Like most things it's very complicated. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Electric cars are generally better than ICE. HOWEVER, current battery technology has lots of serious issues. This is why you know you've found a retard when they can't make the distinction between EVs and a specific battery technology which is currently used by EVs. For the most part people who condemn EVs are dishonestly addressing battery technology while claiming they are addressing EVs. Watch for this. In a nutshell, EVs are more efficient than ICE. They use less energy. But battery technology provides for shitty energy density compared to fossil fuels. The flip side of this is that ICE only uses around 30% of the energy in fossil fuels. A fact people frequently forget. Around 70% of the energy of ICE is simply converted into waste environmental heat. Electric motors are superior to ICE is every way. They have max torque at off zero RPM. Whereas ICE requires RPMs to build torque and of course HP. Thus hp-torque curves for ICE. This is why, for example, Teslas are so fast. With current chargers and battery technology, energy to battery is around 85% efficient. Current motors are generally 90+% efficient with 95% efficiency possible. For ICE, they are always limited by Carnot efficiency or the Carnot cycle. This places the MAX theoretical efficiency of all ICE at 40%. A good diesel will see around 32-34%. A gas car will see 29-32%. But diesels also tend to be heavier. Add to this a transmission which saps between 5% and 15%. Further reducing ICE vehicle efficiency. With refinery to station around 80% efficient. For ICE, efficiency of scale matters. Large turbines can see 40-50% efficiency. Add a loss of roughly 5-8% for power transmission, and you can easily see the appeal of EV charging over small scale ICE, even when using fossil fuels to do so. ICE: roughly 23% efficient (near ideal max) EV: roughly 34% efficient (lots of room for improvement)