Bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon...

The rough figure used for conversion of fossil fuels to electricity is

These suggest numbers as high as 96% and 97%. So maybe 85% would be a conservative figure to use?

Then there is the battery charging efficiency. With battery technology changing so fast, and the same with chargers to match, I don't have a clue there. So I looked. This link:

Does seem to answer it with a "energy cycle (charging and then discharging) of the lithium-ion batteries in the Tesla Roadster is about 86%."

So,

.4 * .926 * .85 * .86 = .27

Overall, it seems to be the fossil fuel to electricity part that is painful.

Gasoline cars are said to get about 22% and diesel closer up around

However, that PDF above seems to come up with a more favorable comparison for their electric car. I'll need to read it more thoroughly than just a cursory scan for numbers to figure out why I come up different.

Jon

This is a little too subtle for me. Are you a True Believer, or is this Sarcasm?

Thanks, Rich

The electric power generator will probably be a little more efficient than a diesel locomotive's engine. Transmission and distribution losses will probably take that down to efficiency about the same as the diesel locomotive's engine, maybe a hair less.

At least for the diesel engine in a usual "electro-diesel", where a locomotive has a diesel ending driving a generator that drives an electric motor. That allows the diesel engine to run at optimum RPM.

Charging circuitry for the battery, internal resistance in the battery and hysteresis in the battery (voltage greater when charging than when discharging, other than voltage drop of internal resistance).

At that point, I expect these extra losses to be a bit worse than those of the generator and motor in an electro-diesel locomotive. The electric car still has the losses in its motor. I would guesstimate efficiency around 75-80% of that of the electro-diesel locomotive, for converting fuel energy to mechanical energy at the vehicle's wheels.

Not that I expect a 1 ton electric car to go 75-80% of 436 miles from burning of 1 gallon of diesel fuel at your electric company's diesel-fueled generating plant. The car tends to put much more energy per mile per ton on average into braking and re-acceleration than long distance route trains do. Trains also have lots of segments drafting each other, and have much lower ratio of air resistance to payload weight than cars have even for ratio of air resistance to gross weight. And trains with steel wheels on steel rails have less rolling resistance (in ratio to weight) than do vehicles with squishy rubber tires. (Ever notice rolling resistance decreasing when adding pressure to a tire to make it less squishy?)

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Which answer will piss off more people?