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Right, efficiency and carbon footprint are related but separate issues. And costs and efficiency are related, but separate issues. I am trying to untangle these conflations.
Electric drive vehicles are far more efficient, as end use devices, than are ICE driven vehicles. The fact that gasoline is so "compact" and diesel even more so, *masks* the fact that today's ICE's are pretty dismally inefficient. The largest available battery pack today is worth only about 1.5 gallons of gasoline. This alone forces an EV designer to make better decisions.
And the question of efficiency of the energy chain for electricity is a lot less difficult than it is for oil. I think we need to add in a "cost" for spills and military spending that subsidizes our oil habit; among other things.
So, I think we should use MPGe to compare efficiencies; as the X-Prize has done.
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