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Don’t forget to account for the differences in engine and drivetrain efficiency. a gasoline engine gets way less of the gasoline's energy to the wheels. The engines of today are 30-40% efficient iirc, and then you lose more in the tranmission, differentials, etc. Electric motors are ~80-96% efficient and there is less transmission losses involved after that too.

also energy density of cells and packs continues to improve and has improved a lot since 1991



Additionally, electric engines and drive-trains are much lighter. You don't need a gearbox, compressor and many other components. This makes up for some of the extra weight of the battery.


Source?


One source on recent energy density improvements:

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-io...

A source on electric motor efficiency: https://insideevs.com/news/348504/tesla-improves-motor-effic...

A source on internal combustion engine efficiency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency#Internal_com...

As to the drivetrain losses through transmissions and differentials, I have only my own experience from working on cars, dynos (measuring the power to the wheels), and racing. It depends on drivetrain layout. front engine front wheel drive has fewer losses than front engine rear wheel drive, all wheel drive usually worst of all. You lose another 5-15% depending.

Probably you will also find this video interesting, which goes into depth on the full lifecycle of different fuels and the overall efficiencies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d0MPg7DxbY


Besides what the other guy posted, see how far you can drive per unit of energy.

A gas car getting 26 mpg -> 26 miles from 33.41 kWh of energy -> 1285 Wh/mi

A Tesla Model 3 getting 353 miles from a 75 kWh battery -> 212 Wh/mi

That's a 6x advantage.




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