Why does fuel economy get better on the highway, but EV range gets worse?
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You are looking at this from ICE perspective. Let me explain from EV perspective.
EV are very efficient with its electric motor having an efficiency of 90% and above. This doesn’t change whether it is city or highway.
On highway, vehicles are doing, typically, speeds of above 80kph. At this speed, the drag increases and the vehicle has to use more energy to go through this. This drag increases as you go faster and faster. You can watch the classic top gear video of Bugatti Veyron, where Captain slow explains, how much power Veyron needs to hit 300kph and how much it needs to hit 400kph. This is the reason why EV gets lesser efficiency on highway, not due to lack of regen or highway, but the speed. You can go at 40 to 50kph on highway and see incredible range as the aerodynamic drag is very less at those speed.
Now coming to ICE, where fuel economy is higher on highways. The point is that ICE is horrible at energy efficiency, it is less than 35% efficient. And this is even worse when you are at low speed and stop still traffic.
These two points are out of equation on highways, so you see an increase in highway efficiency when compared to city, The drag does affect those car there as well.
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