沃尔沃的新款插电式混合动力汽车一次充电可行驶79英里。这对厌倦高油价的美国人来说是个好消息。凯尔·斯托克 Sara Gray 每月只加一次油。
Volvo’s new plug-in hybrids will go 79 miles on a charge. That's good news for Americans tired of high gas prices. By Kyle Stock Sara Gray buys gas once a month.
她每天往返工作地点的40英里通勤在沃尔沃V60插电式混合动力汽车上完全是电动驱动。Gray 是加州蒙特雷艺术博物馆的艺术总监，她只在周末沿海岸进行较长途程的自驾游或去雷诺看父母时才依赖汽油发动机。
Her 40-mile commute to work is entirely electric in her Volvo V60 plug-in hybrid. Gray, director of arts at California’s Monterey Museum of Art, only relies on the car’s combustion engine for longer weekend road trips up the coast or to see her parents in Reno.
“这算是介于纯电动汽车和全油动力汽车之间的一个不错的选择，”她说。Gray 的沃尔沃是2025款车型，仅靠电池续航里程在市场上所有混合动力车型中名列前茅，仅少数几款车型能超越它。
“This was kind of a happy medium” between an EV and a fully gasoline-powered car, she said. Gray’s Volvo, a 2025 model, goes farther on battery power alone than all but a few other hybrids on the market.
新一代插电式混合动力汽车不久将能够仅靠电池完成更长途程的行驶。分析师预计，目前标准的约30英里纯电续航里程将提升至接近50英里，而表现最佳的车型——包括沃尔沃汽车集团刚刚发布的两款车型——在发动机介入前可多行驶约50%的里程。
A new generation of plug-in hybrid vehicles will soon be able to cover even the longer trips on batteries alone. The standard 30 miles or so of electric range will be pushed close to 50, analysts expect, and the top performers, including two models just unveiled by Volvo Car AB, will travel about 50% farther than that before the gas engine kicks on.
“我不会称其为军备竞赛，但确实存在推动力，”Mobility Global（一家行业研究机构）美洲需求预测副总监彼得·纳格尔说。“这些车型面向的是希望获得更好燃油经济性，并且计划在长途旅行中使用这些车辆的消费者。”随着联邦激励政策的推出，纯电动汽车销量一度激增，但激励政策在9月到期后，美国市场销量又有所回落。
“I wouldn’t call it an arms race, but there’s definitely a push,” said Peter Nagle, associate director of Americas demand forecasting at Mobility Global, an industry research group. “They’re for the consumer who wants to have that improved fuel economy and does plan to take these vehicles on long trips.”Sales of fully electric vehicles surged with federal incentives,then faltered in the US after federal incentives expired in September.
汽车高管们多年来一直在大力投资电池和电动机，如今他们正面临一个简单的问题：司机是否真的想摆脱汽油？而长续航混合动力汽车的出现，可能让他们根本不需要回答这个问题——或者至少不需要那么急迫地回答，正如波士顿咨询集团全球电动汽车负责人Nathan Niese所言。这些车型将吸引那些近期受高油价影响的消费者——无论是对电动车好奇的，还是持怀疑态度的，都会感兴趣。
Auto executives, who spent years investing heavily in batteries and electric motors, have since been struggling with a simple question: Do drivers want to ditch gas or not? With long-range hybrids, they may not need an answer after all — or at least not as urgently, according to Nathan Niese, global lead for electric vehicles at Boston Consulting Group. The models will appeal to anyone stung by recent gas prices — the EV-curious and EV-skeptical alike.
“我们看到这是一个非常持久的类别，”尼斯说。这对高管来说是一个明确的选择，“可以延长他们已投资平台的使用寿命。”在汽油和碳排放方面的潜在节省会迅速累积。典型的美国通勤往返距离为27英里，考虑到差事和其他出行，美国司机平均每天行驶约38英里。长续航混合动力车几乎可以取消所有这些行程中的燃油发动机，即使它们仅在夜间或隔日充电。
“We are seeing this to be a very durable category,” Niese said. It is a clear option for executives “to extend the platform life of the investments they’ve already made.”Potential savings on both gas and carbon emissions add up quickly. The typical American commute is 27 miles round-trip, and once errands and other trips are considered, US drivers put in about 38 miles a day on average. Longer-range hybrids cancel combustion engines for nearly all of that, even if they are only plugged in at night or every other day.
明年，沃尔沃的XC60 — — 即格雷汽车的SUV版本 — — 在纯电模式下的续航里程将几乎翻倍。公司正为这款车及其更大的SUV兄弟车型XC90配备容量约为当前车型两倍的电池，使其纯电续航里程延长至近80英里。据沃尔沃美洲公司总裁路易斯·雷森德称，目标是让火花塞和气缸在除长途旅行之外的几乎所有情况下“休眠”。
Next year, Volvo’s XC60 — the SUV version of Gray’s car — will go almost twice as far on electrons. The company is fitting the machine and its larger SUV sibling, the XC90, with batteries that have roughly twice as much capacity as the current models, extending their electric-only range to almost 80 miles. The goal, according to Luis Rezende, president of Volvo Car Americas, is to let the spark plugs and cylinders sleep on pretty much everything but road trips.
