EREV — it means extended-range electric vehicle and it has become a core vehicle category in China due to policy changes in the country in recent years. For many years, auto manufacturers have been building cars with conventional combustion engine powertrains and adding a small electric motor and tiny battery to create what was called a “plug-in hybrid.” The first such offering from Audi a decade ago offered a pitiful 8 miles of battery-only range. It was basically about marketing and finding a way to compete with the ubiquitous conventional hybrids being cranked out by the millions at Toyota. It was also a way to attract buyers who might want to start the transition to an electric car without actually driving an electric car and allowed the car companies to keep their costs (and retail prices) down by skimping on battery capacity.
Regulators in China recently decided to exclude plug-in hybrids that could not travel at least 100 km (62 miles) on battery power alone from “new energy vehicle” incentives. Of course, that range was determined by the very generous testing cycle popular in China. EPA ranges are typically about 20 percent less, which means somewhere around 50 miles in US terms, which just happens to be the range of the Chevy Volt from a decade ago, the first EREV.
