It still allows regen braking down a hill or at traffic lights in town, so you get a decent efficiency gain. It also gives you a bit more horsepower when overtaking (depending on design). Or an hour of running the AC without belching smoke.

Considering the battery and motors for these tiny EV's is only 100 lbs or so, it is probably still worth having.

Yeah I'm not saying it's useless, it just shouldn't be marketed as an EV when you basically need to burn gas to drive it.