Australia

These are called “range extenders”, and I’ve had some limited experience with them using a loaner BMW i3 a decade ago.

The issue is, that it’s a bit of a “worst of both worlds” scenario: you’re always lugging around d the weight of two propulsion systems, impacting electric range. You also lose a tonne of storage space as a result, and there can be reliability concerns with stale fuel etc. if you don’t use the extender often enough.

Toyota’s hybrids have been around for ages, and are a more “practical” implementation of this principle - but ultimately it’s all a bit of a fool’s errand in trying to rationally account for irrational range anxiety.

We’re expecting delivery of our first EV a little later this year, but just knowing that all we need to do is plug the car in when we get home and wake up to a “full tank” the next day saves us so much time and hassle having to go to a servo every week.

Ultimately as battery technology is rapidly improving, and will continue to do so as global demand skyrockets. The resulting density improvements, mean that EV range will surpass regular ICE vehicles in the next decade or so.