Much ado about nothing
Wow. I'm continually impressed by how many people seem to care about this. Let me ask the most basic question: "why should we be comparing grid electricity to gasoline on a straight-up energy content basis anyway?"
The sources of energy are so different that comparing them in this way tells you absolutely nothing you care about. It doesn't tell you anything about the relative driving cost, which is by far the most important factor. It doesn't tell you anything about relative pollution, future resource availability, scarcity, or anything else. Other than simple academic curiosity, what's the point?
When you look at it that way, it's hard to justify *not* inflating mpg numbers on EVs. The energy is cheaper, cleaner, domestically produced, and available from many sources that will never run out. If you're going to make "mpg" into an all-inclusive efficiency rating for vehicles (something I think is silly in itself) then ignoring all these factors makes the metric less valuable, not more.
Personally, I think they should change the universal metric. Total operating cost per mile seems like the obvious choice. Make it over 100k or 200k miles (or better, the average vehicle lifespan) so you get in battery replacement and all the oil changes and ICE maintenance...and of course update it every model year with the projected average fuel costs over an average vehicle lifespan. This would be far better suited for the main usefulness of the current ratings (cost comparison). To cover the other bases they could add a pollution per mile index and the actual efficiency...in mpg for ICE cars and Whr/mile for EV's. No sense in converting, since you already have fuel-neutral cost/pollution metrics, and since you pay for Whr (not gallons) on your electric bill.
Wow. I'm continually impressed by how many people seem to care about this. Let me ask the most basic question: "why should we be comparing grid electricity to gasoline on a straight-up energy content basis anyway?"
The sources of energy are so different that comparing them in this way tells you absolutely nothing you care about. It doesn't tell you anything about the relative driving cost, which is by far the most important factor. It doesn't tell you anything about relative pollution, future resource availability, scarcity, or anything else. Other than simple academic curiosity, what's the point?
When you look at it that way, it's hard to justify *not* inflating mpg numbers on EVs. The energy is cheaper, cleaner, domestically produced, and available from many sources that will never run out. If you're going to make "mpg" into an all-inclusive efficiency rating for vehicles (something I think is silly in itself) then ignoring all these factors makes the metric less valuable, not more.
Personally, I think they should change the universal metric. Total operating cost per mile seems like the obvious choice. Make it over 100k or 200k miles (or better, the average vehicle lifespan) so you get in battery replacement and all the oil changes and ICE maintenance...and of course update it every model year with the projected average fuel costs over an average vehicle lifespan. This would be far better suited for the main usefulness of the current ratings (cost comparison). To cover the other bases they could add a pollution per mile index and the actual efficiency...in mpg for ICE cars and Whr/mile for EV's. No sense in converting, since you already have fuel-neutral cost/pollution metrics, and since you pay for Whr (not gallons) on your electric bill.
