Are EREVs A Good Option For The USA?
Kyle Field visited Volvo Cars’ Charleston factory this week for a closer look at Volvo’s electrification progress, software progress, and more. In one of his discussions with Volvo executives, a comment about Volvo introducing extended-range electric vehicles for the US market jumped out at me. Extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs) have been quite popular in China in the past few years, but they have been all but gone from the US market for the past several years.
I understand the pros & cons of an EREV, as I had an early version of one. We had the BMW i3 REx. However, that was a different time, especially when it comes to EVs. That car had just 71 miles of all-electric range when new. With such little range and in a market where you couldn’t get an affordable long-range electric car, the gasoline range extender was a very helpful crutch. Electric vehicles have much more range now, and even EREVs have much more electric range than that BMW i3 REx had.
Even with our low-range BMW i3, though, we only used the gasoline engine backup 2–3 times very briefly in 9 months. We spent a little more than $5 on gas in that time, and some of that was from the engine running itself every few months to keep itself fresh.
I also remember Chevy Volt drivers from that time and earlier raving about their cars (which had about 40 miles of electric range) because they could drive on electricity almost all the time but had a gasoline engine for backup in rare cases where they needed it.
But, yeah, that’s all about EREV leaders several years ago. The question is whether now is the time for an EREV revival in the United States, or in China (where it’s already alive and kicking), Europe (where you also have EREVs on the market), and other markets. It feels like this is where several automakers are trying to head, not only Volvo. Here are some thoughts I have on the pros and cons of this idea and potential coming trend, particularly for the US:
Pros for EREVs:
- Naturally, for people who do drive hundreds of miles a day (very uncommon), an EREV could be a great choice to cover most of those miles in electric mode and then. (But, really, who fits into that scenario?)
- For people who simply don’t feel comfortable going fully electric yet, because they’re scare of not having a gas tank, an EREV can be an excellent stepping stone to a full BEV.
- Putting in just enough batteries to be adequate for electric driving most of the time (in certain lifestyles) while letting a gas engine pick up the slack in a small minority of situations is a good way to cut down on the resources needed to build very large batteries for long-range BEVs.
Cons for EREVs:
- The company is putting more resources into developing both a BEV powertrain and an internal combustion engine (ICE) powertrain, and integrating them. That costs more money, which means a higher-costing vehicle.
- That also means there are more components that can break, need maintenance, and need repaired or replaced.
- With the amount of battery capacity going into an EREV, just adding a little more is adequate for the vast majority of drivers.
- People may buy an EREV for other reasons than the electric powertrain (tech features, incentives, etc.) and then not charge or not charge often, fueling up the gas tank the majority of the time while lugging around heavy batteries.
In reality, there are different situations or lifestyles where a BEV, an EREV, or a plugin hybrid (with a smaller battery than an EREV) may be ideal. I’m skeptical that there’s a large market that an EREV is genuinely ideal for, especially in the US, but maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?
Funny enough, while I was writing this article, I saw fellow CleanTechnica writer Paul Fosse put out just the same sort of question and tag me in it. Here’s his tweet: