Thinking of buying a new car that is not just old school fossil fuel? As EVs continue to flood the market, there is a whole new vocabulary that people need to become familiar with in order to make the most educated decision. Get familiar with acronyms like BEV, HEV, PHEV, FCEV and other lesser used ones with this simple guide.
BEV – Battery Electric Vehicle aka “Pure Electric”
More precisely BEV cars refers to a fully electric car. Electric cars had been invented 2 centuries ago but its trend has revived again in last decade with advancement in battery, range and charging infrastructure. Unlike fossil fuel car BEV doesn’t have an engine but motor instead. And instead of a fuel tank it has battery pack generally underneath the floor.
Prime Benefits – Energy efficient, Zero Emission, Very less maintenance and servicing.
Major Drawback – Expensive upfront cost for a new car
Popular cars – Tesla Model S, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Ioniq
HEV – Hybrid Electric Vehicles aka “Conventional Hybrid”
Hybrid Electric Vehicles that we mostly all know are dual powered vehicles. That is they can run on fossil fuels with combination of electric power. While they have an electric motor and a small battery pack, these batteries can not be charged externally using a plug. Instead their batteries are charged from capturing energy harnessed when braking using regenerative braking that converts kinetic energy into electricity.
“Self-Charging” is the new marketing term used to promote them. It’s almost same as saying interior of car is self-cooling if you roll windows down. And it can be misleading to very novice as a energy efficient or money saving option.
Prime Benefits – Quiet sound at low speed when only electric motor is running
Major Drawback – No option to recharged from electric point
Popular cars – Toyota Prius, Chevrolet Volt, Lexus CT200H
PHEV – Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle aka “Plug-in Hybrid”
PHEV is everything HEV does plus added benefit that you can plug-in an electric socket and charge the battery. Like HEVs, PHEVs too have an internal-combustion engine and an electric motor but also the battery size is bigger. You can run it solely on battery power or just gas, or combination of both.
The idea behind PHEV is you can drive short distances typically 20-40 miles on electric power alone and for longer journey you have option to go free on gas power alone. But once the battery is drained, pure electric driving is not possible so PHEV becomes HEV in operation. Could be ideal car for eco school runs and rear long holidays but consider boot space to be even smaller than HEV due to bigger battery size.
Prime Benefits – Good option for local journeys
Major Drawback – Efficiency is reduced with weight of two types of engines (for electric and gas) and energy (as gas and battery) is equivalent to carrying an additional person of weight around 100 kg onboard everytime.
Popular cars – Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, BMW e-series, Volvo XC40 PHEV
FCEV – Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle e.g. Hydrogen powered
FCEV are mostly known today as Hydrogen Fuel cell as the only viable option. Suprizingly they too have electric motor and a smaller battery pack similar to HEV but instead of gas tank they have Hydrogen tank. The Hydrogen feeds a fuel cell, which reacts with oxygen in the air to create creates electricity. The only byproduct coming out from the tailpipe is pure water.
Prime Benefits – In emissions, its CO2 negative. That is it intakes normal air and purifies it on the go
Major Drawback – Less than handful cars to select and refueling station are very rare
Popular cars – Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo and thats its
ICEV – Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle i.e. the Norm
Commonly referred to as “ICE” car. Unlike BEV, HEV, PHEV and FCEV, the term ICE refers to the engine itself, rather than the type of car. It too has a battery but a very tiny one mainly to power the electrics on board but never to push it on road. These are normal petrol, diesel or LPG cars we all know about. These fossil fuels burned inside an ICE contribute to both air pollution and global warming.
Prime Benefits – Cheap to buy upfront
Major Drawback – Causes pollution
Popular cars – Pick any from your memory
Comparison
Below figures are average to give a rough picture of vehicle categories
| BEV | PHEV | HEV | FCEV | ICE | |
| Energy Efficiency [1] | 73% | 60-17% | 54-15% | 22% | 13% |
| Emissions [2] (CO2eq) | 25 | 25 | 28 | 28 | 35 |
| Range (miles) | 100-400 | 500-600 | 400-600 | 300 | 500 |
Revolution Electrified’s Take
Car is a depreciating asset, as soon as you own one it starts losing value even if you don’t use it. Many times people often choose car with price in mind rather than logic. Also personal taste matters. But as we have been accustomed to normal ICE cars for most of our life it’s hard to spend a bit more and try something totally radical like BEV.
With ever increasing government incentives, Electric car is here to stay as prices and range of new models inch closer to match that of ICE cars. It’s just matter of time when early adopter of EV pave road to make BEV cars the norm. Oil is going a finite resource for next decade. With mass adoption of electric car comes establishment of clean energy infrastructure.
HEV and PHEV are intermediate steps to full electrification of car. These cars were designed on top of ICE technology so despite improving it, its made it more complex. Making it harder to maintain if you have two engine and motor plus battery and fuel take. They do provide a step in right direction but aren’t the solution for climate crises.
Lastly FCEV is sounds a hopeful technology but so far the energy efficiency rate of conversion from hydrogen to electricity is just around 22%, compared to BEV which is 73%. Hence there is a more push for Electric Vehicles rather than Hydrogen powered despite its green potential. So may take time to reach mainstream until it matches to BEV, only time will tell.
Some lesser used Acronyms
As if that wasn’t enough here are some more lesser used Acronyms
AFV – Alternative Fuel Vehicle
It’s a vehicle powered by any fuel that is not petrol or diesel. So the power could come from batteries (BEVs), hydrogen (HFCV), or perhaps a non-petroleum based like biofuel.
FCV – Fuel Cell Vehicle
This is a vehicle powered by a fuel cell. What is a fuel cell? It’s a device that produces electricity when fed with oxygen and a suitable fuel. The fuel is often hydrogen which powers the car.
ZEV – Zero Emission Vehicle
This is any vehicle that emits no harmful pollutants at all from its exhaust pipe. A BEV is an example of a ZEV. A PHEV or HEV, on the other hand, is not a ZEV. In the case of a BEV, the car doesn’t even have an exhaust pipe!
