EREVs could be a fair compromise, though such a near-dead end tech such as an automobile-case generator, certainly may be unappealing to those who wish to keep vehicles longer than 12 to 15 years; and the dealers to provide them.
Seems absurd that consumers would be unable to distinguish the various hard hybrids. BEV = 1 electric hole; PHEV = 2x holes - 1 electric, 1 gas/H2/etc; ALL others = 1 gas hole.
I am still itching to know the technology, manufacturing, costing, performance, and reliability differences between PHEVs, BEVs, and ICEs of the same model, and how the manufacturers see profitability in these. MINI and a few others gave up their PHEV program a few years ago, so I worry whether there is a serious obstacle to the transition from ICE to PHEV. It seems like it would be easy to graphs such comparisons over time/ type/ performance - though data is yet scarce.

You can buy a whole lot of small ICE(2cyl 1000cc air cooled) and small high frequency (400+hz) feeding a SiC rectifier/DC-DC for the 3/4 of the huge pack size you would need to have a 400 mile range. The pack size on a Model S LR for 400 miles of range is $50000 of the cost of the vehicle. Cutting that to a 100 mile pack 1/4 the size. A simple 2cyl ICE designed to run at one or two BSFC points driving a paint can sized high freq gen into SiC rectifier pushing 400-800V DC to the main power bus is going to let a Model S sized car go 1000+ miles on a small fuel tanks worth of petrol. All while getting 60 to 100 mpg.

The two BSFC design points are continuous load at 85mph yes 85 because there are motorways in the USA that have 80mph speed limits and people myself included routinely drive 90mph on them continuously and for hours at a time in the open plains, deserts and grasslands of the huge American continent. The second design point is a lower output point to cover recharge the pack while having an average moving speed of 35 mph and full AC load. In the urban areas the avg moving speed my current vehicle over the last 3000 miles was 35 mph this included absolute grid lock and tollway runs at 85 mph legal speed limits. Yeah we have 85mph limits on paid motorways.

So you need those two design points, which with a high compression + high expansion Miller Cycle engine can easily be hit. Your low speed point is the bottom left edge of the BSFC map's min fuel use island the high speed point is the upper right corner of the same map you size the engine's CC based on the upper right point and the other point is easy to hit with a Miller Cycle or Atkinson.

Point is since batteries are so bloody expensive you can especially with mass economies of scale get a simple 1000cc gen to output 400-800V DC which is all the electric drive units care about. They don't care if that DC comes from a large battery pack or a small ICE generator being run like a diesel electric submarine. People say locomotive and I always point out locomotives generally don't have batteries in their electric drivetrain...submarines do and the way you run a REV is essentially how you run a diesel electric submarine.

So for the same amount of batteries you get four 100 mile range extended sedans , that can go 1000+ miles at a time refuel in under 2 minutes at
100,000+ fuel points in just the USA alone. All while getting nearly 100mpg. It's win win for everyone other than ideological zealots who have an agenda to push. For the avg American a Model S sized REV with 100 miles plug in on LFP cells which is 50 miles to 50% DOD covers 96% of all drives then when they need to go 200+ miles out to 1000 the ICE kicks in and burns fuel and let you have unlimited range due to the dense fuel point network and 120 second or less fuel time. Added benefit is that 1000cc+gen plus 10 gal petrol weighs less than the 1000+kg of batteries it replaced. This means your tires last longer too.

They should offer different ranges, a 50 mile REV with a 10 gal tank, a 50 mile with a 18 gal tank. A 75 mile with 10 or 18, and a 100 mile with only the 10 gal. This would let people look at their daily commute and size the pack to that then have 500 to 1000+ miles of road trip range.

This is the way.

GdB...even at half cost there are many places in the huge USA more than 100 miles and 2 hours one way to a fast DC charger. West Texas for one, Nevada, Montana for other's. There is also 100,000+ fuel points in the USA with flow rates of 10 gal per minute.

"One US gallon of gasoline is 115,000 BTU, 33.70 kWh, or 121.3 MJ."

337 kilowatt hours PER MINUTE even at 40% eff which is what the Prius does tank to wheels, that's 134 kWh per minute or EIGHT MEGAWATT HOURS per hour. No way no how you ever push charge rates like that into a LDV pack.

Liquid fuels have physics on their side they will.always be an order of magnitude denser than batteries. A tiny ten gallon tank will take a Prius 600+ miles.

"BYD's Qin L DM-i and Seal 06 DM-i models get 81.1 miles per gallon (mpg)...."

10 gallons takes that car 800 miles , it was tested in real world China city traffic at 108mpg in the test they went 1300+ miles on a single tank.

Refill time is under 2 minutes anywhere, everywhere, even from 55 gal plastic tanks off a truck bed in the remotest Big Bend type park or Alaskan town. Oh and that ICE runs in subzero weather giving off life giving heat for the cab and also the hybrid pack which suffers no cold weather losses being heated by the ICE charging it.

For pure urban use yeah a BEV with a tiny pack and limited range makes sense if you have a dense network of fast DC as t V4 300kw rates. There is no need to carry around even half price pack weight. If you need to go far get a hybrid it's less mass, cheaper in capex , and fuels up anywhere ,everywhere.

What should be made is small removable , rentable high voltage DC gensets with a standard plug to the DC bus of any EV. Use something like a rotary or liquid piston for 50kw directly driving a high freq gen into SiC rectifier pushing 400-850V directly to the DC bus. With a rotary or Lipiston 50kw is handheld size with a paint can sized Hfeq DC external fed reluctance generator. 400-850V comes out of one of those paint can sized natively.

A DC set up as the above would be under 100lbs all in, add in a 2 cubic foot fuel cell is 15 gallons of go juice. In a BYD level hybrid that's good for 1500 miles and still only 2 min or less refill. Rent those out put them on a receiver hitch shelf mount or in the bed of a truck when you need the extra range. Have a 50 or 100 mile EV range when not in the ICE is nearly ideal for suburban and exurban America.

If you back out the AER of the Qin L you get about 2k KM of range on a 17 gallon tank which works out to about 73 mpg. It should be pointed out that that is CLTC. CLTC generally comes in around a 70% factor to an EPA rating. In this case that would be a bit about 51 mpg EPA which is impressive.

The link below tests the range in real world conditions and concluded that the real world mpg was closer to 53 mpg.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PW6u-inDpas

Most Americans don’t know what CLTC is and will be unduly impressed by the unrealistic numbers when compared with EPA numbers.
Their own CLTC numbers don’t align with the quoted 81 mpg. The press release I saw said “up to” which is quite meaningless.

In the stop and go gridlock scenario required 100 miles of range is overkill and the mpg on most ICEVs will take a dramatic plunge while BEVs and hybrids will rise significantly.