No I’m with you and have always kind of wished that’s the direction more EVs would have gone. I have a minivan for all the shit going on with kids and I love it but I have to drive six hundred miles half a dozen times a year so they can visit their mom. A higher range EV that I can refill with gas would be a game changer. Instead I got an electric golf cart that is street legal I use for the majority of my local commuting so I only drive the minivan a few times a week. I was really just being a turd because your first comment said 3 HP and the next one said 5 HP.
Compressors are variable and much more efficient. More efficient and variable speed fan motors along with more efficient blade design. Insulation now is drastically better than glass wool of the past. Electronics are able to be integrated in order to provide more fine grain control and overall design has been improved just due to efficiency standards being placed on a bright yellow sticker. In the past design and component choices never really considered efficiency, while efficiency doesn’t always win out it’s a weighted factor and influences the overall engineering and design in ways that just didn’t happen before efficiency regulations came about.