Honda Accord Hybrids are pretty close to this. The wheels are primarily motivated by an electric motor. Much of the time the ICE is simply a generator that turns on to charge the battery. When the battery is exhausted or the car needs more power, a clutch plate closes between the ICE and the motor. There's no transmission in the car otherwise (they advertise as e-CVT, but there's no actual physical CVT, software controls the balance between the ICE and the motor to simulate infinite gearing). [1][2]

At low speeds you're basically driving an electric car that stores the electricity as gasoline instead of in batteries. They get all the electric motor torque and such that you'd expect. Range is between 550-750 miles [3] on a tank of regular 87 unleaded and costs under $30k.

If the ratio of gas tank to batteries were reversed we'd claim it was an electric car with a range extending ICE.

1 - http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/review-2014-honda-a...

2 - https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2018-honda-accord-hybri...

3 - https://www.boston.com/cars/cars/2017/04/05/2017-honda-accor...

Oh, the elusive toaster/fridge hybrid.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403481,00.asp

This type of products is always higher cost, higher maintenance (two different powertrains), and generally the worst of both worlds (small battery and weak ICE).

The future is fully powered EVs. If buses and semis can be that, then certainly passenger vehicles can, too.

I agree with you that full EVs are ultimately the future, but the Chevy Volt is a fantastic interim step. It's not higher maintenance than a regular ICE vehicle because the engine is rarely used.

The battery is also big enough that you can drive it pure electric for the vast majority of trips, at full highway speeds. Most other plug-in hybrids can't do that, and I agree they suck.

(The Volt's battery is also carefully used only in the middle ~65%, i.e. not charged all the way and not fully discharged. That extends the battery life dramatically. It can get away with that because the battery is much larger than most other plug-in hybrids.)

One thing I really like about Ford and Toyota hybrids, is the transmission is actually simpler than a pure ICE vehicle. I haven't found that many good write ups online, there is one fairly good youtube video (it covers the Toyota implementation, but Ford's is similar).

The transmission consists of one planetary gearset, and two combination motor-generators. The engine is hooked to the planet carrier, the wheels and a larger motor/generator is hooked to the sun gear, and a second motor/generator hooked to the ring gear. When running on the ICE motor, the smaller electric motor acts as a generator. By varying the amount of current going to the larger motor (and/or battery), it effectively changes the gear ratio. When running on battery, the larger motor is used for motion, and is also used for regenerative braking. The smaller motor is then kicked in at a different speed, to start the ICE engine when needed. Of course, the complexity is all in math that drives the software, but there is much less mechanical complexity in that transmission (compared to an automatic, and even to manuals). But the end result is a very smooth acceleration that seamlessly moves between electric and gas as needed (the feeling is pretty close to what you would get if it was all electric).

What’s wrong with a Chevy Volt? (~50 battery only, 400+ total)

That is one of the cars that fits my criteria, along with one of the models that BMW has out (i3, is it?). The problem I have is the styling, they are styled to look different than a regular sedan (also I didn't really care for the ride, the Volt felt like driving a lower end model). The thing I like about the Fusion is that it is a regular car model, that has hybrid and plugin as options (kind of like picking different sized ICE engines). The thing that I really like about the Fusion Hybrid is that it really feels nice to drive -- smooth, kind of like a magic carpet (I'd imagine that a Tesla feels similar).

Ideally, I'd like to see this for nearly all manufacture models -- electrification added to existing lines, instead of whole new designs.

The conspiracy-minded part of me thinks the GM/BMW electric cars are styled so differently to make them unappealing to “normal” (non-early adopters) to either deliberately sabotage the project or at least to avoid making the cars too popular. They really seem bent on squeezing the most from their century-old investment in ICE.

Chevrolet Volt since 2009 is like this.

I thought the volt had an ICE to power a generator but doesn't actually drive the wheels directly.