A few years back, the world went EV-crazy in a way that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Numerous automakers promised to go all-EV within just a few years, spending billions to retool factories and revamp supply chains. It wasn’t clear that there was market demand for so many EVs, it wasn’t clear infrastructure could keep up, and it wasn’t clear that the political future would sufficiently support so many EVs. And yet, company after company — most likely afraid of falling behind, most likely trying to look “cutting edge” in the eyes of shareholders who couldn’t keep their eyes off Tesla stocks, and many just getting caught up in the hype — made the commitment. Toyota stood back and waited, taking an absolute beating from much of the media. Fast forward to the modern era, and harsh realities that should have been obvious from day one have made themselves clear: If you’re not Tesla, getting tens of millions of people to drive electric is going to take time, and in that time, you stand to lose billions.
Governments and shareholders can have a huge influence on automakers, but it’s human beings who have to spend their money on cars, so it’s those human beings — i.e. the marketplace — that should, within the confines of regulations, always be the main driver of product decisions. Always. That’s ultimately the failure that has taken place, en masse, in the auto industry in the last five-ish years: too many carmakers making product decisions based on shareholder opinion, not on consumer desires.
OK, to be fair, many of these automakers were seeing Tesla run away with their marketshare, so it’s only natural to think “Maybe we can do that?” especially in the face of tightening environmental regs around the world. But it’s become clear that Tesla is an anomaly; the company was first to market, it owns the very best EV charging network, it’s sold a ton of EV credits to get where it is, it grew during a very different economic time when interest rates were low and raising money — especially via people buying into the exciting company promising the moon (and then Mars) — was relatively easy; Tesla raised lots of cash by promises it hasn’t yet delivered, and it’s helmed by the larger-than-life Elon Musk. Tesla is its own thing, and trying to copy it to win over huge EV volumes in 2024 is a futile effort. That’s not really an opinion, either; we recently wrote that “Rivian Lost $39,130 For Every Vehicle It Sold Last Quarter“; and in that same article you’ll read the subheading “Lucid Loses $341,604 Per Car, But That’s Better News Somehow.” Ford is losing a bunch of money on EVs, too.
EV adoption isn’t “tanking,” but the growth of EVs in the U.S. marketplace is definitely slowing down, as our friends at InsideEVs point out. Pricing and infrastructure are key issues slowing down EV growth, leaving automakers — who are all fighting for the relative small (but growing! See chart below) chunk of the EV market that Tesla doesn’t firmly dominate — with a dilemma: Where do we go next?
I’ve been saying this for over a year now: The answer is Extended Range Electric Vehicles (EREVs), and I do not see it as a short-term, interim solution. I see it as a long-term one.
Now, finally, it seems I’m not alone in this thinking.
EREVs Are Inevitable
Many carmakers are rolling out more and more conventional hybrids, and there’s no question that these will remain popular for years to come. EVs are also sticking around for the long haul, as are conventional PHEVs. But there exists a third option — one that we’ve seen unsuccessfully deployed only a single time, in significant volume, in U.S. history (two if you count the Volt), but that has really taken off in the world’s strongest EV market, China. I’m talking about the EREV, the Extended Range Electric Vehicle.
If you’re not familiar with what an EREV is, the short of it is that it’s an electric car with a small gasoline generator acting as backup. All that gasoline engine does is cut on when the main battery gets low, generating electricity to keep the battery from depleting completely. The gas engine does not actually propel the car directly (which is why I don’t consider the Chevy Volt a true EREV — its low range also disqualifies it in my mind). Thus, this gasoline range extender allows you to keep driving even after the high-voltage battery that you charged via a plug runs out of juice. It’s basically a backup to fix the whole “range anxiety” issue.
I’ve been preaching the gospel of EREVs ever since I sat in a BMW i3 back in early 2023 and purchased two thereafter; I’ve written numerous stories defending the concept of EREVs and calling for more of them on the market. I’m pleased to see that, finally, it is happening. The EREV wave is coming.
