Ever heard of an EREV?

If so, congrats—you’re ahead of the curve.

Extended range electric vehicles have taken off in China and are gaining interest from domestic automakers, but the technology faces a nagging obstacle: US consumers largely have no idea what they are. If you fall into that camp, we’ve got you covered.

EREVs are not, in fact, electric vehicles with longer ranges. They are essentially a type of hybrid vehicle.

“You’ve got a gasoline engine that is connected to a generator that feeds into a relatively large battery pack,” K.C. Boyce, a VP in Escalent’s automotive and mobility and energy industry practices, explained in an interview. “The battery pack then feeds into an electric traction motor, which provides propulsion for the vehicle. So essentially what that allows for is a longer all-electric range than a typical plug-in hybrid arrangement, along with consistent performance, because it’s always the electric traction motor that is providing drive.”

What’s in a name? EREVs aren’t a new concept; models like the Chevy Volt have come and gone. But they’ve never succeeded at gaining much traction in the US.

Keep reading here.—JG

Back in 2023, BMW was widely panned for its plan to offer heated seats as a paid subscription.

Steve Basra, Google Cloud’s global head of automotive, believes that the tides have turned since then on what consumers are willing to pay extra for, upending automakers’ plans to create new subscription-based revenue streams.

“Subscription fatigue is definitely a real thing after Covid,” Basra said. “Customers are less willing to pay for things that they believe they should just get when they buy the second most expensive thing in their life.” After a home, that would be a new vehicle, which costs an average of nearly $50,000 in today’s market.

But Basra is bullish on automakers using AI to personalize and improve the in-vehicle experience, thereby creating a value proposition consumers can’t deny.

“A lot of the transformation hasn’t been achieved, and I think AI is the one technology that is going to transform the industry,” Basra said of the industry’s long-hyped transition to EVs and software-defined vehicles, “whether they want to or not.”

Tech Brew recently caught up with Basra, an auto industry veteran who spent 25 years at Toyota, at Google’s Detroit office, where he explained how Google Cloud is helping automotive clients implement AI across their value chains.

Keep reading here.—JG

A congressional hearing went into the kitchens and laundry rooms of most US households earlier this week—metaphorically speaking.

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee discussed the Department of Energy’s energy efficiency standards for household appliances and the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which allows the DOE to create and regulate those standards.

The biggest issue on the docket, however, was the potential cost savings of energy efficiency as a whole. Republicans claimed high-tech appliances cost too much, while Democrats noted that tax credits to lower the price of energy-efficient home upgrades are being phased out by the president’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill.

“Donald Trump and Republicans have broken their promise to lower costs, and their reckless policies are making life more expensive,” Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL) said in the hearing. “They want to trap Americans with outdated and expensive technologies forever while the rest of the world moves on without us.”

Republicans’ solution, as explained by committee chair Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY), would be to ease efficiency standards to lower prices without subsidies.

“It doesn’t make products cheaper to make them more expensive and just subsidize on the back end,” Guthrie said. “What we need to do is allow manufacturers to make products that people want to buy at the price they want to pay for it.”

Keep reading here.—TC

The skinny: ICYMI, Apple dropped its latest products this week, highlighting the iPhone Air, a slimmed-down redesign that’s just 5.6 millimeters thick. But even though “Air” contains the letters A and I, there wasn’t much about artificial intelligence during the annual product keynote on Tuesday. Morning Brew has more details.

Working Livestreaming for the weekend: Live shopping, already all the rage in East Asia, has yet to truly catch on in the US. In an effort to get more users to part with their money outside the 9-to-5 grind, TikTok is “incentivizing sellers to livestream on the weekend,” with a program called “Golden Weekend Live.” TikTok declined to comment, but Marketing Brew dug into the specifics of the effort.

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