It's not just the motor efficiency - although ICE in cars are hideously inefficient by design. There's also, for example, drivetrain losses, idle time, etc.
The part of the equation that you are ignoring is the energy cost of 'all the way back to the fuel source' of the gasoline. How much energy is consumed in getting a gallon of gasoline to the inside of your fuel tank? What's the transmission loss of a tanker? A pipeline? A fuel truck driving down the highway? A 24/7 gas station?
It's not none. If you're going to count losses for electric energy transmission, for example, then you need to consider the costs of nationwide gasoline distribution.
Many of these things are so ingrained in our lives that I think many people do not pause to consider the fact that they do not necessarily need to exist.
Nope. I do NOT ignore those costs. It's just that if you want to include the costs of getting the fuel to the vehicle's engine, you also have to include the costs of getting the fuel to the power plant turbines. Then, you have to include the costs of extracting the fuel... It goes on and on. And if you include the costs of extracting the fuel, you also have to include the costs of extracting the battery materials which will eventually store the energy that was generated.
You can really get into an
I, Pencil-type matrix of costs, but my post was about the fuel to motion efficiency.
It's similar to the charge time problem. People say - oh well the car takes X time to charge what if I need to recharge? Yes, that's an issue. However, what about the opposite - what about the time that it takes to refuel your car? For a person whose normal use is comfortably within the range of an EV, how much time will they save not going to gas stations? It's not something that we think about because regularly going to a gas station is simply part of every day life.
This is why I say that EV's have their uses. They can be a very useful tool if you use it right. But if you're not, then the opposite is true. Best use case for an EV is to trickle charge it at Level 1 to replace your daily commute miles and use your ICE vehicle for everything else. Worst case for an EV would be towing on a long trip.
That link is entirely irrelevant to the conversation here. We're talking about efficiency - not emissions. Even when the article tangentially gets to the efficiency question, it repeats the same tired mistakes mentioned above. Trust me, I'm in the industry. It's a pandemic of BS.
But you see, this is what happens when cognitive dissonance sets in. Instead of trying to accept the new information, you completely change the topic of the conversation to something you think will better serve your point. It didn't. You just look foolish. This is a typical "fact check" that has nothing to do with truth, but trying to convince people of their lies.
ETA: Let's break down this lie...
Kirk goes on to say, "Replacing gasoline-powered cars with EVs saves energy, regardless of the energy source used to recharge EVs." Please take note of the word "regardless," as that's how "coal-powered cars" are in fact cleaner than gas-powered cars. Efficiency: EVs have it, ICE cars don't.
To summarize, replacing gasoline with coal (which, for the record, is an abysmal idea) would reduce energy usage by 31 percent. Another way to think about it: Right now, Americans use about 9 million barrels of oil a day for our automotive transportation needs. Magically switching to EVs charged via burning coal would result in only needing the equivalent of about 6 million barrels. That's a big reduction. Replacing gasoline with EVs charged via natural gas would use 48 percent less energy. Green energy (hydro, solar, wind, etc.) instead of gasoline would reduce the amount of energy needed by nearly 75 percent, or 6.7 million barrels of gasoline equivalent, as only 2.3 million barrels equivalent would be needed.
EV's need MORE energy to move them; not less. The vehicles weigh more, so there needs to be more energy to move them the same distance. Simple physics that the special interests choose to ignore.
"Green energy" is even MORE inefficient! Solar and wind have lower capacity factors than coal and hydro is almost identical. Yes, those are sources of energy that are easily acquired, but we're not very good at converting them. So to suggest that we would "reduce the mount of energy needed" by using a less efficient source and moving a heavier vehicle is JUST A LIE. Maybe try using some discretion before believing nonsense. That's a propaganda piece - not a scientific piece.