tl;dw: constant RPM and a weird stroke geometry where the power stroke is longer than the other strokes to extract more energy from the expanding gasses.
A.k.a. Atkinson-cycle (1882): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle
the ICE extender was an option.
They live in the Puget Sound area, and both work at the same place. It worked out to where they could do their commute, and ordinary errands entirely on battery, and only needed the range extender if they were going into downtown Seattle or on a road trip or such.
It's dangerous to do 25 mph on a freeway... There are some roads I'm too scared to drive my i3 on now.
If you pulled over to let it recharge, it wouldn't do so, since the range extender refuses to run at full throttle when the car isn't moving fast (perhaps no cooling fan??)
They're less efficient than parallel hybrids at high speeds (on a freeway). And you also need a fairly sizeable engine to keep up with the consumption at freeway speed, so at this point you might as well just throw in a planetary gearbox.
In ICE mode, under 35 MPH, it worked as a series hybrid. Above 35, the engine mechanically connected to the wheels. One motor-gen extracted power and fed it to the other, acting as a CVT in parallel. This provided the ratio changes needed for the small engine.
It was way too complicated and expensive the two times they tried it (2008, then the Volt). It was successful and lives on to this day in its original application: city buses.
It makes a lot of sense, works well, and is very durable... as long as Ford didn't forget to heat treat a bearing or whatever they messed up in early C-Maxes.
But I believe that the series mode was a mistake. The later versions of Volts removed it entirely, improving the fuel economy.
> It was way too complicated and expensive the two times they tried it (2008, then the Volt). It was successful and lives on to this day in its original application: city buses.
I don't think that it was too complicated. Hybrids are using essentially the same system, except that they have a smaller battery and less powerful electric motors.
Even my really underpowered PHEV has a 65kW electric motor. No "off the shelf generator" can generate 65kW, in fact it would be a huge unit that could.
We could of course say - well, it doesn't need to match peak usage, it just has to charge the battery faster than it depletes - you still probably need around 20kW for steady motorway driving, and that's a pretty hefty generator.
Furthermore, the generator can run 24/7, but realistically you will at most drive ~6 hours a day. So for a leisurely road-trip this may be enough to avoid needing stops at charging stations
Disclosure: I have a small investment in them.
Feom a fictional perspective I also dig the rugged blend of electric industrial equipment and utilitarian design. Like a mad-max solar punk, rather than a utopian one.
I picture them pulling up to a makeshift solar outpost en-route, in the middle of the wasteland desert, covered in red dust, the thick sheet metal scarred from raiders...
https://www.motortrend.com/features/what-is-an-erev-extended...
More recently effort is also going into series hybrids for public road haulers, which I personally think is a great application for it since you can potentially put a lot of the equipment into a hot-swappable dolly.
I drove a Nissan Note (Nismo esition) with ePower and it could happily spin the wheels when taking off, not something you normally get out of a tiny economy hatchback. I think it has 140kw electric drivetrain? 140kw is pretty sporty when delivered instantly.
Since it's just for range extension, you could maybe stuff the engine in the rear, so you don't have to pipe exhaust under the whole car. Although then you probably want to pipe coolant to a radiator in the front and have to protect that piping... but at least it's only coolant hot and not exhaust hot. The engine noise would be away from the driver at least.
You said you didn't want the heat of a gas car, but you might choose to run it a little bit more in the cold to help warm the interior on cold days (especially at startup).
Potentially, but not really likely, you could try to make it modular-ish... attach it when you need it, leave it in your garage otherwise. But I think it's going to be too heavy ... I have a 7200 W portable generator which is roughly half of what an EV uses at cruising speeds, and it takes two people to lift it. Automotive engineers do amazing things, but I don't think they're getting twice the power and less weight and easier to move...
> an electric vehicle fitted with a fuel-powered internal combustion engine, acting as a range extender that drives a generator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended-range_electric_vehicl...
>From mid-2025, EREV sales in China declined year-on-year for several consecutive months
just in time as Toyota decided to go all EREV https://electrek.co/2026/09/21/toyota-joins-extended-range-e...
