Polesitter Hughes was unable to match his frontguard rivals for efficiency and, after losing the lead to Evans at the start of the second Diriyah E-Prix, was in the fight for a mid-points placing.
A strong attack mode strategy eventually brought Hughes ahead of Evans, but the British racer had to defend heavily from the Jaguar driver in the final laps as he ran low on energy.
He admitted to over-consuming in his defence of fifth and hit a stop at the end of the final lap when his Nissan-powered McLaren effectively came to a halt, seemingly leaving him a sitting duck out of the last corner.
In a fortunate twist of fate for Hughes, Evans ended up pushing him over the line which allowed Sebastien Buemi to steal past the New Zealander at the line.
"We were low on energy, and we had a choice basically in the last two or three laps: either lose the place, or to over-consume just enough to defend, into turn 18 and 21," Hughes told Autosport.
"The more you do that, the more difficult it gets each lap. So the last lap was pretty difficult. I managed to just about hold it into 18. And then the car was shouting at me basically to lift when I went into 21.
"I still had to go past it to keep Mitch behind. I just got the derate, so I had no power on the exit.
"In a roundabout way, I was quite happy to feel the nudge from Mitch, because I would've lost one or two places otherwise.
"I pushed it to the limit - maybe a touch far in terms of 'yeah, I've actually got no power!'"
Evans said that the flat-out nature of the final part of the race meant that mounting an overtake on Hughes in the preceding laps proved tough.
He rued his seventh-placed finish, feeling that he should have come away with at least fifth at the flag.
"I did a second attack and Jake got me - and he was really struggling on energy.
"The target was way too high at the end, like we're going flat out. Then at the end, he ran out right in front of me and I was pushing him across the line and I lost another place.
"I should have finished fifth; finished seventh. It's just not flowing for me at the moment."
Buemi, the main benefactor of the last-lap contretemps, admitted that he had perhaps been lucky to steal a place at the end.
The Envision driver said that he had foreseen that McLaren would struggle at the end, and felt another position was up for grabs had Evans not bumped Hughes on the line.
"I kind of expected it to happen because McLaren was really low on energy," Buemi explained.
"Mitch pushed him on the line. He pushed him really. And I think without that I could have made both positions. But in the end now, I was kind of opportunistic and lucky."
