Plug-in hybrid cars: how they work, advantages, who should buy them

On the one hand, cars with combustion engines, on the other, purely electric ones. Between these two worlds there is a bridge, made up of hybrid models. Which, however, are of many types. There is a light hybrid, called mild, in which the electric component of the propulsion never moves the wheels; a slightly more sophisticated one, the full hybrid, which does this, but for short stretches, thanks to the possibility of recharging the battery when the vehicle slows down. And there is still a third type of hybrid, in which the battery is rechargeable from an external energy source: it is the plug-in hybrid. The latter is precisely the form of propulsion that comes closest to the totally electric one: the capacity of the battery, far superior to that expected for other types of hybrid, and the possibility of connecting it to the electricity distribution network allow you to travel many more kilometers powered by the electric motor alone. A few dozen (30-50) until some time ago, 100-150 and even more today, a time when, for this very reason, we are also talking about super hybrids. Plug-in hybrids (called in acronym Phev) are increasingly numerous, in terms of quantity of models available and diffusion on the Italian market: in the first two months of this year, they reached a share of 8.6% (also including extended range electric models), with a growth of 130.1% compared to the same period of the previous year, in which they stopped at 4.1%. The reason is easy to say: although they cost more than full hybrids, due to the greater complexity of the system and the cost of a more capable battery, they now offer an important tax advantage to those who can benefit from a company car. The taxation of the fringe benefit, i.e. that which weighs on the economic benefit deriving for the employee who is entitled to a company car from its use even in his free time – considered from a fiscal point of view an integral part of the salary – is much lighter for electric cars and, to a lesser but still important extent, for plug-in hybrid ones compared to all the others. The tax burden is not borne by the company, but by the worker who, therefore, is induced to choose plug-in hybrid models from the available models, to save on payroll deductions. This is why, today, the share of PhEVs has grown considerably in Italy, despite the burden of battery charging that they impose on their users.