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# Do Hybrids Really Save On Fuel?
- URL: https://goodoil.news/do-hybrids-really-save-on-fuel/
- Published: 2025-04-17T01:00:33.000Z
- Updated: 2025-04-17T01:00:33.000Z
- Description: Not as fuel-efficient as you’re told.
- Author: Lushington Brady
- Tags: Climate Change

As [I wrote recently](https://goodoil.news/the-climate-cults-dirty-secret-in-indonesia/), there’s a big ol’ dirty secret hiding inside the Climate Cult’s beloved electric cars. *Especially* now that they’re burning all their formerly beloved Teslas.

That dirty secret is the dirty Chinese nickel mined and processed in vast, environment-polluting and worker-killing Indonesian industrial parks owned and run by China.

Far from ‘saving the planet’, global demand for cheap, Chinese-made electric vehicle batteries has brought about unprecedented demand for cheap, dirty Indonesian nickel.

China operates Indonesia’s two largest nickel-processing facilities, one of which accounts for almost 20 per cent of global nickel supply – and dumps vast amounts of heavy metals and other pollution into the seas around Sulawesi. The facilities are powered by a fleet of coal-fired stations that belch more CO₂ than Brazil.

The cheap, dirty, Chinese-owned nickel that runs the Climate Cult’s beloved electric cars comes at the cost of safer material produced elsewhere. BHP invested billions into a clean nickel-producing facility, only to have to mothball it because it couldn’t compete with the cheap, dirty product from Chinese-owned facilities in Indonesia.

But if EVs have a dirty secret, so do their cousins: hybrids.

> [They are sold as](https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/04/14/some-hybrid-cars-thirstier-than-petrol-peers-australian-study/?ref=goodoil.news) vehicles that will cut petrol consumption but tests on Australian roads show some hybrid cars use more fuel than standard models.

Hybrids are the cheap, Clayton’s version, of a full-blown EV. They feature a battery and electric motor to assist a petrol engine during short bursts. Hybrids are sold on a promise of cutting petrol consumption without the luxury-car price tag of a full EV. A Toyota Yaris, for instance, costs around $30k, compared to an entry-level EV price of $50 grand.

But if you think you’re saving the planet on a budget, you’re kidding yourself.

> In one case, a mild hybrid vehicle used 12% more petrol than its internal combustion equivalent on highways and a conventional hybrid used almost 3% more fuel \[…\]  
>  
> GWM’s Jolion hybrid vehicle cut consumption by significantly less than promised, with a 17% fuel saving compared to 38% indicated by laboratory tests.  
>  
> It also used more petrol than the standard Jolion model when travelling on highways.  
>  
> The Subaru Forester mild hybrid used more petrol than its internal combustion equivalent by 2.8% on average, although the model has been discontinued.

Not all hybrids are a complete con:

> Three out of four Toyota hybrid vehicles cut petrol use by more than 30% on average, while a Honda CR-V hybrid and a mild hybrid Suzuki Swift reduced fuel consumption by 23% and 17%, respectively.

Hybrids are also, perhaps unsurprisingly, better for inner-city dwellers rather than suburbanites with long commutes, or country folk.

> Tests revealed hybrid vehicles were significantly more fuel-efficient on urban areas than rural roads and were at their least efficient on highways.  
>  
> The Toyota Camry hybrid vehicle cut fuel consumption by 50% on city roads, but only 13% on highways.

The reason is simple: hybrids are optimised for stop-start traffic at low speeds.

> “It’s that optimisation for the low speeds that has resulted in a decline in the efficiency at high speeds.”  
>  
> As a result, conventional hybrid vehicles may not be as useful for drivers in regional or rural Australia as a plug-in hybrid or an electric vehicle, \[Australian Electric Vehicle Association national president **Chris Jones**\] said.

Except that we know just how terrible EVs are for the environment.

No wonder EV evangelists get so antsy when people point that out.

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