>Toyota will make the EREV in China, aiming to produce 200,000 units in 2027. In 2028, production is expected to rise to around 400,000 units.
Hilarious, from promoting fail hydrogen fuel cells and producing anti EV propaganda to chasing fading trends. Anything but real EVs.
Now these EREVs are mostly luxury niche of big cars (where extra space taken by two power trains doesn't matter) for people who don't want to spend 20 minutes at rapid chargers on that yearly long trip they do. Or for people who live in some global warming ignoring backwater[1] that hasn't built out rapid charger yet.
[1] even China has ubiquitous fast charging network now
Everywhere in China? China is a large place. My money would be on a small rich country that’s (almost) entirely a city. Monaco, Singapore, maybe Luxembourg.
Googling gives me https://transition-energetique.gouv.mc/en/themes/mobility/mo... which doesn’t mention fast C charging but says “Every Monegasque resident is now less than 200 metres from a free public charging point” ⇒ it wouldn’t surprise me if Monaco already meets your definition of “ubiquitous fast charging”
#1 reason why I shy away from all professional sports with serious money involved, it just turns into typical ugly business with skewed incentives, while actual sport ends up being just a necessary afterthought.
Better apartments there cost often 10-20 million euros, there are special controls in laws (ie employment) ensuring better treatment of those few Monaco citizens that are there. Most tax avoiding folks like those sportsmen rent just po box to get some sort of special residence. Most people you can actually meet there live in France and commute daily.
That place is a special bubble even within bubbles, nothing that applies there should be expected to apply elsewhere, apart from similar places (of which I am not that aware of maybe apart from San Marino, ie Singapore is more like a real tiny country with actual serious business in trading and transportation).
Given the area of the country is 2km, even given its narrow geography that would take all of 50 charging stations to achieve...
The capacity issue is specially evident on long weekends or sundays when everyone needs to use the same few chargers.
The cost of a rental car for a week is high - you can pay for a lot of gas for the cost of renting a car a few times a year.
More than one person I know has tried to rent a car and discovered they didn't have any on the day they went to pick it up. If your car can make the trip you avoid all the issue.
Note the above is about road trips. If you are flying (or taking the train) someplace than you will rent anyway (or have some other plans). However one of the advantages of road trips is you take your own car.
That is my objection. There are just enough chargers. However only if you plan around chargers. There is a gas station in nearly every small town. You can safely say any town that can't support a gas station cannot support anything else (no stores, bars, restaurants) and only rarely be wrong. Most small towns don't have a charger at all, and if they do it is often level 2 which means stay overnight to get useful range. (I don't understand these - the ones I've seen are not near anyplace you might stay overnight)
If you're in a small town with a level 2 charger at a city park, you just charge enough to get back to civilization. Then hit the fast charger when you're back to the main highway.
Yeah, it takes a little planning to hit charging stops - but it's not actually much planning. And the built-in navigation takes care of most of it for you anyway. I was genuinely surprised on my first trip (again, through not-EV-friendly territory) how much of a non-issue it was in practice, and how much I didn't feel like I was waiting on chargers (even relatively slow "fast chargers"). I just took my time using the restroom, grabbed a fresh drink, checked my notifications on my phone, and it was time to head out again.
You seem to have a misconception about how far it is from a small town to a anywhere else. Your 1 hour at a level 2 charger will get you about 15 minutes down the road - where will find the closest public charger in the previous town that you just left. There are a lot of small towns there are over an hour drive to the nearest highway that has level 3 chargers. Even on the highway the level 3 chargers are often an hour apart. So figure 8 hours at the public charger in the small town to hit the nearest level 3 charger.
> it takes a little planning to hit charging stops - but it's not actually much planning
You know how much planning I do when I take the gas car: almost always 0. I know that I'm never more than 15 minutes from a gas station so I just plan on stopping at the next gas when the gauge start to get close to empty and I'm always fine. There is one trip I sometimes make where the gas states are 30 minutes apart (through desert that is almost uninhabited) , and I'm careful to ensure I have fuel before driving that section.
