Not really, Tharg. Using an ICE engine to charge a battery is very inefficient. The lower the electrical load on the engine the better the fuel consumption will be. An ICE uses energy to accelerate and that energy is wasted in friction and heat under braking. Any system that recovers and reuses that energy has to be good. A battery is just a convenient way of doing it. In fact my non-hybrid (of an sort) X1 puts energy back into the battery under braking in Eco Pro mode. I’ve no idea how it does it but the eco gauge shows it happening.