When the Ram Ramcharger came out as the first EREV pickup truck ever planned for the U.S. market, I wrote the headline “The 2025 Ram Ramcharger: A Tesla-Sized Battery And A Big Gas Engine Create The Perfect Truck.” Then, VW’s new brand Scout expressly invited me to its launch event because the brand was aware of my pro-EREV work; Scout launched a truck and SUV that will offer a small gasoline range-extender (REX), and the world — and I — went gaga. In fact, even though we don’t have official figures breaking down the EREV/BEV ratio of Scout pre-orders, this forum post indicates that the vast majority of Scout preorders were indeed for the models equipped with the “Harvester” range extender.
Yesterday at the LA Auto Show, Hyundai’s José Muñoz showed off the new Hyundai Ioniq 9, and in his talk with the media he said the company is planning on building EREVs. “EREVs have the potential to lower cost and increase driving range,” he said. I later had a chat with Petar Danilovic, Senior VP of Product Marketing at Volkswagen. I asked him about EREVs, and he said VW is looking into it in the long-term, before he edited himself a bit. “Maybe even mid-term,” he said (as in, in the not-so-distant future). “The EREV is a good combination for people who might not be ready to go 100% electric.”
On top of that, Lotus — who previously promised to go full-EV as a brand — has decided, per Autocar, that it’s going to pursue EREVs. (EREV tech as a way to allow for a lighter vehicle with instant EV torque is a fun thought). Plus Jeep said the Wagoneer will get a Range Extender (Rex), too. So now we have Ram, Scout, Hyundai, VW (eventually), Jeep, and Lotus all going this route. And there’s more. Ford in July made it clear that Super Dutys (a great application, as you can avoid idling on job sites) are going EREV, and in August The Blue Oval issued a press release that included this nugget:
Ford will develop a new family of electrified three-row SUVs which will include hybrid technologies that can offer breakthrough efficiency, performance benefits and emissions reductions versus pure gas vehicles and extend the range of the vehicle on road trips relative to pure electric vehicles.
They’re describing an EREV. In fact, Jim Farley recently replied to my tweet about this:
David, interesting comments……
— Jim Farley (@jimfarley98) October 26, 2024
It’s a cryptic response, but I read it as him agreeing.
View on Threads
I replied to a Threads post a few weeks ago, saying to automotive industry expert and Autopian contributor Sam Abuelsamid that “EREVs are inevitable.” And he didn’t think I was totally full of it, because as an analyst he wrote the following for Guidehouse Insights: “The Range Extender May Finally Have Its Moment.” In the article, he says GM is likely also going to offer EREVs, and that “The EREV will likely have a home in the automotive landscape for at least the next decade or two as battery technology and charging infrastructure continue to evolve.”
Indeed. Over a decade after the BMW i3 launched for the U.S. market, EREVs are coming. Finally.
Price And Range
When it comes to EV sales in the U.S., there are two metrics that consumers care about most: range and price. The former’s importance is really unparalleled in automotive history. There has never been a single performance metric as important in automobile sales as EV range — not MPG, not 0-60, not ride quality or handling. It’s at the point where consumers say things like “Why would I buy that Mercedes EV when I can buy this Hyundai with more range for less money?” Imagine hearing that about an old Elantra compared to a C-Class!
Some of this has to do with how touchscreens/Apple Carplay/Android Auto has really leveled the cabin user-interface playing field, some of this has to do with how good car quality has become, and much of this has to do with the similar driving experience between various EVs (similar torque delivery, weight distribution, silent operation, etc.). But the point is: In the EV marketplace, range dominates. And right ahead of it is price. The problem is that, while range and price are largely unrelated in an internal combustion engine since blow-moulding a larger fuel tank is trivial, in EVs the two are at odds with one another. High range necessitates a significantly higher price (and also higher weight, which requires more battery to ensure good range, which adds weight, which requires more battery… it’s a vicious cycle).
There are really only a few levers to pull to solve this: You can challenge the notion that consumers need high range, you can reduce the price of batteries, or you can reduce how much battery a car needs in order to achieve a high range.
