I was hoping we were past needing halo vehicles to promote EVs. A decent mid size CUV EV would be great.
Past halo vehicles? Never. Old folks like us might be over it, but there are plenty of youngsters that are ready for them. We will never run out of young folks.
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How many hours to charge your electric hummer to full range and how much gas will you have to haul to run your portable generator and if you are going out on this service call with your electric truck how many more hours and how much more gas will it take to get you back,
Probably cheaper to send a gasoline powered tow vehicle.
My Camry has a theoretical range of 595 miles and a 10 minute fuel stop gives it another 595. In my younger days I would have made the 750 mile trip to Green Bay in one day. No electric vehicle available in my lifetime will do that. I cannot imagine looking for a charging station in the OP of Michigan.
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The only estimates on 240V charger is less than 30hrs. Fast charge would require 800V
That’s exactly what they’re for.
With the range of electric vehicles today they make perfect commuter vehicles. Which is were most drivers travel most of the time. If you’re going to buy an electric vehicle for long trips then you need to plan those out a little better. As stated…there are websites and smartphone apps for this.
Obviously electric vehicles aren’t right for everyone…but it’s well suited for many people.
Already here. The Hyundai Kona EV.
I think we do still need a halo vehicle in the Hummer category. They’re trying to get the people who drive lifted bro-dozers with exhaust stacks ripped off a Peterbilt, Punisher stickers, and gun manufacturer logos in the back window to sign on to electric vehicles instead of rolling coal on them and ICEing their charging stations.
You’re not gonna pull that off with anything normal.
I’m clearly not their target market.
I was talking about GM. They need mainstream EVs.
They are in the works. GM sells the Chevy Bolt and now they are moving into other vehicles very soon. Here’s an article from the Detroit Free Press, published last March. IMO, it makes sense to confine problems to a small number of vehicles so that if customers are alienated, there aren’t a lot of them. Total rework costs for recalled vehicles are less when the number sold is limited too. Maybe GM will try attractively priced leases as they did when the Volt was first released. That way the customer isn’t saddled with a $100,000 paper weight, the manufacturer is. That’s not to say they are doomed to failure, just that they can hedge their bets. I know a few people with Bolts that are satisfied.
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Why not build a small gas generator into electric cars?
Now there’s a solution, where can I buy one?
The EV Hummer has up to 1000 hp and a battery pack twice the size of the Tesla S. You’d need a trailer to pull a generator and gas tank big enough to keep up with that.
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The BMW I3 has one that they call a range extender. Gets you about 80 miles further but it’s only a 2gal tank.
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That would be 40 mpg.
Yjey already make an electric commuter vehicle with a small gasoline engine for long trips, It is called a Prius. Completely sutibal for single car families who want an EV commuter car that can take long trips.
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Actually, it’s called the Volt. The Prius is an electric assist on a gasoline powered car. The Volt is an electric car that provides an ICE to recharge the battery on the go.
No knock on the Prius, or any Toyota hybrid. They have cornered the market. They do seem to be behind in EVs, though. That’s the downside of success. As long as something works, there is no need to replace it. They are supposed to release first in China, then move elsewhere and have something in most markets by 2025.
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Other than the Nissan Leaf, which I see fairly often, and the Mitsubishi i-MIEV, which sold very poorly in this country, no one made an electric commuter car for the U.S. market. Even the Toyota Prius, which is not an EV, has become too big to really be considered a “city car”, even if an all-electric version was released. A real “city car” would be comparable in size to the Toyota Tercel of the mid to late 1990s.
I think this is a good idea, whose time has come, but it is unlikely that such a vehicle will ever be developed for the U.S. market. It is possible that some foreign automaker, possibly from Japan or China might bring such a vehicle here which was designed for their home market.
In addition to @texases’ point about needing a huge generator to make a difference, there’s also the point that the whole reason we’re moving toward electric cars is to get away from using gasoline. Kinda eliminates the point if you have to use gasoline to keep your electric car running. 
Aside from the environmental/resource issue, one great advantage of a pure electric car is how little maintenance you have to do to it. There’s no oil to change, no spark plugs to change, no air filter to change, no transmission fluid to change, no catalytic converter to go bad and suddenly cost you a paycheck, etc etc. Stick a gas engine in an electric car and all of a sudden you’re doing all that crap again, and paying an electric car purchase price premium to boot.
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The one problem I see with an electric car is heating the cabin in the winter and cooling the cabin in the winter
About 25 years ago, I seriously considered buying a used Citicar that was for sale. It needed new batteries, but the lead/acid batteries weren’t very expensive. However, the heat for the cabin was supplied by a propane heater. I didn’t relish the idea of an open flame in the car, although I have ridden in prewar cars with Stewart-Warner Southwind gasoline heaters and in 1960 Corvairs with gasoline heaters.
Any accessories will reduce range, but some of that is recouped with regenerative braking.