5 Models That Show Hybrid Cars Might Be Right For You

The view of an older man from behind as he drives an open convertible down an open country road.

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published 23 June 2024

At a time when many consumers want to save on gas but aren’t ready to buy a fully electric car, hybrid vehicles — which use both gasoline and electric motors to make them go — are having a moment. The Kiplinger Letter forecasts that hybrids will account for 14% of vehicle sales in 2024, up from 9% in 2023.

That growth is taking place despite another round of buzzy product launches last year for fully electric cars, also known as battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Some went well; some were glitchy. Carmakers around the world threw money into electric-vehicle development, even as prospective car shoppers continued to fret about recharging availability, among other concerns. Amid all the hubbub, what Americans actually went out and bought was, increasingly, hybrids.

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But first, a review of how hybrids work. The car that started it all almost 25 years ago is the Toyota Prius, now in its fifth generation. The basic premise of a hybrid remains the same: A gas-burning engine is paired with an electric motor and a battery pack. The gas engine and the electric motor either take turns or work together to move the vehicle, depending on conditions. And the battery pack gets charged up either through regenerative braking (the electric motor runs in reverse as a generator when the car is slowing down) or by the gas engine. You can’t charge an ordinary hybrid vehicle by plugging it in.

How a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) operates is right there in the name: You take a hybrid and add the ability to plug it in to charge up the battery, which is itself bigger than it would be in a conventional hybrid (but far smaller than it would be in a BEV). This allows the vehicle to run on electric power alone for about 20 to 40 miles, depending on the model. Once the stored power drops too low, the car goes back to being a conventional hybrid.

More than 80% of vehicles currently sold in the U.S. are neither hybrid nor fully electric. They’re gasoline-powered cars with only an internal combustion engine to propel them. Some of these conventional cars are becoming increasingly electrified, borrowing technology from hybrids to make them more fuel efficient. But those electric systems can only help move the car; they can’t power the vehicle on their own. Moving under electric power alone remains the hallmark of a true hybrid.

So why now, amid all the hoopla for electric vehicles, did hybrids come into vogue? Car experts cite a number of factors, including better engineering. Keith Barry, a senior writer and editor based at the Consumer Reports Auto Test Center, notes that the hybrid version of a vehicle model often outscores the gas-only version in road tests, thanks in many cases to the instant torque from the electric motor. In other words, you can get better performance — more vroom — with a hybrid than with a gas-only model.

And the long-running reasons that buyers have chosen hybrids remain. Saving on fuel costs is the primary motivator for many, but the possibility of doing a good turn for the planet is a factor, too. “Environmental concerns are not necessarily the highest concern for most buyers — it’s usually cost — but buying a hybrid lets them do something green-minded while saving some money on gas,” says Barry. “A car that does more with less has sort of a universal appeal.”

Cheryl Kitt, of St. Michaels, Md., is a self-described “nervous Nellie” who regularly travels across her state, which means crossing the four-mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge. “I wanted to get something with better gas mileage, but I didn’t want to go full electric because I did not want to be driving across that bridge on electric,” she says. “I’m the kind of person who fills up my gas tank when it’s half empty, and I didn’t want to give up that control.”

At first, they charged it only at night to take advantage of lower, off-peak electricity costs. But with the exigencies of high school life, they’re now sometimes recharging multiple times a day. When the car comes home, they plug it in. To speed things up, they are planning to install a 240-volt charger at their home, having so far relied on an ordinary 110-volt wall plug; charging the Crosstrek with it takes about four to five hours. They usually need to fill the tank only on road trips.

That’s not only because a PHEV costs substantially more than a gas-only model (and more than a conventional hybrid, when a manufacturer offers all three flavors), but also because fitting the bigger and heavier battery that a PHEV requires can compromise cabin space, driving quality or both. Furthermore, some PHEVs have not lived up to their published economy figures in real-world driving, though this phenomenon appears most pronounced in pricey performance and luxury plug-ins that sell in low numbers.

More caveats: There are limitations on how purely electric you can go. If you need to floor it as you merge onto the highway, for example, there’s a good chance the gas engine will kick in to give you the necessary acceleration, even if you’re just a few miles from home with a full charge. Need to defog your windshield? The gas engine is going to come on to contribute heat to the process. How often these interventions occur is going to depend on the model, as well as the “drive mode” settings you can select yourself.

So, while PHEVs take range anxiety out of the equation, you’ll still have to consider factors such as your ability and willingness to plug in, how much of your driving you could realistically do on a charge, and even what you pay for electricity when trying to figure out whether one makes economic sense for you. Another substantial variable to consider: PHEVs are eligible for the same federal tax credits as BEVs (conventional hybrids don’t qualify). That could take $3,750, maybe even $7,500, off the price. (For more on the tax credits, see the box on page 55.)

Toyota dominates the hybrid realm, thanks in part to pioneering the Prius, refining its drivetrain and expanding it to other models. Now the Toyota hybrid lineup also includes a minivan (Sienna), SUVs from compact to giant, and a pickup truck (Tundra). And even the vaunted Land Cruiser off-roader is now going hybrid. You can choose from standbys such as the Camry, Corolla and yes, the Prius (recently restyled), too.

Accord shoppers used to have their choice between two turbocharged 4-cylinder engines, one larger with more output (and before that, there was a 6-cylinder option). Now there’s just the base 1.5-liter 4-cylinder, and if you want more horsepower, as well as the possibility of a “Sport” trim with wider tires, upgraded suspension and bigger brakes, the hybrid is your only choice. But the extra go comes with substantially better gas mileage: 48 miles per gallon combined, versus the gas model’s 32. That’s a whopping 50% improvement.

Anticipating that owners might want to save charge for going off-road, the 4xe has an “eSave” mode that prioritizes the gas engine. This turns the PHEV model somewhat on its head, as you’re intentionally burning more gasoline to allow maximum use of electricity once you reach a trailhead. That’s because off-roading on electric power offers instant torque and a high degree of control to crawl over obstacles — and to do so in near-silence is a bonus.

If you want to follow the conventional PHEV behavior of plugging in and doing short trips on electric power, there’s a mode for that, too. If burning less gas generally is one of your goals, you’ll need to be dutiful about recharging, because the 4xe actually gets worse mileage than a regular 4-cylinder Wrangler. (On the other hand, the 4xe is far more powerful, and the comparison might best be made to the V-8 powered, limited-production Rubicon 392 model — which the 4xe utterly trounces on fuel mileage.)

The MSRP on a Maverick makes it one of the cheapest hybrids you can buy (it’s undercut by some small sedans, such as the Toyota Corolla hybrid). On the base XL trim, the hybrid will cost you a modest $1,500 more than the gas-only version. But the fuel economy (37 mpg) trounces that of the standard drivetrain (26 mpg) by 42%. If you drove 15,000 miles a year, paying an average of $3.50 a gallon, you’d recoup the price difference in just over two years.

In his former role as Senior Online Editor, David edited and wrote a wide range of content for Kiplinger.com. With more than 20 years of experience with Kiplinger, David worked on numerous Kiplinger publications, including The Kiplinger Letter and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. He co-hosted Your Money's Worth, Kiplinger's podcast and helped develop the Economic Forecasts feature.