The second option is everyone’s goal: We all want cheap batteries. But we’re not there yet, technologically. The first option — to get consumers to be OK with lower-range vehicles, is not going to happen. The average American simply isn’t OK with a car that can only drive 150 miles on a charge, even if that person only drives a few miles a day.
Before we get to the third option, let’s stay here for a moment, because far too many journalists say things like “People don’t need as much range as they think; they should just drive low-range EVs.” As an engineer, I totally support that. But the reality is that the average consumer’s range-lust is not the problem — in business, the consumer can never be seen as a problem, and in fact, people’s thirst for high-range even though they likely don’t need it is fairly typical consumer behavior.
Consumers have historically purchased cars for what they are capable of, regardless of how consumers actually use those vehicles. How many Ford F-150 owners need to be able to frequently tow 10,000 pounds? How many Porsche owners need the ability to snap off an insanely quick Nürburgring time? How many Jeep Wrangler owners need to be able to make it through the Rubicon Trail? Very few, but consumers buy cars based on the thought: “But if I wanted to, I could.” This is normal. This is capitalism.
The issue is that, anytime you’re using something for only a small fraction of its capability, it leads to compromise. The Wrangler rides like crap, the F-150 is a beast to drive around town, and a Porsche 911 can barely fit a pair of golf clubs, and none of those are particularly efficient. But compared to these examples, a typical 350-mile electric vehicle (especially a large one) driven by someone who really only needs 50 miles daily yields way, way worse compromises. That consumer has to carry around an extra 1,500 pounds, and they might have to pay an extra $10+ grand, all for a capability they rarely use. It’s a hideous compromise, and it’s just not worth it to many Americans. EREVs have the potential to mitigate this.
America Wants High-Energy Cars
Now let’s get back to that third “lever” one can pull to satisfy consumers’ price/range concerns: Reduce the number of batteries needed to move a vehicle down the road — in other words, reduce the energy needed to propel a car forward. This is a concept called “Vehicle Demand Energy,” and it’s driven by things like aerodynamics, curb weight, bearing friction, rolling resistance (which is related to curb weight), and on and on. (These terms can be mathematically modeled in terms of what are called “ABC Coefficients.”)
This is EV Automaker Lucid’s strategy moving forward (I’m a huge fan of Lucid, because it’s a true engineer’s company led by an engineer, and lots of my geeky friends work there). I had a chance to speak with the company’s CEO, Peter Rawlinson, last summer, and — after he stated that “it is not possible today with today’s technology to make an affordable pickup truck with anything [other] than internal combustion” — he told me that, though “There’s a great argument for … [an] onboard generator,” Lucid will not be heading down that path.
“What I wanna do is go to the shorter range EVs, ultra-efficient six miles per kilowatt hour, 240 miles range. That is a 40 kilowatt-hour pack,” he told me, “And then you put that [battery] underneath the front seat and you’ve got a super affordable family car. The battery doesn’t weigh 650 kg. It weighs 200 kg and then battery chemistry advances [can improve that range even more at a later point].”
I think that’s a great strategy for certain segments, but not for the U.S. market at large.
That’s because Americans don’t want low-range EVs, nor do they want small cars. America is a truck and SUV market, which is why GM has axed legendary nameplates like the Chevy Impala and Malibu, and Stellantis and Ford don’t offer a single sedan today. Expecting Americans to give up SUVs and trucks for small cars in order to get more range for their money just ain’t gonna happen organically (it doesn’t help that small cars see higher fatality rates, and that in the U.S. you almost have to have a big car to feel safe). High-range small and midsize crossovers — not unsubstantial classes, to be sure — will get cheaper and cheaper as they become even more efficient, and we’re starting to see that already (see the Equinox EV, which is great) — this is a segment for which EREVs perhaps make less sense. But big trucks and big SUVs simply don’t work as affordable EVs. In fact, right now there are zero affordable, competitive electric pickup trucks or large SUVs on the American market, especially if the EV tax credit goes away.
Rivians and the long-range Kia EV9 are both too expensive, every EV pickup truck is either too pricey or can’t tow nearly far enough on a charge, and as for hard-core off-road competitors to the Wrangler and Bronco? Forget about it. Throwing 35-inch tires on an EV will damage Vehicle Demand Energy so much it just won’t work out.
