Car Shoppers Still Confused by Hybrids

Despite Toyota’s early advertising campaign, which distinguished a hybrid from an electric car, more than a quarter of respondents thought hybrids needed to be plugged in to charge the batteries. Only half of the survey’s respondents knew that a hybrid contained any batteries at all.

Just in case you’ve forgotten, hybrids are cars that use gas and electric motors to improve upon the inherit inefficiencies of gasoline engines alone.

When it comes to plug-in hybrids, like the Chevrolet Volt, consumers are even more confused. Most survey respondents thought vehicles like the Volt don’t use gasoline at all. The Volt does need to use a specified amount of gas during the course of a year. Only 42% of survey respondents thought a Volt-like vehicle can work on electric motors alone.

The picture gets better when you simplify the concept to electric only cars. More than three-quarters of respondents knew that the something like the Nissan Leaf operates on stored energy in batteries, and two-thirds thought it had zero emissions. Surprising still, more than half of respondents knew you should plug in a Leaf-like vehicle with a 240-volt plug. The 49% of respondents who thought it’d take 15 minutes to “fuel” a Leaf-like vehicle will be disappointed, though. It typically takes seven to eight hours to charge the Leaf using 240 volts and 30 minutes to charge it to 80% with a hard-to-find fast charger.

Stephen Popiel, senior vice president of Synovate Motoresearch, believes it’s the duty of both automakers and the government to better educate consumers on the differences between the three alternative-powered vehicles.

Many car buyers unclear on how hybrids work (Synovate, via Consumer Reports)