The ideal rocket equation isn't about the mechanism a thing uses to move; it's fundamentally a thermodynamic equation to describe how far you can get (inverse of a pork-chop plot) when you're fighting against a continuous decelerating force (gravity is one kind, but drag is another; there is no requirement that these forces be constant, decreasing-with-distance, or have any other particular curve), given 1. the energy you have available to accelerate with, and 2. how much mass you lose per watt expended.

The convenient thing about the ideal rocket equation as an genericized mental model, is that (solid-propellant) rockets are themselves the ideal movers; "throwing stuff out the back" is the ideal/optimal way to accelerate something; rockets always use the most energy-dense propellants we know of; and thus rockets also spend the most mass per watt as they burn. This means that rockets (and the ideal rocket equation) provide an upper bound on achievable delta-V that no other propulsion mechanism can exceed. You can think of any other propulsion mechanism as a kind of worse rocket—something that is shifted forward on the the ideal rocket equation curve, and/or has a higher exponent for the curve, such that it "goes exponential" (becomes impractical) in fuel requirements sooner than a rocket would.

The rocket equation is a useful and relevant model for understanding e.g. the amount of bunker fuel needed for a sailing of a trans-atlantic container ship, because 1. a container ship is overcoming continuous drag through the water, and 2. a container ship's fuel makes up a non-negligible percentage of its weight and therefore changes its drag; and 3. a container ship spends its fuel (becomes lighter / more fuel-efficient!) as it moves. The fuel requirements of a container ship can "go exponential" just like a rocket's can—though, given the energy-density of the fuel they currently use, other practical considerations (like decreased buoyancy from increased mass causing them to scrape the bottoms of shallow shipping channels) put limits on ship carrying capacity before the rocket equation does. With a less energy-dense energy-storage medium, e.g. batteries, this would not necessarily be true.

Land vehicles are still governed by the ideal rocket equation — they move through the atmosphere just like anything else, and at any speed above ~10mph, they spend energy mostly to overcome drag rather than ground friction. (Remember, a tire is a flywheel!) There is a reason that a motorcycle can take you further than a car can on the same amount of gas, and that reason can best be modelled not by the fuel efficiency of the motor, but rather by the ideal rocket equation.

Vehicles relying on batteries lose no mass as they move (with oxide formulations, they gain mass!), so they're always going to be worse than vehicles with liquid-fuel engines at overcoming drag. So they're going to be worse "ideal rockets", and "go exponential" in fuel requirements, at lower ideal-delta-V cutoffs than vehicles with liquid-fuel engines will.