I’m all for reducing Vehicle Demand Energy to reduce overall EV cost, and I’m for offering lots of lower-range models, but Americans aren’t giving up full-size pickups, large three-row SUVs, or off-roaders, and if you want to get lots of folks driving electric as quickly as possible, you’re going to have to meet them where they are. EREVs are literally the only way to do that in 2024, which is why I think non-Tesla companies like Rivian and Lucid, which built their entire brands around a singular technology (battery electric vehicles), are going to struggle.
It’s The Best Way For An Automaker To Use One Platform For An EV And A Hybrid
EREVs aren’t just better for the consumer, they’re better for everyone. I’m not even talking about the tremendous potential environmental benefit of EREVs (getting folks out of guzzling pickups to instead drive electric almost every day), I’m talking about the benefit to automakers.
In order to comply with EPA requirements, automakers are going to have to significantly electrify their fleets, but building new EV platforms for that small chunk of the EV market that isn’t Tesla is becoming harder and harder for automakers, who are losing insane amounts of cash. Platform-sharing between automakers is a great lever to help minimize the losses, but a significant reason why the industry is shifting towards EREVs right now is that developing an EV platform for such a limited volume is becoming hard to justify.
Adding a Rex allows an automaker to build a single platform that can appeal to EV buyers and to hybrid buyers. A Rex option allows the automaker to diversify its customer base and significantly reduce the payback time on platform investment. (To be sure, there are some “platforms” out there that are both ICE and EV, but those are significantly more compromised and don’t share as much as an EREV/BEV platform can. BMW is seeing huge benefits of such platform sharing).
It’s An Infrastructure Thing, Too
Yes, it’s about range and price, and it’s about platform optimization, but right now America’s non-Tesla EV infrastructure isn’t good enough, and I say this as someone who drives an EREV daily in California. I just drove a Rivian R1S from LA to Las Vegas, and nearly stranded myself trying to find a charger, since every one at my hotel was broken. What’s more, the charger I used for my trip required me to pay more to charge my vehicle than I would have paid in fuel if I’d driven a Hummer H2. That’s pretty frustrating.
An EREV allows folks who aren’t comfortable with America’s EV infrastructure to still drive electric every day, particularly if they can charge at home. There is an argument to be made that pain points drive infrastructure improvements (we need more curbside charging), so the more people having a hard time charging their cars, the quicker things will change, but I’m not sure forcing consumers to struggle en masse is going to achieve our goal of getting as many people driving electric as quickly as possible.
Two Things Holding Back EREVs: Marketing Challenges And EV Diehards
The road to EREVs is going to be bumpy at first. The biggest issue is marketing. Explaining what this new technology is without the average consumer’s eyes glazing over isn’t going to be easy, and the term “EREV” needs to be out of the equation. It’s a jargon-y term, and it will not resonate with the public. I won’t pretend to know what the answer is exactly, but I’ve come up with a few fun terms. “Long-range plug-in hybrid” is one option. “Gasoline-Assisted EV” is another. The common thread between these two is: I don’t think shying away from the fact that gasoline is involved is the move. I think many people find comfort in gasoline propulsion, and using a name that implies there’s gasoline is a good thing.
“Education is gonna be huge on this truck. We have to educate not just the consumer, we have to educate the sales staff at our dealerships so they understand the benefits of this over the REV,” Carl Lally, Ram’s VP of Global Sales told me at the LA Auto Show. He acknowledged that it’s going to be tricky communicating the advantages that this truck has over a full-EV or a gas truck, but at the same time, he implied that leaning too hard on the name of this new tech isn’t the answer. “Ultimately, I want them to say ‘That’s the best truck,'” he told me, going on to say it can tow 14,000 pounds, it can scoot to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, and oh by the way, you don’t have to fill it up at the gas station.
I buy that. I think marketing these advantages is going to be a key challenge in getting people to drop the cash for the EREV, but I think ultimately it could be successful. In fact, Ram predicts that the Ramcharger will outsell the all-electric Ram REV.
