This is definitely not an apples-to-apples comparison. With an EV the ball is already at the top of the hill and merely needs to be rolled down, with an ICE car

This is definitely not an apples-to-apples comparison. With an EV the ball is already at the top of the hill and merely needs to be rolled down, with an ICE car, the ball has to be pushed up the hill first. The power plant does all of the heavy lifting for the EV. Not a mark against EVs of course - it kind of just makes sense. I'm sure future generations will laugh that every vehicle used to have its own on-board power generation facility. It's too bad the dumb power-plant-under-hood way is still so much cheaper than the EV approach of course.