Akihabara News (Tokyo) — There are now several types of electric or electrified vehicles available on the market and it has become apparent that terminology can be confusing–sometimes deliberately so.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are cars which run on electricity. However, the degree to which electricity is a power source can vary widely.
Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), often simply called EVs, do not possess internal combustion engines and run, as the name suggests, on batteries alone.
These vehicles have been on the market for about a decade, with the Nissan Leaf being an early, though limited success. In recent years, Tesla has come to dominate the global imagination regarding this kind of vehicle.
BEVs / EVs are also the kind of vehicles which many governments are promoting as part of their countermeasures against the climate crisis. These cars produce no carbon emissions while being operated. However, they can have a negative climate impact when the electricity grids, etc., involve production of greenhouse gases in order to generate the needed electricity for recharging.
Also, from an environmental perspective, there are challenges related to producing a sufficient number of batteries themselves–most of which are created from mined elements such as cobalt and lithium, the supplies of which are by no means infinite.
A second category of vehicle are the hybrids, which themselves come in two major varieties.
Hybrid vehicles run on a combination of gasoline and battery power. They produce some carbon emissions when fuel is burned, though not as much as older vehicles which run entirely on internal combustion engines.
The older variety of hybrid, largely pioneered by Toyota from the late 1990s, use electric power mainly while cruising. The more recently available plug-in hybrids function much like EVs, but use gasoline engines when their electricity charges begin to run out.
The most controversial and potentially confusing term is “electrified vehicles.” While many people may assume that it means the same thing as EV, in fact it refers to all three of the above types–battery electric vehicles, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids.
This term is being advanced by Toyota, in particular, with the apparent objective of misdirecting public debate. The company strongly advocates the view that EVs should not become the only kind of vehicle available on the global market, and that space should be maintained for preserving internal combustion engines.
As a result, when governments and others call for policies such as the conversion of all new vehicle sales to EVs by a certain date–2035, 2040, or whatever–Toyota endeavors to shift the objective subtly, but crucially, away from “Electric Vehicles” and instead toward “Electrified Vehicles,” which would allow sales of hybrids for the foreseeable future.
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