Australians are rushing to get their hands on this new car tech, but it might not be the environmental saviour it is claimed to be.
Plug-in hybrids, or PHEVs as they are also called, are claimed to be a bridge between conventional petrol and hybrid vehicles and battery-powered electric vehicles.
They combine a small petrol engine with a decent-sized battery and an electric motor, which provides some fully electric driving capabilities without the range anxiety of EVs and much lower overall claimed fuel use and CO2 emissions.
Australians have bought more than 54,000 of them in the first six months of this year, which is 111 per cent more than in the same period 2025.
The problem is they need to be used in a very specific way to achieve their claims Polestar Australia boss Scott Maynard previously labelled the technology the "worst of both worlds".
"You've got all of the complexity of jamming an electrical drivetrain into an engine bay that's already got a petrol or a diesel engine in it.
You're still burning fuel.
You've still got to dispose of the whole thing.
It's not a green solution.
"It's not a clean solution at all, but it's a marketable one," he said.
New research commissioned by the Swiss government has laid bare the issues.
A new study funded by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and conducted by Empa - the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology - showed why fuel....
