Japanese auto makers are already good at hybrid power trains, small engines.
surely extended range vehicles - 1000km+/700mi+ shouldn't be limited to Chinese brands only.
Go to Toyota's website today and you'll see that a Rav4 Plug-in Hybrid is more expensive than the bZ which is the equivalent full EV.
Going to an EREV layout (a series plug-in hybrid where the gas engine cannot drive the wheels mechanically) doesn't really save any costs directly, but allows sharing the platform between EV and EREV models.
I can't see myself ever wanting a Lightning EREV, for example, because of this exact issue. If I needed to tow, that would be the sole situation where it might hold enough of an advantage to matter. Aside from that, it will have (most likely) about 75% of the battery the BEV Lightning has, and it will lose the frunk, which is one of my favorite features. Plus, unlike my Lightning with it's 200K mile first required maintenance work, the EREV will probably have to be serviced every 10-20K miles. Ugh.
(Interestingly, the wikipedia page for EREV incorrectly cites the Volt as an example of an EREV, but the actual page for the Volt correctly identifies it as a plug-in hybrid.)
As an unrelated aside, it also has been abandoned altogether by GM and the only way to fix the battery is to find a third-party repair shop to work on it. Batteries are not available, and for the cars remaining under warranty coverage a battery failure results in GM buying back the car since they cannot fix it. Caveat emptor; IMO the resale value right now is much too high given that risk.
Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of for an EREV that actually reached production status (in the US at least, China excepted) is the BMW i3.
However, besides from the formal classification debates, I submit that the Volt meets the primary customer visible "EREV" behaviour: it drives like an electric car with the full available power (the engine never comes on) until the battery is depleted or a different drive mode is explicitly selected. All other PHEVs use the gas engine to assist when full power is called for by default, unless the "EV" mode is explicitly selected. The Volt, as far as I know, is the only EREV/PHEV that had that behaviour.
The only other example of a series EREV I know of where the engine is small and fully decoupled from the mechanical drive train is the Mazda MX-30R, which never made it to the US and was discontinued in EU and Japan after a short two year lifespan.
An EREV version could get by with 50-100kWh, which is also a lot less weight to carry. And would give plenty of power for driving EV-only for shorter trips when not towing.
It would most likely be closer to the top of that than the bottom. The standard range Lightning has a 98 kWh battery. So you can see what I mean, the battery would only be slightly smaller. Slightly less expensive, and slightly lighter -- but remember that you also have to add back in the weight of the engine and generator.
I have a Sienna minivan that is hybrid and gets 36 MPG which is at least 10MPG more than everyone else using a beefed up version of the drivetrain the Prius created. (I can go 550-600 miles on a tank)
I also got RAV4 Prime which is a plugin electric that uses the same drivetrain tech and can go full electric, hybrid, or full power with both for over 300hp which is fun.
They achieve the best efficiency by using an Atkinson cycle engine which is more efficient but less powerful on the Sienna and Prius. What has confused me more is that things like the Grand Highlander still have a traditional cycle engine in their hybrid setup so you don't get the maximum advantage.
It would be very interesting to me to have a small sedan BEV with a rear charging port and an optional flat trailer with a large battery and room for luggage/furniture. The battery would be plugged into that car while driving. I'd want the trailer rentable from the dealer for occasional long trips. BEVs seem to have powerful motors, there must be something else with the economics why this isn't a thing.
RVs are where I would think this would make the most sense. People with a travel trailer already have a heavy trailer and they want a lot of battery to get it anyway. beef up the axle a little you can put a thousand pounds of battery on you get more range when you're towing and if there's any left over your RV can run on battery power. It's also very common for them to plug in once they get where they're going and so they can charge on 220 volt power that's already at the RV park and be charged and charge your car while you're at it overnight.
Perhaps it's the threat of theft of the expensive battery - though that should be solveable via tracking.
I don't know.
https://electrek.co/2026/03/26/lightship-electric-rv-trailer...
https://electrek.co/2025/06/30/pebble-begins-deliveries-elec...
https://electrek.co/2026/05/08/really-quick-charge-with-rang...
Toyota is currently seeing record sales of their hybrid models and has made multiple models hybrid-only as costs have fallen.
Plug-in hybrids with larger battery packs are a harder market fit. They cost more because of the larger battery (often more than full EV equivalents) and are not saving you any extra money unless you can plug it in daily. If you have that extra money to spend and a place to plug an, an EV will probably work fine for you and save you more money over time.
It's more-so the "I don't want that over-complicated crap" mentality, which is hilariously out of date. The first-gen Prius ended up being the single most reliable car ever made by almost any metric you can name.
Cost is a huge factor, and now that hybrids are a small cost increase, or even the default option on some models, sales have increased substantially. Basically half the cars that Toyota sells are hybrid or EV at this point.
...was also incredibly slow.
A pitiful 70 horsepower motor assisted by a 44 horsepower motor that combined to an anemic 104 horsepower [0] on a car that weighed ~2,800 lbs.
I had to borrow my in-laws' car once, which is a first gen Prius, and I found the extremely sluggish performance to be outright frustrating. I felt like I had to floor the accelerator to reach highway speeds in any reasonable amount of time.
[0] Not a typo. The numbers don't add to 114 because they can't both deliver peak power at the same time.
"You have to have a specific daily drive for them to make much sense" - You'd have to have an extremely specific commute for an ICE car to potentially beat a hybrid (flat highway driving with zero traffic). Even then it's doubtful as hybrid engines can be designed to optimize more for efficiency since the electric torque can augment to make performance acceptable. Try to find an ICE car that gets better EPA ratings than equivalent hybrids.
"You're carrying two engines and to fuel/power sources, so mileage is terrible on gas and battery." - The corolla hybrid LE weighs 100lbs less than the ICE LE, in part because hybrid transmissions are quite simple in comparison to a manual/automatic required in an ICE car. In either case, hybrids have a huge advantage in the types of driving where weight matters (stop-and-go/hills) because they can reclaim that energy rather than losing it as heat.
Hybrid mileage is well known to be much better I fail to understand the origin of your comment.
How is that different than plug-in hybrids that toyota already have?
Related, though not for plug-in hybrids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI
In parallel hybrids, both the gas motor and the electric motor provide traction, sometimes simultaneously.
Parallel is more efficient if you're depending on gas often, as every conversion has losses. Toyota mostly sells hybrids you can't plug in, and the ones you can plug in are variants of the ones you can't, so they all share the same drivetrain.