Imho, self charging hybrids as well as mild hybrids are nonsense, at least from an economical/environmental point of view. Neither will help much with fuel consumption (you still drive the majority of time on petrol), both are considerably more expensive than their pure ICE equivalents, making the extra 5-10 mpg on long distances (while not being able to drive purely electric on demand) pointless.
It’s either PHEV, or EV – everything else is snake oil and doesn’t help your wallet, nor the environment.
In regards to the topic, it’s true to some extent. It’s not that there’s no chargers available, but that usually they’re broken/glitched/bugged/not usable, on top of the absolute idiocy that they require seventy-twelve different apps/accounts. Imagine going to a petrol station just to realise that the first one simply doesn’t work, the second one doesn’t accept debit cars, the third one doesn’t accept credit cards, the fourth one finally accepts cash. It’d be annoying as flip, yet with chargers it’s even worse.
On that basis i can understand someone rejecting the idea of electric, because it can very much be hassle, sadly usually that’s not really the argument. The argument usually is some bollocks about how EVs aren’t better for the environment (they are), or how cobalt isn’t mined ethically (while typing on a device assembled in factories that require netting to prevent their employees from jumping off the roof), or how literally the country catches fire everywhere because of people charging, polluting more than ICE cars ever could (don’t even know where to start there).
We decided against an EV, mainly because while we test drove them and they were lovely drives, we didn’t feel comfortable enough in the available ones. The ID3 interior was.. spartan, lets put it that way, the Kona interior is better but didn’t gather much traction with the wife (and we very much don’t like the exterior), the 2008, well.. nah. A PHEV suits us just as much, and does have a few advantages in our driving situation. 95% of our journeys are still 100% electric, and the rest can be done at around 150mpg (we know because we drove the tour on our test drive). Good enough.
That all said: there won’t be much alternative. Hydrogen cars aren’t gonna be a proper thing for at least another 5-10 years, if at all. There’s a few cars out there, but barely any infrastructure to support them. I can’t see manufacturers go all in on a technology that’s basically undrivable (due to not being able to refuel), until the infrastructure is in place. Electric cars only gained traction after the charging network expanded, too.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.