My EV is a GM where I can't use the car's nav system without paying a subscription which I don't. It works fine for most trips, but I wouldn't not recommenced it for road trips or when going small towns.
A level 2 charger adds about 40 miles to a Model 3 or Model Y in an hour of charging. I don't know what you drive that is so much less efficient. 8 hours on a level 2 would fill the battery, not just get you to the next charger.
> I know that I'm never more than 15 minutes from a gas station You're being dramatic the other direction here - plenty of routes have you more than 15 minutes from a gas station, including the one I described in my prior post.
I'm sure there are places where it actually is a little tricky. Maybe more so depending on vehicles (Tesla does seem to be the best experience, by a lot). That doesn't change the fact that good EVs are just not a big deal to travel with anymore.
The topic here is travel to small towns.
The solution is simple - plan ahead just enough to have enough charge to get back out of the small town.
Eventually chargers will be everywhere, but not today. When gas was new in 1900 cars had the same problems.
The fears and anxieties of that small shaving of people is simply a misguided talking point about EV viability.
While it was possible to accomplish the mission, it wasn't exactly pleasant and required more planning and longer stops.
The only thing worse than the staple "all chargers except one broken, wait time 1h+", was the ghost charging station existing only on the map - they drove there only to see the empty field instead.
Needless to say we barely made it in time for the ferry (their refueling was about 3 hours total in the UK alone), and sadly won't make me getting EV as the main car anytime soon.
Second, small town car for errands, maybe, but that means having no comfort or equipment I'd like to have in the "main" car (and half of it is safety).
Also - note you seem to suggest the mythical ubiquity of the fast chargers is the solution to the range, but they're also so expensive to use that any savings from the local driving and charging at home (if someone is lucky enough to own a house with garage or off-street parking) is immediately burned on the first longer trip.
These people stoke a lot of fear about EVs despite being a tiny fraction of the population.
We have a vocal minority that keeps stoking EV fears because their unique lifestyle can only be met with a 500 mile range that charges in 5 minutes from a charger located at every gas station, and costs $30k brand new.
The number of people driving ICE cars that would be better off in an EV is massive, and we know this, and these people still keep getting wrapped around the axle of outlier stories.
[1]https://www.bts.gov/statistical-products/surveys/national-ho...
[2]https://www.bts.gov/statistical-products/surveys/national-ho...
You might counter that by saying "rent an ICE car for those trips" and that's certainly possible but, renting a car outside of a major airport is such a miserable experience that many people don't want to deal with it. It only takes once or twice turning up to find that "we don't have the car you reserved" and being offered some unsuitable alternate (or simply no car at all) for people to sour on that idea.
I can only speak for myself, but I do get surprise trips sometimes. My phone could ring at any time and the person on the other end will tell me that I need to go to Detroit, or Columbus, or maybe some corn field in Indiana. This is a thing that happens in my life (and I do get paid for these drives).
But I never have a surprise trip that takes more than about 2 hours. And that's... well, that's well-within EV range. I might need to spend a bit of time charging up for the return trip, but whatever: The car has a high chance of starting at ~80% charge anyway because it is plugged in while it sits in my driveway.
I do take plenty of far-longer trips, but they always have some planning. Often days worth, sometimes whole weeks worth, but always at least a few hours. I'll have plenty of time to juice the thing all the way up beforehand (if that's even useful) and also to look at the anticipated route.
And besides: While I can eek ~500 miles out of a tank of gas if I work at doing so, I never do that in one shot. I take breaks. Even when I've got a co-driver who I can swap with on a 1,200 mile jaunt, we walk around, hit the bathroom, refill on libations, and et cetera when we stop to trade spots. We make time to kill.
Since I'm already taking breaks and it's not a race, then the addition of an EV to the game only affects where I take those breaks. But, really: Those intermediate points are not a big deal -- it doesn't really matter where they happen. It just matters that they do happen.