The other challenge that EREVs are seeing is coming from EV proponents, many of whom are anti-ICE. Have a look at this odd reply to my aforementioned tweet:
In what way is suggesting that automakers invest in EREVs anti-EV? I don’t follow. And yet, you’ll find in many comments sections EV fans calling EREVs “the worst of both worlds.” It’s not just commenters; a number of car journalists, who I think may have just gotten too close to EVs to see the forest from the trees, have written anti-PHEV articles over the years, and some try to downplay EREVs’ benefits by talking about their plug-in rate.
Look, the rate at which people plug in EREVs matters in terms of how we hold automakers accountable for CO2 emissions, no question, but it simply does not change the reality that EREVs are a significant environmental benefit. I’d guess that if even a quarter of truck owners plug in every day, trading driving their 15 MPG V8 Ram truck for something that they drive in electric mode 95 percent of the time, that’s a huge environmental benefit. We don’t even have any data to suggest that the plug-in rate will be that low, and in fact, Carl Lally from Ram estimates the figure will be close to 75 percent.
Looking at Chevy Volt and BMW i3 numbers — the only two EREVs ever offered in the U.S. en masse, though, again, the Volt isn’t technically one — doesn’t make a ton of sense because both those vehicles were small cars, whose efficiency benefit when running in EV mode over REX mode wasn’t as big as on a big truck. (In other words, large trucks and SUVs stand to gain the most when run in EV mode, thus incentivizing drivers to do so). Even then, those cars saw really high plug-in rates (The Volt was rumored to be around 90 percent), but those were cars purchased by early adopters, so again, looking at those doesn’t make a ton of sense. It also doesn’t make a ton of sense to look at current PHEVs, because their limited EV-only range means drives have less reason to plug them in, though the International Coalition On Clean Transportation says higher-range plug-in hybrids are plugged in more frequently.
So, we don’t know that EREVs will be plugged in all the time, and I do agree that if very, very few people plug them in, there’s not much of an environmental benefit. But that’s just not going to be the case; EREVs will be a great benefit to our environment whether directly or indirectly (by getting people used to electrified drivetrains, leading them to perhaps buy a BEV later). Luckily, I recently read a piece on InsideEVs by long-time PHEV and EREV skeptic John Voelcker, who for the longest time has been critical of the technology because he doesn’t think people would plug it in enough. His latest piece — titled “Extended-Range EVs Are The Next Big Thing. Will Drivers Plug Them In?” — still has a headline that I think overly downplays EREV’s huge potential for emissions reduction, but the article itself seems more reasonable than other more anti-PHEV pieces and seems to acknowledge that EREVs will likely be plugged in a decent amount of time; that’s a great thing.
I think the “fully EV or nothing” crowd needs to relax and acknowledge that we’re all in this climate change fight together, and EREVs offer a humongous potential to reduce emissions in a way that even BEVs can’t, primarily because EREVs can likely convert more folks over from gas-guzzlers, but also because if the range extenders aren’t used much EREVs can actually be cleaner than BEVs due to their need for fewer battery resources. The marketing thing will also be tricky, and I’m hoping companies like Ram decide to price EREVs lower than BEVs. Carl Lally from Ram said the company is wondering if it should charge more for the Ramcharger than the all-electric Range due to the added utility of the former, or if it should charge less. I’m hoping that — due to EREVs’ theoretical ability to cost the manufacturer less to build than a high-range BEV — some of that savings will go to the consumer. And by golly I hope the Ramcharger reliable, because all eyes are on this truck. It won’t be as reliable as an EV, but a rarely-used gas engine initially developed for prolongued use humming along powering only a generator shouldn’t be that hard to make robust.
EREVs Are Coming And It’s A Great Thing
When batteries are as expensive and heavy as they are today, it just doesn’t make sense in all segments of the industry to use them for edge cases (a major battery improvement/price changes many elements of this whole article, of course). And those edge cases include your family’s annual road trip to Wally World, as well as your bi-annual boat-tow excursion. For those edge cases, it’s logical to save cost and weight and slap in a small range extender, especially while infrastructure remains suboptimal.
