They are the worst of both worlds: not enough battery range to satisfy on long trips plus the weight and maintenance headaches of a gas tank and engine, especially silly to lug that around if 90% of your trips are in battery range.
As a 2012 Volt owner I think EREV was a great idea in the 2010s given battery tech and networks at the time. In the 2020s, they seem a weak compromise that I wouldn't recommend to people.
> especially silly to lug that around if 90% of your trips are in battery range
The same argument works for large batteries, right? On 90% of your trips, you're lugging around several hundred pounds of battery you're not using.
If you want to tackle the weight argument, you could always drop 40 kWh battery capacity from the truck. That frees up around 600 lbs you can now use for the genset.
The maintenance thing is a real problem, of course. A 50 kW genset that almost never runs will be much better on mainenance than a classic ICE car, but still add significant maintenance cost to a BEV.
Which is part of why I think Range is often a distraction in EV discussions. The people asking for 600+ mile Range EVs may see those built because it always sounds like there are plenty of people "demanding" that, but the weight trade-off in batteries isn't going to make those great cars, most of that range will be "waste" given average trips. But it is easier to get to 600+ miles of range by adding more (and better) batteries than by making larger gas tanks and engines.
& battery tech continues to evolve at high speed. China is already selling 1000v 5min charging evs. Semi solid state are shipping. 500+ mile range cars exist. EREV is going to be obsolete in a few short years, if it isnt already.
As a 2012 Volt owner I think EREV was a great idea in the 2010s given battery tech and networks at the time. In the 2020s, they seem a weak compromise that I wouldn't recommend to people.