PHEVs Are A Ticking Timebomb (Don't Get Caught Out)

PHEVs Are A Ticking Timebomb (Don’t Get Caught Out)

You’re no doubt attracted by the 350 to 500 mp gallon, the latest PHEV state you can get. You think you’re doing the sensible thing because petrol cars are a thing of the past and you’re not yet ready to leap into a full EV. Anyway, the PHEV offer all the same financial benefits anyway. Well, if you’re about to buy or lease a new plug-in hybrid, you need to take a step back. There’s a tax trap that’s already been set that’s designed to turn your shiny low tax car into a money pit that could cost you thousands. This isn’t scaremongering. This is a documented official change to the current rules. Well, you’ve probably already heard that from April 2025, the tax-free ride for electric cars is over. They’re going to start paying road tax, vehicle excise duty just like everyone else. Yes, rates for petrol and diesel cars, likewise are going up. That’s not the real story. The story that could catch you out is a hidden time bomb set specifically for new plug-in hybrid drivers. It’s all because of a new emission standard called Euro 6E-Bis. It’s designed to show what the PHEVs actually emit. This is going to cause a huge tax shot shock, but it’s the timing of it that sets the trap. In this video, I’ll expose the rule change that dealers might not be explaining properly and show you exactly how much it could cost you. This could save you from a very expensive mistake. Well, each month we travel the country, we’re finding out firsthand what’s happening, debunking the myth, sharing real stories, and giving practical advice for those not wanting to be left behind by the UK’s transition to EVs. Subscribe now to join our journey. Today, we’re looking at the tax trap that PHEVs have just become. For years, the plug-in hybrid has been sold as the perfect have your cake and eat it solution. It really is the best of both worlds. You get a silent zero emission electric motor for your daily commute. You can glide past petrol stations with that smug grin. Then, for those long weekend trips, you’ve got a trusty petrol engine, totally eliminating range anxiety. When you read the specs in the brochures, they’re amazing. We see popular models like the BMW 330e claiming over 350 mp gallon and the Mercedes C300E boosting over 500 mp gallon. And they’ve got an electric all electric range of 60 mi. Now, if true for private buyers, they would translate directly into massive fuel savings on top of the massive tax savings. Well, for private buyers, these unbelievably low CO2 numbers are often between just 10 and 40 g per kilometer, meaning you pay a tiny amount of road tax or VED. For company car drivers, and that includes all those salary sacrifice, it’s even better. Those same low CO2 numbers put these cars into the lowest benefiting kind of BIK tax bands. You can get a premium car for a fraction of the tax you’d pay on the equivalent petrol or diesel model, or you can get yourself a much better model for the same money. It’s a financial no-brainer. At least it was. The problem is these official MPG figures have never been achieved in the real world. Nowhere near, in fact, miles and miles away. Study after study has shown that in the real world, most PHEVs burn through two, three, or four times more fuel and pump out way more CO2 than the lab tests suggest. Two or four times? Yeah. One analysis found a popular BMW’s 3 series PHEV emitted 112 g per kilometer of CO2 in real world driving. Three time its official 36 g rating. Why? Sad to say, it’s us. Many drivers, especially company car drivers, are issued with a fuel card. So if essentially they couldn’t be bothered with this EV nonsense, they just fill up with petrol. Ah, it’s much quicker as they keep telling us. And far too many private buyers and leases choose them because, well, they couldn’t have a full EV because they can’t charge at home. The majority of them also just couldn’t be bothered driving down to a public charger and waiting while it fills up really slowly. They just fill up with petrol far quicker as they constantly tell us. So instead of running most of the time on electricity and only occasionally on petrol for infrequent longer drives as they were tested to do in the real world in which we all live they just drive all on petrol. Now an interesting thing happens. The large heavy battery cannot charge on its own. That’s why you get a plug. But they can only use a tiny part of the battery as that is the bit that charges from regenerative braking. Yeah, they just become a mild hybrid. When they drive, they’re lugging around a heavy almost dead battery which absolutely tanks the efficiency. And like a mild hybrid, they can no longer drive on electricity at all. And government and regulators have finally caught on. They were conned. Well, this is the part you really need to understand. There is a new emissions testing standard called Euro 6E-BIS. From April 2026, it’s set to become mandatory for all new cars sold in Great Britain. This isn’t some minor software up to-ate update. It’s a fundamental change designed to make emission tests reflect how people actually drive. It will stop the manufacturers from cheating, which they often do. Remember Dieselgate? So, how does it work and why is this so brutal for PHEVs? Well, the current test is the Euro 6D, and it uses a short theoretical driving cycle, about 497 mi. It assumes a driver starts with a full battery, which most don’t, and plugs in regularly, which most don’t. This, of course, produces data that heavily favors using the electric motor and driving on electricity only, which they were specifically designed to do. Now, the new Euro6E-BIS standard basically calls an end to that fiction. It dramatically stretches the theoretical test distance from uh 400 odd up to 1,367 mi. By forcing the car to drive for much longer in the simulation, has no choice but to use its petrol engine far more often. In plain English, the test is designed to be more realistic. It’s assuming the driver isn’t plugging in every 5 minutes. Isn’t that what you thought you were getting and actually should be getting? Well, this simple change completely shatters a PHEV’s official CO2 rating as CO2 emissions just skyrocket. Some analysts predict certain models could see their official CO2 figures double or even triple. A car that was in a low VED or tax bracket is suddenly reclassified as a much higher polluter. Not because the car has changed. It hasn’t. But because the manufacturers were stopped from cheating, stopped from fiddling the figures yet again. Okay, this