Many articles have been written about the comparison of the energy efficiency of gasoline and electric vehicles. Most such articles have various flaws. This article will avoid these flaws and will show, electric vehicles are more energy efficient than gasoline vehicles, on a source energy-to-wheel basis, which is the most rational way to make the comparison.
Many studies fail to use the lower heating value of the fuel, or fail to use the correct heating value of the fuel.
Many studies calculate meter-to-wheel efficiencies of electric vehicles of about 70%, which compare favorably with the tank-to-wheel efficiencies of gasoline vehicles of about 22%, i.e., EVs are 3.2 times more efficient. But that is not even close to reality.
E10 fuel (90% gasoline/10% ethanol) has a source energy, which is reduced due to extraction, processing and transport, to become the primary energy fed to E10 vehicles. As a result, the energy fed to the tank has to be multiplied by 1.2639 to obtain source energy.
Electrical energy has a source energy, which is reduced due to extraction, processing and transport, to become the primary energy fed to power plants, which convert that energy into electricity, which after various losses, arrives at use meters. As a result, the energy fed to the meter has to be multiplied by 2.995 to obtain source energy.
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