If it is a race: If the whole point of the trip is to catch a show or a game or a ferry or some other such thing that happens at a very specific time whether I'm there or not, then I can just leave earlier. Maybe I'll get some free time to explore the area when I show up, or maybe I'll edge into a parking lot with 5% battery remaining and a growing sense of fear about getting into the venue on time, but whatever. For all 1 or 2 times per year when that's actually important and also outside of normal EV range, I can accommodate them with a grant of some extra time.
But for the every-day stuff? Man. I could do very well with an EV. I could even do very OK with an EV if I lived in apartment, as long as I could plug into a regular wall socket for a few hours while at work (which is cheaper for the boss-man to pay for than the space heater that sits under Cindy's desk).
(I guess an EV might cut off my access to certain routes in places like Wyoming or the Dakotas, but I'll worry about that ability after I gain a desire to go there to begin with.)
The current EV record was set in 2024 at 39 hour hours and 29 minutes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Run_challenge#Elect...
Nissan has been really struggling for the last few years, this new hybrid engine doesn't look like it will turn things around for them to me.
EREVs are an idea that is not new and also relevant in shipping and aviation. Many modern large ships (oil tankers, cruise ships, etc.) are already EREVs effectively: an electrical motor drives the propeller and a generator powers the motor.
And there are are a few plane designs that are using small batteries + generators to power flight. It makes a lot of sense: electrical motors are a lot simpler, lighter and cheaper to maintain. Engine maintenance is very costly in aviation. And so is fuel. The recently announced X1 is a good example of a plane that does this. There are a few other manufacturers working on this as well. Early days but the potentially large fuel savings probably ensure this is going to happen one way or another.
They really aren't, an EREV needs two electric motors and fixed gears connecting to the engine and wheels. Toyota-style hybrids (also Ford, Chrysler, Subaru, Mazda) need... two electric motors and fixed gears connecting to the engine and wheels. Everything else is quite similar, though the hybrid will obviously have much smaller and cheaper batteries, onboard chargers, battery temperature management systems, etc.
I think it's also because EREVs need a performant generator that isn't much different from the drive motor. So you'll have a full ICE+EV drivetrain on top of an EV as its battery for it to work, which is not ideal.
Compared to that, other hybrid systems like the motor-clutch combo packs that sit between the ICE and gearbox, as well as the fixed gear Toyota systems, can have motors that are weaker, lighter, and cheaper than the ICE, while being able to be additive to the ICE power output. That makes more efficient use of steel and copper than full serial setups.
BMW i3 had such EREV option, but it apparently used a cheap OEM bike engine(not like a BMW Motorrad engine) and also could not overcome power draw of the EV drive motor. So it literally just extended the range, not allowing it to run indefinitely at highway speeds with just refueling. Nissan e-POWER system is powerful enough to do that, but then the readers of comment will have to back to the line 3.
I can't fathom buying an EV and still only getting 40 MPG and needing to buy gas. Ninety percent of my trips are < 40 miles round trip and could be handled by a modest 15kWh battery. For that last ten percent, I'd happily use some gas to not have to worry about charging on the route.
Mazda had (has?) some cool EREVs using rotary engines as the power plant. Though sadly without plans to bring them to the US.
You lose energy converting the the gas power to electrical power to mechanical power. Constant RPM doesn’t matter as much as you think.
They work, they're not terribly efficient in terms of converting fuel to distance travelled, and really batteries are getting so good these days there's little point any more.
The simples reason is this. What you’re describing is having a gas motor spin a thing (the generator) -> charge battery -> discharge battery -> spin a thing (the wheels) to make car go. Each of those steps has efficiency losses.
That’s why most hybrids are parallel hybrids, where both the gas engine and the battery+motors can spin the wheels more or less directly, even at the same time.
you still basically get the engine spinning at a more constant rpm, and the battery kicks in for acceleration (and charges on deceleration), and now highway cruising doesn’t have any lossy conversion steps, while acceleration and braking uses the advantages of the electric drive chain.
And yes the Atkinson cycle helps