I was curious how much more efficient, and it seems that a good measure is "well-to-wheels" efficiency, which encompasses the full cycle of fuel production thro

I was curious how much more efficient, and it seems that a good measure is "well-to-wheels" efficiency, which encompasses the full cycle of fuel production through consumption. It turns out it depends a lot on how dirty energy production is, and the article I found [0] (from 2012) argues that for greenhouse gas emissions for the U.S. population: - 18% will have lower impact with an efficient gasoline car - 37% will have about the same impact with EVs or efficient gasoline cars - 45% will be better off with EVs So, if you live in an area that uses a lot of coal for production, the benefit is not likely to be large on greenhouse gas emissions, but localized pollution becomes less of a problem, though in many countries (like China) large populations live near power plants anyways. However, > power production can be slowly transitioned to cleaner This is an important argument, since the impact of cleaner generation is further leveraged by the amount of EVs out there. [0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/automobiles/how-green-are-electric-cars-depends-on-where-you-plug-in.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/automobiles/how-green-are-...