New Breed of EV Promises 700 Miles per Charge (Just Add Gas)
It runs on batteries 95% of the time, but a gasoline engine can recharge them for longer hauls, easing range anxiety.
Shopping for his first family car, Yuan, a 31-year-old Shanghai resident, test-drove pure electric vehicles from Nio and Xpeng, popular EV brands in China. But he was worried about running out of juice and the hassle of charging his car on the go. So instead he tried something new: an extended-range electric vehicle, or EREV. They can go more than 600 miles on a charge compared with the typical 300, thanks to a small internal combustion engine on board whose sole purpose is to automatically recharge the battery. An EREV turned out to be the perfect fit, and in May he paid about $34,000 for a Li Auto L6, a five-seat sport utility vehicle that’s become one of the hottest-selling models in China.
“I had not thought about buying an EREV before,” says Yuan, who wanted to be identified only by his first name over concerns about his government job. “But we won’t have to worry about driving range in case of occasional longer drives or the long queue for charging ports.”