I built an electric car based on a 1990 Ford Ranger pickup some years back and in the process had to learn quite a lot about electric cars.
@Empirical Audio is correct about the efficiency thing. There's a number called 'well to wheel' which takes into account the infrastructure that is needed to put an EV on the road and also an ICE car. What you are probably not taking into account is the economy of scale. When fossil fuels are used the transportation used to get them to the power generation plant is considerably cheaper than what is used to allow one to pump gas into a regular car. But the power plant itself has greater efficiency also due to its economy of scale as well- partly due to the fact that it doesn't use reciprocating internal combustion to run the generators.
In 2003 the point where gas was the same as electric (on a national averaged basis) was when gas was $1.65/gallon. At the time gas was costing more than that so there was a tipping point that was reached (apparently sometime in the 1990s) where EVs are simply less expensive to charge up. While electric generation has gotten more expensive too, its still the case today even if the only source is power derived from fossil fuels. This relates directly to the emissions produced as well.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/19/electric-car-well-to-wheel-emissions-myth/
The beauty of EVs of course is that anything that makes electricity can charge them.
I've been trained on how to perform EROEI calculations, so I get it. It's the assumptions that EV supporters tend to use that are biased.
Her'e the simple answer... the process to generate power at a powerplant from fossil fuels, transmit it and use it to charge a battery is about as efficient as an ICE motor.
There are some exceptions. Hybrid cars are more efficient vs pure ICE and new natural gas turbines are amazingly efficient at somewhere over 60%. In the best case scenario these modern turbines, even with transmission and charging losses are indeed more efficient vs ICE, but not all fossil fuel plants are that efficient.
Also, the EROEI of fossil fuel extraction is about 95%, most folks want to quote a lower figure but I dispute that. 95% is the figure I've been given by world authorities on the subject.
The other issue with EVs is the energy cost to build and decommission them, which is far higher vs ICE and the environmental impact of the materials and manufacturing, which is FAR worse vs ICE, so EVs are starting at a massive disadvantage. A car like a Honda Fit costs a tiny fraction of what a Tesla model 3 costs to produce and as mentioned earlier recycling automotive battery packs hasn't even been figured out yet, so like spent nuclear fuel, let's just pretend that's not a factor?
Look, I'm considering buying a use Leaf as around-town transport and in the past I was a development engineer for Vestas' project management team. I designed assembly processes and lines for industrial wind turbine Nacelles and Hubs. I am very much in favor of mitigating climate change, but I'm simply not emotionally invested in EVs. IMO the subject is so emotional that maintaining neutrality is impossible for most people because they are so for or against the idea, and I hear ridiculous biased conclusions both ways all the time.
