I’m surprised this report isn’t being mentioned at all in the Guardian’s article. Maybe because this is more of German matter, with a report in German with results present on German broadcast going mainly against German manufacturers. Or maybe they’re making it more about fuel consumption (and consumers) than emissions.
It really depends on the owner and how they are driven
I’m not sure about this study (can’t read any German oops), but expected vs real-life usage of PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid) is exactly the problem brought up by T&E and others at the end of last year, see for example this report from October 2025:
The [fuel consumption and CO2 emissions] gap is mostly caused by flawed assumptions on the share of electric driving mode (the ‘utility factor’, UF) which leads to a drastic underestimate of official PHEV emissions. The UF overestimated the electric driving share, assuming 84% over 2021-2023, whereas real-world data shows this to be just 27%.
I’m not doubting at all that you outperform the expected consumption, but sadly on average it seems like there’s more of a systematic (and significant) under-performance. However, this is comparing WLTP testing to real-life driving EU data, for cars sold in the EU. I’m sure that this might be region-dependent as models and driving habits might be radically different.
EDIT: oops as mentioned by @Don_alForno@feddit.org, this seems to be more about the engine of certain manufacturers consuming more than expected in electric drive mode:
Until now it has been claimed by manufacturers that the vehicles used only a little or almost no fuel when in the electric mode. The studies showed that this was not in fact the case.
So not the same as the T&E study, and much less about usage.
Maybe, but consumers might have to pay extra for gas compared to what they expected? And (in the EU) this allows companies to avoid paying fines for extra emissions (T&E).