[airwrench]

Hi - first post!

So I have an EV and have noticed that most people are curious about the same set of things, like what the range is, does it have an engine at all?, how much to run it, etc.

Every now and then, I run into somebody who I think is pretty much against EVs (or these types tend to be against anything in the news) and has to go out of their way to tell me that gas cars are cleaner because I'm getting my electricity from dirty coal power plants.

Nice, eh?

So being a former automotive industry and EV veteran, I usually try to tell them that firstly, gas cars are typically 14% - maybe 30% efficient at converting gas into motion, and that's at the engines maximum (wide open throttle ), so daily driving is lucky to be half that - say 10% - 15%. Meanwhile, a coal plant is typically 35-40% efficient at converting coal to electricity and my car/charger/transmission lines, etc. are around 85-90% efficient at converting electricity to motion. So I think from coal to driving I'm in the 30-35% efficiency range, and gas cars from gas to driving are in the 10-15% range. On top of that, I believe that gas takes more energy to get from ground to pump than coal does.

This usually enrages them and all sorts of questions fly out that show they know nothing or care nothing at this point, they just really really want it to be clear that their thinking is correct.

What makes folks like that?

By the way, I'm not a greenie beenie at all. I love my gas cars and only bought an electric to experiment with some new tech. Firm believer in the only way to learn about something is to build/live with it, etc.

I'd love to hear any comments on the topic,

Carl