Back-up plan

THEY’RE MID-SIZED, SUB-$50K AND PACK PLUG-IN HYBRID POWERTRAINS, BUT DOES THAT MAKE THEM VERSATILE AND DESIRABLE? OR INHERENTLY COMPROMISED?

- TONY O’KANE

WE DON’T have to take boot photos, but they want you to explain in the story why everything is so damn wet”, said a very soggy photographer Alastair Brook through the driver’s window of my MG.

This shoot had started so well. Kicking off on the south bank of the Yarra in Melbourne with patches of blue sky and shafts of warm sunlight, it had ended here, 50km to the south-east at a bleak Cardinia Reservoir, in relentless precipitation and dim greyness.

Credit to Brook for his commitment to snapping the images you see before you, and credit to Canon for making cameras that seemingly function underwater. Originally I figured we’d let the town-and-country theme be a visual metaphor for the dual nature of these cars, but I guess the bipolar Melbourne weather works too.

I should elaborate. This ain’t your average three-SUV battle royale, because these ain’t your average SUVs. Beneath cardigan exteriors, these cars boast both a battery-electric and petrol powertrain, with the ability to either charge their lithium-ion cells from a wall outlet, or travel independently of the power grid by burning a few hydrocarbons. These are plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, and depending on who you ask they’re either a waste of time, or the best option for getting Australians to transition toward an electrified future.

But with ecological imperatives to ‘go green’ being balanced out by real-world qualms like range anxiety, are PHEVs the panacea? They’ve been in our market for a while now, with the Holden Volt being the first way back in 2012, but it’s only recently that consumers have attained some diversity of choice.