Watch on YouTube or below:
YouTube threatened me with a strike for linking to the New York Times, so I don’t link to sources directly anymore.
The script/slides below do not perfectly match the video as I made minor mistakes in speech or made minor changes / omissions on the fly as well as during editing. The quoted sections were not stated as they would make this more detailed than most audiences would want to watch.
Additional information/sources:
I may add other resources here in the future, but since a lot of this video is based on my personal knowledge and experience, I elected to prioritize putting it together over defining additional sources for it.
It Turns Out, Hybrids Are Really Hard On Engines by EngineeringExplained
So I’ve been meaning to make a video about why hybrid vehicles are the best vehicle type, but I couldn’t not react to this ad - because it will cause confusion. Engineering Explained normally produces very informative and well-structured videos. In fact, I’ve learned a lot from his channel, and it’s a notable portion of why I feel qualified to make this response now. I will link to some of my favorite videos of his at the end and in the description. I have also put a link to the entire script of this video with highlights on the sections containing extra information that I did not read aloud.
The first claim is that hybrids cause more wear by starting the engine more frequently. This is an extremely complex topic, but the omission of the word “cold” in that sentence makes all the difference. An engine needs oil to lubricate most parts of it, and oil always leaves a thin film behind that takes a long time to dissipate. Engine oil pumps get to operating pressure almost instantly. A warm engine starting doesn’t produce significant wear, and newer hybrid vehicles use electric oil pumps to even eliminate the smallest gap of oil pressure during start-up.
Starting the engine also does increase wear on the start motor, but any engine with an automatic start/stop feature uses a bigger and better starter motor so that this will never be a problem. Hybrid vehicles often use their motor as the starter motor or as an additional starter motor which is even more powerful and longer lasting than an older starter motor. You will not likely ever wear this part out.
A cold engine has to use more fuel to run. Cylinders always have a thin coat of oil on them. More fuel washes away and dilutes this oil when it is also moving slower due to being cold. All fuel produces carbon dioxide, water vapor, and nitrogen oxides when it burns. When the engine is cold, the nitrogen oxides and water vapor can form nitric acid that condenses on the cold cylinder walls, and eats more of the oil film. This is where most engine wear comes from, and why you should wait at least 15 seconds between starting a cold engine, and moving the vehicle.
(Moving a vehicle while the engine is cold puts even more fuel into the cylinder when they’re still cold to generate enough power. This is why waiting even such a brief period of time makes it last longer.) This is also why you should drive a vehicle gently after starting it cold. Even though the temperature has started to rise in the engine itself very quickly, the transmission and exhaust system are still cold for a while, and they should warm up slowly, which you accomplish by driving gently. (Note: With older vehicles, waiting a few minutes idling after a cold start is a good idea, but newer engines are designed to heat up at optimal speed to allow you to use them quickly without causing excess wear. Waiting multiple minutes for the engine to warm up just wastes fuel - unless it is really cold outside, like near or below freezing.)
When your vehicle is already warmed up, additional starts cause a minimal amount of additional wear that is more than compensated for by the fuel savings of the engine turning off when not needed. Additionally, saying an engine is off can be misleading. While newer hybrid vehicles do actually stop spinning the engine at times, most of the time an engine is “not running”, it is still spinning, which keeps the oil where it needs to be. In fact, non-hybrid vehicles stop running their engines while coasting as well - but they are still spinning.
This is the biggest reason why fuel-injected vehicles are more efficient than old carbureted engines. The most basic advantage of fuel injection is that you can stop injecting fuel when you don’t need it, such as when coasting or braking. Carburetors always send fuel to the cylinders because they use a venturi effect (a vacuum) to pull in fuel. The second biggest reason they are more fuel efficient is because the amount of fuel used can be controlled perfectly, whereas relying on the venturi effect means that minor changes in air can’t be compensated for.
Engineering Explained says that it takes 12-15 seconds for full oil flow. This is true, but doesn’t matter. The remaining oil on every part of the engine from the last time it was run is coating things well enough until full oil flow is established. The only time that isn’t true is if a vehicle has been sitting for a long time.
It is impossible to prevent water from getting into motor oil in small amounts. The engine itself under normal operation pushes a minute amount of exhaust into the oil - which I remind you that exhaust has water and acid in it. This is also why used oil turns darker, it’s from the exhaust.
As an engine spins and changes temperature, the crankcase (where most of the oil is) needs to be able to expand and contract. This means it can not be sealed. Even if it was sealed, no seal is perfect, and the cylinders always blow a small amount of exhaust past the piston rings into the crankcase, which means it needs to not be sealed.
Hey, if you don’t go on longer drives once a month, you need to be changing your oil more frequently, or going on one longer drive per month. It’s a real shame most people aren’t told this. Fortunately, newer vehicles help you deal with it.
