To do that you would have had to either use the entire tank of gas at the highway MPG rating, or exceed it. That seems perfectly doable and that's not an everyday scenario.
You can do the same in an EV, there have been plenty of times where I left the house and returned with more charge due to using hills and regenerative braking.
That being said, it's unusual and you wouldn't expect go get highway MPG ratings under regular use unless your regular use is strictly highway driving under optimal conditions.
It wasn't a normal drive. Not only did I not fill up, but I didn't even leave the car. (Once I'd gone about 2/3s of the trip and realized it was maybe possible, it became sort of a challenge.) But yeah I've made that drive at least a half dozen times, but that was the only time I didn't fill up the tank.
In any case, my only point was that there are cars out there that can drive 500 miles on a single tank. The 9-3 I did it with is getting close to 20 years old. I'm sure there are older cars capable of the same.
You can do the same in an EV, there have been plenty of times where I left the house and returned with more charge due to using hills and regenerative braking.
That being said, it's unusual and you wouldn't expect go get highway MPG ratings under regular use unless your regular use is strictly highway driving under optimal conditions.