雷森德认为，长续航的宣传优势不仅能从豪华竞争对手那里抢夺客户，还能帮助公司实现其电气化目标：到2030年，60%的销量将来自完全或部分由电池驱动的车型。
Rezende reckons the long-range bragging rights will not only swipe customers from luxury rivals but help the company hit its electrification goal: 60% of sales to be fully or partially battery-powered by 2030.
“我真的相信这将成为一款‘征服’车型，”雷森德谈到XC60时说。“那些尚未在心理上准备好转向纯电动的客户，他们会选择这款车。”沃尔沃表示，长续航混合动力车也将催化其纯电动车型的销售。根据Mobility Global的数据，近四分之一驾驶插电式混合动力车的人会转向纯电动汽车。
“I really believe this is going to be a conquest car,” Rezende said of the XC60. “Customers who were not there yet in their minds to go electric, they will jump to this.”Volvo says long-range hybrids will also catalyze sales of its fully electric machines. Almost one in four people driving a plug-in hybrid transitions into an EV, according to Mobility Global.
梅赛德斯-奔驰集团股份公司也在大力推进长续航混合动力车。目前，该公司在美国销售五款插电式混合动力车型，包括可纯电续航54英里的GLC 350e。部分原因正是这些新插电式车型，据梅赛德斯-奔驰美国公司销售副总裁格雷格·盖茨称，最近一个季度销售的梅赛德斯汽车中，有四分之一是电气化车型。
Mercedes-Benz Group AG is also long on long-range hybrids. It currently sells five plug-in models in the US, including the GLC 350e, which can travel 54 miles on battery power. In part because of the new plug-ins, one in four Mercedes sold in the recent quarter was electrified, according to Greg Gates, vice president of sales at Mercedes-Benz USA.
“我们的重点不是为了追求某个特定的续航里程数而追求续航里程数本身，”盖茨说。“目标是让电动驾驶变得实用且方便。”在某种程度上，汽车制造商正在乘着技术的顺风而行。随着科学家们开发出更便宜、更高效的电池，汽车高管们可以在相同成本下让他们的混合动力汽车行驶更远，尼斯说。几乎所有混合动力汽车的续航里程都在逐步提高，尽管汽车制造商之间正在竞争，以争夺最长续航里程的纪录。
“Our focus is not on pursuing a specific range number for its own sake,” Gates said. “The goal is to make electric driving practical and convenient.”To some extent, carmakers are riding a technological tailwind. As scientists develop cheaper, more efficient batteries, auto executives can push their hybrids farther for the same cost, said Niese. Range figures for virtually all hybrids are ticking higher, though there is a race among carmakers to nab the record for the longest distance.
“美国人已经被灌输认为续航里程很重要，”尼斯说。“因此，会有一部分人看到80[英里]，将其与50进行比较，然后说，‘这显然更好。’”话虽如此，将汽油发动机与大容量电池和电机结合是一项昂贵的工程。一般来说，插电式混合动力汽车比同级别的传统混合动力汽车贵5000到15000美元。
“The US population has been conditioned that range matters,” Niese said. “So there will be a portion of the population that sees 80 [miles], compares it to 50, and says, ‘That’s obviously better.’”That said, combining a gas engine with a large battery and motor is an expensive exercise. A plug-in hybrid, generally, costs $5,000 to $15,000 more than a conventional hybrid in the same class.
由于价格昂贵，插电式混合动力汽车在美国汽车市场中仍然只是一小部分，大约占销量的1%。Mobility Global预计这一比例会增长，但增长幅度不会太大。其预测表明，插电式混合动力汽车的销量峰值将出现在2030年代中期左右，届时将占美国汽车销量的约4%。
Because of the steep sticker prices, plug-in hybrids are still just a tiny slice of the US auto market, about 1% of sales. Mobility Global expects that number to grow, but not by much. It forecasts a plug-in peak at around 4% of US car sales sometime in the mid-2030s.
“在我看来，这里最大的障碍一直是这些选项的定价，”内格尔说。
“The biggest roadblock here, in my mind, is always going to be the pricing of these options,” Nagle said.
目前，沃尔沃的插电式XC60起售价为67600美元，比完全电动的EX60略高一些，几乎比其混合动力版车型高出三分之一——后者没有充电端口，每加仑油可行驶约26英里。该公司尚未透露其两款新混合动力车型的具体售价。
At the moment, Volvo’s plug-in XC60 has a starting price of $67,600, a tad more than the fully electric EX60, and almost one-third more than its hybrid sibling, which doesn’t have a charging port and gets about 26 miles per gallon. The company hasn’t said how much either of its new hybrid models will cost.