um and the nice thing about that is when you have that system set say at half a mile an hour or whatever you can intervene so you can you say okay I got this big dip coming up or whatever I know I need to give it a little more you can add some throttle get over that obstacle and then just take your foot off the gas and it'll settle back into that speed that you set it at and you can keep going which is kind of neat um kind of collaborative in that way but yeah as far as going up the hill I I our Hill is set up in a way where on the right side it's when you're going looking at it the right side's more mild and then the left side it gets more aggressive as you go over to that left side and I was able to do the right side no problem um what stopped me on the left side was actually what I'm pretty sure is just the size of the tires this thing has plenty of ground clearance plenty of articulation but those 30.5 or 31 inch tires they just got themselves in between too big of you know the Rocks it's basing is too big and it just couldn't get itself over so pretty convinced that if you had bigger tires on this thing it would totally dominate the hill but um otherwise yeah it was really cool taking the uh disconnecting the sway bar getting that extra articulation um the only thing with that is it's a little tricky to get it to disengage or re-engage car kind of has to be flat you know you can't be up mid obstacle and like oh no I need more articulation and disconnect it you have to decide before you start doing anything basically oh that you want it disconnected but knowing that it did work well so yeah I was pretty impressed with it it was fun the the discon the disconnecting sway bar I think is pretty awesome in the sense that um you know that's a huge off-road feature um we modern cars are built to drive on the road most of the time right so you're we're doing everything they're doing everything they can to keep this car um handling flat meaning there's not a lot of body roll um uh and and give it a good ride right so the a sway bar is a huge part of keeping your car flat and helping its handling Dynamics and it's the exact opposite of what you want off-road off-road you want those Wheels to be able to drop out of the fender all the way or go stuff all the way up in um especially on an independent suspension vehicle um it's even harder to get that articulation so you know if you can unhook a sway bar that's huge um and that's that's a neat feature if you're going to do the off-roading stuff I think that's a pretty cool especially because they haven't done that in the Grand Cherokee the Wrangler uh rubicons have that have almost almost always had that feature but the Wrangler is a different animal completely so um I thought that was that's a cool thing this this Grand Cherokee Trailhawk really is imp impressive like what it can do off-road it's just yeah unlike most other vehicles that you can buy but we got to talk a little bit about I mean you're the the four by E part of it brings you know like an eight to ten thousand dollar you know uh price hike over a regular Grand Cherokee and also Alex correct me if I'm wrong for 2023 you're only going to be able to get the Trailhawk as a 4 by E which is seems a little bit unfortunate for those who who want to save some money right don't want to have to pay for the four by E part of it uh so that they're gonna have to get the four by E and also it almost feels like I mean we weighed this thing which we don't typically weigh the vehicles that we rent because we're not testing it and we probably won't test this thing because it is a bit Niche and we already tested a regular Grand Cherokee but it weighs almost 6 000 pounds which is ridiculously heavy to me this is more of a hybrid car I mean only 20 miles a straight plug-in is not a feasible daily driving UV type of car and the problem though Ryan with treating it like a hybrid is that it at least according to the EPA we didn't of course get our own numbers but when it's in hybrid mode it's only getting 23 combined whereas the regular V6 is 22. yeah at least as far as the rating goes so one mile per gallon I don't know if that's worth nine thousand dollars so you have to plug this thing in to put it into perspective a little bit real quick so this thing has a 17.3 kilowatt hour battery the RAV4 Prime another plug-in hybrid SUV similar size has an 18 kilowatt battery so same size basically that thing can go 42 miles of you know on full electric range so almost double uh for the same battery size all that so really this thing is just not as efficient as a plug-in hybrid SUV can be that's a good point yeah all right well uh you know I'm I'm sure people still have lots yeah that's a good thing it's really it's really cool to drive and it's one of those things where it doesn't make sense but things don't always have to make sense in life they really don't but it is really neat to drive what both as a Trailhawk you know for the off-road abilities and as a four by E again for those uh kind of electric off-road abilities is really neat anyway let's move on to this week's audience question don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips the talking cars at icloud.com and this week our audience question comes from Braulio I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly my partner is expecting a baby soon to add to the four we already have besides the Tesla Model X and rivian r1s are there any other three row EVS with decent range available for under fifty thousand dollars I'm waiting on the Volkswagen ID buzz but I'm not sure we can wait that long as the baby is due in April 2023 would also consider a plug-in hybrid if that helps expand our options any help would be appreciated who wants to go who wants to take this one first Sometimes you know I like to be bossy but today I just don't feel like being bossy who wants to go first so there's not a lot there there's not a lot of uh uh this is a narrow narrow window so I don't really know of any big three-row SUVs that are straight EV I don't think there are any actually um and even even plug-in hybrid uh because right away my brain goes to hybrids um but even plug-ins I don't know of any third row plug-ins um there are there are two that I thought of uh how big are they though what do you got yeah you got Sorrento plug-in hybrid which okay that shirt is pretty small third row but it exists it's there and then Pacifica plug-in hybrid it's a minivan it's not an SUV but it is three rows so that's a stretch but it does and I will remind that the model y again super small but you can actually get a third row seat in the model y I don't think it's going to come under that fifty thousand dollar Mark unless you maybe find one used um but you can actually get a model y with uh with a third row my answer is uh just a straight hybrid uh Toyota Highlander hybrids today make a lot of sense to me you know they're getting really great mileage they're practical they're most times they're nicer to drive than their their regular gasoline counterparts um the drive trains are smooth the Toyota Toyota hybrid is uh Second To None really in my opinion I know that's not a plug-in at all but uh that's a great car yeah Highlander Hybrid 35 miles per gallon overall in our testing I mean so that's that's an efficient vehicle and I think that's not a bad way to go for now there's three row SUV EVS coming but they're not other than the ones that you mentioned there's really they're not here yet so it's it's going to take a little bit so and yeah and you're gonna be hard-pressed to come in under 50 000 exactly so at least with the Highlander Hybrid you you kind of at least you know you get the third row you're efficient you're coming in under fifty thousand dollars what you don't have is you just it's not a plug-in and it's not a full EV but I think it's not a bad option for someone who's trying to be really efficient right now we you know we've been talking about it on a few episodes it's kind of a bummer that you know hybrids have finally gotten really good and now they're kind of the industry seems to be going away toward full EVs and and now that after they've done all this development on them but uh so I'd say you know don't be afraid to take advantage of all that r d that they did on this thing and and get that uh anyway hope that that helps uh that's gonna do it for this episode if you want to learn more about the cars and the topics we talked about you can click on the links in the show notes don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips the talking cars at icloud.com that's the best way to reach my personal assistant Dave Abrams uh he he loves getting all your all your questions and comments and uh speaking of which this episode was produced by Dave Abrams and edited by Anatoly schumsky thanks so much for watching and we'll see you all next week office\n"