The BMW i3 Was Early. The EREV Moment Is Now.

I remember driving a BMW i3 home for the first time. It was an odd experience in the best and worst ways.

The car looked strange. The tires were comically skinny, almost daring you not to push it through a corner. The interior was genuinely nice and the car felt nimble, though part of that nimbleness came from the lack of resistance those narrow wheels provided. It felt like a BMW, but also like something BMW wasn’t entirely sure how to finish.

That tension defined the i3.

Where the car truly shined was its range-extending powertrain. Back in 2013, BMW quietly solved a problem consumers still talk about today. Drive electric most of the time. Eliminate range anxiety when you need to. No meaningful lifestyle change required. The technology was elegant, logical, and far ahead of its time.

The i3 didn’t fail because the idea was wrong. It failed because the market wasn’t ready, and because the concept was never fully explained or allowed to evolve.

Fast-forward to today and the industry finds itself at a familiar crossroads. Hybrids. Plug-in hybrids. Extended-range plug-ins. Three powertrains sharing showroom space, often explained with acronyms instead of outcomes. For many consumers, the distinctions remain fuzzy at best.

Social conversations make this clear. Buyers routinely struggle to articulate the difference between a traditional hybrid and a plug-in hybrid. Even fewer understand what fundamentally separates a plug-in hybrid from an extended-range electric vehicle. Marketing has leaned heavily on terminology while under-investing in simple explanations of how these vehicles actually fit into daily life.

That’s the irony.

The i3’s range extender made sense before consumers were ready to understand it. Today, the market may finally be ready, but the language still hasn’t caught up.

As extended-range electric trucks and SUVs prepare to enter the U.S. market over the next two years, the opportunity isn’t just better hardware. It’s better storytelling. These vehicles sit at the intersection of electric driving and practical reality, especially for buyers who want electrification without friction.

If consumers can’t describe how a vehicle actually drives after a few minutes of reading, the technology doesn’t matter. The risk isn’t that EREVs fail technically. The risk is that they repeat the BMW i3 story, this time with bigger vehicles, bigger expectations, and much bigger price tags.