Admittedly, a plug-in hybrid Ferrari or McLaren is never going to be considered affordable. Look away from the six-figure supercar segment, however, and you’ll often find PHEVs undercutting their all-electric counterparts.
Take, for example, the new Kia Niro. If you want the fully-electric version, complete with 253 miles of EPA range, you’re looking at $39,550. The Kia Niro Plug-in Hybrid, in contrast, starts at $33,840. Admittedly, you only get around 33 miles of electric-only range, but after that point, the gas engine kicks in for a total of 510 miles of combined driving.
Kia is a relative rarity, in offering both PHEV and fully-electric versions of the same car. Still, the economies of scale of making internal combustion engines, combined with the still-high cost of large battery packs, typically mean that plug-in hybrids are more affordable than their EV counterparts in the same category.