Anyhow, the claim here is that hybrids operate with more temperature fluctuation and at lower temperatures overall, and this means more water collects in the oil. I call bullshit on this because I’ve kept track of the temperature my hybrid runs at, and it stays consistent unless it is below freezing outside. I don’t think the vehicles tested to make this claim are representative of most hybrid vehicles. Additionally, this portion of the original video ignores the fact that water evaporates even below boiling temperature. While that alone may not always clear all the water out, it certainly helps.
Newer hybrid vehicles will run the engine automatically when it detects that there is more water in the oil or the engine hasn’t been run in a while.
While fluctuation of any kind does cause wear, I’m not sold on the temperature fluctuation of hybrids being a bad thing. See, another thing people generally understand is that revving an engine high wears it out faster, but if your engine never revs high, it will break quicker. It’s the same thing if your vehicle sits disused for weeks at a time. The lack of variation in a system of many moving parts wears out those parts faster than regular variation.
This barely gets a mention, but was a major bullet point in the intro of Engineering Explained’s video. This happens to a small degree in all gasoline vehicles, and is taken care of by the emissions system passing vented gases through the engine to burn them and reduce environmental harm. If your vehicle’s emission system is broken, or you have an actual fuel leak, then fuel in your motor oil is just as bad as having water in it, but otherwise, it isn’t a problem. For some reason, the claim is that fuel gets into the oil at an accelerated rate in hybrids for the same reason water gets in at an accelerated rate. Even if this has truth behind it, it’s to a small enough degree that it doesn’t matter.
Hybrids kick in most when moving from a dead stop, going at lower speeds where an engine is less efficient, and during high acceleration to boost power output and reduce how high the engine needs to rev to get more power. These all lead to the engine being treated more gently, which makes it last longer and use less fuel. Critically, as I stated earlier, an engine needs to be used regularly in order to stay in good condition. Plug-in hybrids have more issues because they don’t use their engines enough, so even though they use even less fuel, they are more expensive and have more problems.
The highest efficiency an engine can run at is the highest load it can take at the lowest RPM it can take. But there’s a bit of wiggle room there were this can dramatically shorten the lifespan of the engine. All engines avoid that, but hybrids avoid it even more because the motor takes additional load off of the engine when moving from a stationary position.
While more expensive than a gas-only vehicle, hybrids use less materials and have less complexity than plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. This makes them last longer and have fewer issues. The high initial cost can be a problem, but the fuel savings and maintenance savings over their lifetime more than makes up for it. They do have smaller engines and can’t go as fast as the most performant gas-only vehicles, but they have instant and high acceleration, and very few people ever take a vehicle to its maximum speed anyhow. Right now, their batteries also last longer than plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles because the battery usage can always be balanced against an engine. The batteries are never overworked or overutilized like they can be in other vehicle types.
Some people think electric vehicles are cheapest over their lifetime, but this is only true if your power costs are subsidized in some way. Electricity is expensive enough that in most places, electric vehicles cost more to recharge than a hybrid costs to fuel. Yes, gas prices are heavily subsidized and should not be this cheap, but as long as they are, why not take advantage of it?
“Both-sides”ism is bad, but I’d be a fool to not speak truth about downsides: While electric vehicles are the most expensive to repair, and plug-in hybrids a bit below that, hybrids are still more expensive to repair than gas-only vehicles. You shouldn’t need to repair them very often, but if you aren’t as good of a driver, it might be worth considering a gas vehicle instead. If you care about Earth staying habitable to human life, then you should also be aware that an electric vehicle is better over its entire lifetime for the environment. If you really care, don’t buy a private vehicle at all. They are one of the most energy inefficient things in existence.
Everyone has bills to pay, and Mobil 1 was paying. I’d take the money too if I could. Don’t harass people, but do look for more information any time you’re just told to believe something. That includes this video. I am confident in my knowledge, but you don’t know me, you don’t know that you can trust everything I say.
Speaking of money, I’d take that filthy oil money too if I could because I’m in danger of losing my home. My partner has been without work for over a year, and only just got a contract job. If you know anything about contract jobs, you know they’re fickle, so it doesn’t really mean I’m safe. I don’t do this for money, but if I don’t have money, I die. It’s that brutally simple.
You might notice the first two videos here are his most recent videos before the one I’m responding to. He’s done great videos about battery life and electric vehicles. One of the videos here is about being aware of bad products, another two are about watching out for bad advertising, and some are about what’s good or bad for your vehicle. He does a lot of ads, but he also produces very informative videos. You might notice one of the videos I’m recommending here is also sponsored by Mobil 1, because it’s a good video despite being an ad. Again, my point is not that he’s bad, it’s that he made a misleading video about hybrids, which are actually good, thank you very much. Reminder that these videos are linked to in the description, and have a lovely day.