No, electric vehicle sales aren’t dropping. Here’s what’s really going on

PHEV is not the same as a common hybrid. It's literally in the name.

That would not surprise me at all.
In the UK, they have a huge tax incentive as company cars. People are definitely getting them for the tax benefig, and not giving a shit about the electrics.

Though honestly, if it means almost all company cars are at least regenerative braking, and the tech is there is someone does want to use it, it's not the worst thing.
I might end up with a PHEV in a few years, as most of my driving is very short distance, and I can't justify the cost of a 200mi+ BEV for the 1 trip a month that needs it. And putting second hand PHEVs on the market helps that.

IMO its a great idea right now because IIRC 90% of round trips are 50 miles or less. So if you have a 200 mile battery, 75% of it is dead weight most the time. PHEVs remove the range anxiety present in most parts of the US with poor charger networks. Plus if battery manufacturing becomes a bottleneck in the near future it will be good to reduce the amount needed per car.

Maybe in the future good charger networks and much cheaper batteries will solve the problem but for the next 20 years I think PHEVs will fill an important role.

At the same time, a PHEV is a good stopgap if you live in a place with poor charging infrastructure. You might be able to charge enough to drive locally, but not when going some place farther afield. For example, I may be able to charge enough to drive around the neighbourhood from my socket, but literally half the city does not have any kind of EV charging capability, making a BEV unsuitable.

A PHEV would do better there, since I could switch to petrol if needed, and run in EV mode otherwise, and when charging infrastructure becomes good enough that I can live without the petrol part, then it might be worth switching to BEV.

PHEV in my opinion is a really dumb idea. It got popular, because it was an easy way for car manufacturers to continue making large SUVs and adhere to even stricter fuel efficiency restrictions, while also benefitting from generous state subsidies. Now that those subsidies are either scaled down or completely removed the PHEV sector is shrinking fast.

I'd argue that to be less of a issue with PHEV, since they weren't all that common to start with, and more of an issue with things like Mild Hybrids where the motor is just there to give the ICE a little boost, and precious little else.

With PHEV, the maintenance cost is higher than ICE, because at the end you need to service and maintain two engines.

I would be curious if they are. ECVT systems don't seem that much more complex than an equivalent automatic transmission, since the motor doubles as the starter and internal brake bands.

Maybe for the diesel-electric locomotive-type drivetrain that Opel's Ampera-E uses, since it's basically an EV with an onboard generator, but even then, maintenance costs could easily be offset by the ICE not running as often or as hard.

The catalytic converters of hybrid cars are often sought after because they are cleaner and don't see as much wear as their ICE counterparts. It would not be much of a stretch for that logic to extend to hybrid engines.

It's still more viable in regions where people don't have personal garages, and their apartment parking lot doesn't support retrofitting charging stands.