The Norwegian Illusion

You can always manipulate data to have it support your interests. The question becomes when looking at statistics, how can you standardize the comparison so that all the factors involved are meaningful “apples to apples” evaluations?

Electric vs. ICE vehicles have become a political debate with all real costs based on the total inputs and how that relates to output very rarely considered. Even less so are they put on a standardized plane to make objective vs. subjective decisions.

A perfect example is when looking at different populations of people, we use a “per X,000 people” rate. E.g., per 100,000 people.

This is one of those exceptions that attempts to take all factors in EV vs. ICE vehicle production and consumption, and then standardize that in order to make an equivalency evaluation. The results won’t be shocking for anyone that isn’t a part of the Church of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development global hegemony establishment:

Most articles list EVs as anywhere between two and three times more energy efficient than the ICEs they replace. The basis for this claim is that internal combustion engines are only 40% efficient and that nearly 60% of the energy contained in gasoline or diesel fuel is “wasted,” –mainly in the form of heat and friction. On the other hand, an electric motor transfers nearly 90% of its electrical energy directly to the wheels. The difference leads many to erroneously conclude that an EV is almost three times as “efficient” as an ICE.

This common argument is fundamentally flawed for three reasons. First, it fails to capture the energy needed to make the battery; second, it fails to distinguish between thermal and electric energy; and third, it fails to account for the poor energy efficiency of renewable energy.

[…]

In a combustion engine, the driver converts gasoline (high entropy) into forward motion with approximately 40% efficiency. Electricity (low entropy) drives a motor with approximately 90% efficiency in an electric vehicle. However, electricity does not exist in nature but instead must be generated. Burning natural gas (high entropy) to generate electricity (low entropy) is only 40-50% efficient. The EV is not inherently more efficient; instead, the inefficient “upgrade” from thermal to electric energy occurs off-stage and is conveniently omitted by most analysts.

[…]

We study the total energy required to produce various forms of energy, a metric known as energy return on investment (EROI). While a single unit of invested energy might generate fifty units of (thermal) energy over the life of a productive oil well, it will only generate ten units of (electrical) energy with wind or less than six from a solar panel. Furthermore, wind and solar power must be buffered by grid-level battery storage to avoid intermittency, which requires far more energy. Fully buffered wind likely has an EROI of six to seven, while solar may be as low as three. Claiming a renewable-powered EV is efficient because its motor operates at 90% fails to account for the poor upstream efficiency.

Instead, we have taken a completely different approach when calculating automotive efficiency: assuming 100 kWh of available thermal energy, how far can a driver expect to travel in an ICE compared with an EV. We prefer this methodology, as it aligns with our intuitive understanding of “efficiency:”: how much can we get out of a single unit of energy. Using this approach, the race isn’t even close –the ICE wins “hands down.”