America has only ever sold one true, high(ish)-volume gasoline extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) — the BMW i3 — and it was a total flop, selling in quantities of less than 10,000 per year on average, but it was a type of car that doesn’t appeal to Americans (a small city car) and it was a bit ahead of its time. EREVs now have a second chance to become a dominant part of the American market. If I learned anything at this year’s LA Auto Show, it’s that many, many automakers are looking to give EREVs a shot, and whether they succeed is going to depend on three things: pricing, marketing, and execution.
All eyes are on the Ram Ramcharger, which should be first to market. If this thing costs more than the BEV, suffers reliability problems, and comes across to consumers as nothing but a half-baked hybrid with a confusing powertrain, then this experiment could go south. But if the Ramcharger can maximize the potential of EREVs, we may be entering a new era, especially for larger vehicles. I truly believe, especially in the current economic and political climate, we are headed in that direction.
As one of the few defending Toyota—and not as a fanboy—for a multitude of reasons from the general to the Toyota-specific against the opinions of “experts” who had been predicting their doom for not jumping on EVs and now smugly sitting back, I fully agree. Modern ICE sucks and so do modern EVs. For the former, you have too many overworked engines with low operational safety margins requiring expensive fuel trying to move vehicles that are fat pigs at acceleration numbers that would have been performance car territory just a couple decades ago. With their enormous, heavy batteries, EVs are far too expensive and still sometimes inadequate in some areas to meet the requirements of many people while offering the same characterless experience that threatens to make one wonder about the point of most brands’ existence. Put the two technologies together and you have far cheaper, more versatile EV that can reach a lot more people and do a lot more for the environment. Engines would be engineered to run at lower power settings, turning over comfortably at a relatively low rpm range on cheap fuel with higher safety margins as all they have to do is recharge a battery. Not only that, it would open up the opportunity to offer a wider range of cars since they wouldn’t be constrained by the battery cost and the weight that comes from high range demands to sell only the higher volume, higher priced vehicles that restrict them to the boring-as-shit categories for people with more money with very limited availability to people who aren’t well off. This also includes used EVs as people buying on the low end don’t want to risk needing a $20k battery replacement when $500 is hard for them to come by. Whether or not that concern is entirely valid, it exists.
Current EV options are like remind me of the crap we get from Hollywood. Because they seem to think every movie needs to cost $200M to make, to make a profit, it needs to appeal to as wide a global audience as possible, severely limiting the type of movie and its content, so we get the same mediocre shit over and over. I haven’t gone to the movies and years and I’d rather daily a 30+ year old land yacht (as someone who dailies a sports car) than most of the boring crap they make today, never mind actually paying more for it.
EV fanatics—like most green absolutists—are just as bad for the environment as the coal rollers as their ridiculous ignorance of the realities of the world seriously hold back real advancements that can otherwise be made. Perfection being the enemy of the good, as it goes. If they really want to make a difference, they should work on engineering a virus that wipes us out, otherwise they should contend with the realities that exist beyond their own navels to come up with real solutions or at least not stand in the way.
Sorry my comment was meant to be its own comment and not a reply to yours…
As another one of the few defending them, they had the right idea 20+ years ago with the prius and its taken everybody else too long to figure out that hybrids are the way to the future.
I’ve been feeling and saying much the same message. You’ve just done a much better job of organizing our shared feelings on the matter. No notes.
Checking in with a post Thanksgiving holiday trip observation. We went on a camping trip to the North Coast of California, specifically Bodega Bay to Pt. Arena. There was the usual holiday traffic, including pickups towing caravans (I was one of those), motorhomes, sedans and crossovers.
I was more than a little surprised to see that what seemed like 1/3 of the cars were Teslas and a few of other brands, including a few Rivians. I figured that those belonged to rich people living at Sea Ranch (a gated community covering a lot of land). I saw no public chargers, specifically superchargers, so I figured that they are charging at home w/ level 2 chargers.