is all theoretical. Let’s put some figures on this to show you just how costly this can be. And we’re going to use a popular company car. That’s the BMW X1 PHEV. Nice car. Right now, it’s official CO2 rating is around 45 g per kilometer. Let’s look at the tax burden for a company car driver for the 202526 tax year. It’s good electric range puts it into a very low benefit in kind band. It’s about 6%. If the car has a value of £45,000, a taxable benefit for a basic rate taxpayer, £2,700 for a 40% taxpayer, that’s an annual tax bill of just £1,80 about £90 a month. That’s incredibly cheap for a premium EOS SUV. Now, let’s say you lease that car in early 2026. That’s only a few months away. The new Euro 6E-bis test is now law and the car CO2 figures jumps to 96 g, a more realistic value. This catapults it catapults it into a completely different tax league. CO2 rating of 96 g pushes the BK rate up to 24%. So suddenly the tax benefit on that same £45,000 car is £10,800 or for our 47% taxpayer, the annual bill explodes to £4,320. £360 a month. That’s a 300% increase in your personal tax bill. Over a three-year contract, you could pay nearly £10,000 more in tax than someone who got exactly the same car just a year earlier. That is the PHEV tax trap. It’s a silent, brutal increase hidden in the small print of emissions regulations. And it’s not just a driver who gets hit. The employers will pay higher national insurance contributions on the car as will you and your contribution could also quadruple. Okay. Now, the government knows this cliff edge is coming and they’ve announced what they’re calling an easement to avoid total chaos in the car market. This is a short transitional measure, a 2-year grace period from April 2026 to April 2028. Now, during this window, manufacturers can continue to use the older, more favorable Euro 6D CO2 figures for tax purposes, even for cars which are tested under the new standard. And this means if you get your PHEV between 2026 and early 2028, you will initially dodge this bullet. But this is a huge butt. It’s a temporary fix. It’s a sticking past plaster designed to delay the pain, not prevent it. The key dates April 2028. After that, the grace period’s over and the real higher CO2 figures must be used for tax. On top of this, all PHEVs emitting 1 to 50 g per kilog kilometer will be lumped into a flat 18% benefiting kind rate regardless of their electric range. So, if you sign a three or four year lease on a new PHEV in 26 or 27, you’re taking a massive gamble. You might be protected the first year or two, but you could face a colossal, unpredictable hike in your tax bill and V rate for the rest of your contract. It turns a predictable cost into a ticking time bomb. The easement just gives the fuse a two-year extension. So, with this tax bomb on the horizon, what should you do? Does this mean you should avoid any dealer or salesman who utters the letters PH EV? No, not necessarily. But you absolutely must go in with your eyes wide open. The financial calculation has fundamentally changed. A car that looks like a bargain today could become a serious financial liability tomorrow. First thing you must do, ask direct direct questions. Ask the dealer which CO2 figures they’re using, the ones they’re showing you. More importantly, as most of us finance our cars for three, four, even 5 years, ask what the tax implications will be for the entire duration of your ownership, especially after April 2028. Now, second, you must seriously weigh up the alternatives. We all know that petrol or diesel only will soon be banned and new sales are already tanking both here and everywhere around the world. They’re not a real option anymore. Not with the government clearly pushing drivers towards fully electric vehicles, BEVs. Yeah, BEVs will also pay VED from 2025. However, their rates and their benefiting kind rates are set to rise far more slowly and will stay much lower than PHEV rates. Now, of course, we get the cherry on the icing on the cake. You can get a direct government subsidy of 1,500 or 3,750 off the price of a new EV. And great news if you prefer Chinese EVs that don’t as yet get the subsidy. They’re offering their own subsidies. Of course, they are Yeah. 1,500 or 3,750 depending on the model you choose. You might well find that the full EV is now a lot cheaper than the old PHEV ever was. If a full EV works for your lifestyle, it’s now without a doubt the most financially sound long-term choice for a private buyer, a salary sacrifice drive buyer, or a company car driver. So, what if you think you can’t go fully electric? For high mileage drivers who live life on the motorway, a modern efficient petrol mild or full hybrid might now be a much more sensible choice. Their CO2 figures and VD and Bik rates, they were never open to cheating. Not that we know of. While they’re definitely higher on paper, they’re at least stable and you know exactly where you stand for the next four or five years. The cars most at risk from this trap are the PH EVs with smaller batteries and shorter electric ranges. They’re the ones that will be hit hardest by the longer test cycle and will see the biggest jumps in their official CO2 ratings. The era of the plug-in hybrid as the undisputed king of tax efficient driving is coming to a very abrupt and quick end. For years, they’ve been a brilliant way to slash your running costs or get a better car, but the rules of the game have just been completely rewritten. The new Euro 6E-bis standard combined with the tax cliff edge in April 2028 means that many new buyers could be unknowingly signing up for a future of higher taxes, higher national insurance, and massive financial shocks. The trap’s been set as designed to penalize the very cars that we were once were once sold to us as the green and sensible choice. Remember when we were told buy diesel they’re much better? Well, it’s happening again. It’s deja vu. Haven’t I just said that? Before you sign that dotted line, you have to understand that the price you see today is not the price you’ll be paying tomorrow. Remember when we were told by diesel they’re much better? It’s happening again. Deja vu. Haven’t I just said that? So, will you still consider a PHEV? Has this information changed how you see them? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below. Sharing our experience is one of the best ways we can all figure this out. And if this video has helped you dodge a future tax headache, please give it a like and a subscribe for more deep dives that save you money. Thanks very much for watching. I’m Dave. [Music]

