Automakers Are Hot for Extended-Range EVs. They Hope Buyers Like Them Too | WIRED

The hot new acronym in the automotive world is EREV. It’s not quite an EV—an electric vehicle. It’s not quite an ICE—an internal combustion engine. It’s a kind of PHEV—plug-in hybrid electric vehicle—but that collection of letters doesn’t quite describe it either.

An EREV is an extended-range electric vehicle, and after a half-decade of success in China, the technology seems to be making its way to Western shores. Some automakers, struggling to make profits off of pure electrics, are hoping EREVs will help them break through with drivers still worried about transitioning to electrics because they really don’t want to get stranded without a charge.

The latest automaker to announce it’s releasing an EREV is the Volkswagen spin-off brand Scout Motors. Scout announced its initial lineup this month, an electric truck called the Terra and an SUV called the Traveler, both due in 2027.

Scout Motors is pitched as a rugged, American brand, heavy on the nostalgia. (The brand is named after the International Scout, an iconic off-roader produced from 1961 to 1980 and still prized by gearheads.) So it makes some sense that the Terra and Traveler will come with a range-extender option, called the Harvester system. (Another tip of the hat to Americana: International Harvester manufactured the International Scout, along with agricultural and construction equipment.) The extender will increase the vehicles’ ranges from around 350 miles per charge to more than 500 miles—enough for Scout owners to haul that boat to the lake without worrying about another charge.

EREVs are similar to PHEVs in that they’re a sort of halfway point between gas- and battery-powered cars. PHEVs have an electric motor, powered by a battery, and a gas-powered engine. The cars can be plugged in to get electric juice, but their battery packs aren’t very big, and the gas engine is designed to kick in once the cars are out of charge or if the wheels need a power boost.

An EREV, by contrast, is a kind of PHEV that's closer to a full electric—and drives like one. An EREV also has an electric motor and a gas engine, but the battery is usually bigger, and the gas engine doesn’t drive the wheels. Instead, the engine can recharge the battery, working as a small generator to give it extra mileage on the go. Plus, an EREV system is more efficient than a gas-powered vehicle, because the gas is powering an electric propulsion system, which wastes less energy than a gas engine.

Scout's Traveler SUV, which has an extended-range option, is racking up the preorders. The first Scouts will be delivered in 2027.

Scout’s EREV seems to be stoking interest: Spokesperson Lindsay Bago wouldn't share specific reservation figures but wrote in a statement that the range-extender is “resonating with consumers” and that the company is “seeing that enthusiasm reflected in reservation counts.”

Other automakers are getting into EREVs. Stellantis’ 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger electric truck has its not-so-great 141 mile charge supplemented by a V-6 engine that can power the battery to 690 miles. Mazda sells the MX-30 R-EV in Europe. Hyundai says it will start selling a model into North American and Chinese markets in 2027 that has a top range of 560 miles. The vehicle will “serve as a key bridge to full electrification,” the Korean automaker wrote in a press release this summer.

That’s likely the reason why many automakers are so excited about EREVs. After manufacturers spent the beginning of the decade making ambitious promises about electric vehicle production and sales, many have spent the past few years backpedaling. EVs are selling, but not as well as hoped. Battery and manufacturing prices are coming down, but not quickly enough to keep carmakers in the black. Charging infrastructure is being built, but not as quickly as some would like. And yet, automakers are under pressure to ratchet down their vehicles’ emissions to hit governments’ increasingly ambitious standards. Hybrids, and especially plug-in hybrids, have emerged as a handy middle ground.

EREVs have some manufacturing advantages, too, says Steven Ewing, who directs editorial content at Edmunds. Specifics on Scout production are scant, but at least the Ramcharger is using components and technology that Stellantis already puts in other cars. “You’re not introducing this giant new propulsion system,” Ewing says. On the EREV (and PHEV) con side: It’s always going to be expensive to put two powertrains into one vehicle.

Some climate advocates, who hope the world transitions quickly to battery electric vehicles to stave off the worst of climate change, say EREVs could be part of a cleaner transportation system, even if the design still uses gasoline.

“The future is fully electric,” says Kathy Harris, who directs the clean vehicles policy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. “But many drivers are worried about going fully electric. While the country continues to build out a robust charging network, EREVs can be a good choice for some of them.”

EREVs might prove less emissions-intensive than their PHEV cousins because drivers cannot simply choose to skip charging and drive on gasoline alone, a phenomenon that some researchers worry is degrading the real-life emissions output of many plug-ins.

Other researchers are less convinced by automakers’ “bridge technology” arguments but say EREVs might be helpful anyway. EREVs are showing up on heavy vehicles like trucks and SUVs because those need more battery power to move, especially when they’re hauling or towing. The tech might obviate the complaints of, say, some Ford F-150 Lightning owners, who say they want to use their all-electric trucks to do work and charge tools but can’t get enough done on one charge. Full battery electric might never be a fit for every person.

“For those drivers who live in rural areas or who have driving patterns where they go long distances every day, a range extender with a very efficient generator may be a great technology,” says Gil Tal, who directs the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis. “I think that will be the way we get to 100 percent electric.”

Technically, the Chevrolet Volt, which in 2010 represented General Motors’ first modern foray into EV tech, was an EREV, though it was marketed as a PHEV. Jaguar intended a 2010 concept car, the C-X75, to go into limited production in 2013 but canceled the project amidt the Great Recession. (A C-X75 appeared in the James Bond film Spectre, and a design firm turned out a gas-powered conversion, but otherwise the car never saw the light of day). A few years later, the BMW i3 EV came with a range-extender option, with a very small generator giving drivers a few extra miles to get to a charger, stat. But that choice didn’t prove popular with buyers, according to Edmunds data.

The EREV story began to change in China. The Chinese automaker Li Auto was a global outlier in 2019 when it unveiled its first model, the Li One, a range-extended SUV. That year, EREVs accounted for 1 percent of all PHEV sales, according to the research firm BloombergNEF. But by 2023, Li Auto had led EREVs to a 28 percent share of PHEV sales—accounting for 9 percent of all electric vehicle sales in China. That’s not a huge share, but the tech has “been transformative in a pretty short amount of time,” says Corey Cantor, an analyst with BloombergNEF who covers electric vehicles. The world might be learning from that experience.