Nope... that is not how REEV vehicles work, they have an onboard generator to charge the battery. They are for all intents and purposes an EV with an onboard power supply.
Yes it can, and also those rust patterns look odd to me, as if the vehicle has sat in some level of water/corrosive for a period of time, but also in specific places.
Well you can ask for a recission of judgement which is kind of an "appeal", but yeah I know and I agree with you.
I'm not sure its an entirely new "right" per se, but its something that is being applied in way way too much of a narrow way in my opinion that as you say runs counter to economics...