In the world of electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, have been touted as a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional hybrid cars. However, a closer look at the fuel economy and overall performance of PHEVs reveals some alarming concerns that every consumer should be aware of. As the demand for electric vehicles continues to grow, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of the pros and cons of PHEVs and how they can impact your daily driving habits. In this video, we’ll delve into the potential pitfalls of PHEVs and explore why they could be a ticking timebomb for unsuspecting car owners. By watching this video, you’ll gain valuable insights into the world of hybrid cars and electric vehicles, and learn how to make informed decisions when it comes to choosing the right vehicle for your needs, taking into account factors such as fuel economy and consumer awareness.

// About The Channel
Dave Takes It On is presented by Dave and produced by his son Jonas.

// Referrals
Dave’s Octopus Energy Referral code: https://share.octopus.energy/wheat-robin-44
Jonas’s Octopus Energy Referral code: https://share.octopus.energy/rich-ibex-885
Tesla Referral code: https://ts.la/dave87278

// Socials
Email: davetakesiton@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davetakesiton
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DaveTakesItOn

// Join this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp-jajUP-0qmEMJohiNFKLA/join

// YouTube Members

TITON Rapid: Andrew Walters | beerlife6 | Steve Rabson | Georgy906

// Patreon Supporters

PHEVs Are A Ticking Timebomb (Don’t Get Caught Out)

Related Posts

BYD’s Denza Z9 GT three-motor output rises by 188 hp to 1,140 hp

The Everyday Hybrid That Finally Makes Electric Driving Easy

The Calm, Clever Answer to Range Anxiety in 2026

Chinese firm launches hybrid EV with 1,000-mile range, 165 kW motor

Buick Electra E7 EREV goes nearly 1,000 miles

Buick Electra E7 EREV goes nearly 1,000 miles