1) I won't argue with that. When taking the source of production into account you go from 25% (small car engine) to 40% (efficient modern large power station) of that 40% you lose a further 4% in transmission losses, bringing you down to 36% and then a further 7% from the 80% battery efficiency, bringing you to 28%. So it ends up being about equal. However firstly from an Oil peak issue you move alot of short range commuter requirements away from oil, leaving the remaining finite reserves of the world's oil for the important irreplacable tasks like longhaul trucking, long commutes, shipping and aircraft fuel.MSimon wrote: 1)There are no 80% efficient electric engines if you account for the source of electricity.
2)The deal is. If it costs (currently) $2 a ton mile (hypothetical) to move goods/humans and you raise the cost to $4 a ton mile fewer people are going to be able to afford the goods moved. On the margin it will cause more starvation than reducing the cost to move the goods to $1 a ton mile. Or even keeping the costs the same.
3)Green is a good idea. It would be much better if the roll out was determined by economics rather than government fiat.
Secondly in the future when more nuclear plants are installed (fingers crossed) electric vehicles will allow these nuclear plants to displace a lot more carbon production then they would in a world where all transport is oil powered
Thirdly, it is better to emit fumes from a high smoke stack in a power station equipped with scrubbers etc. to remove most of the toxins then from a ground-level engine in a highly populated urban location.
2) There will probably be quite a number of functions where an electric engine will be cheaper than a petrol engine in terms of transport. Petrol is certainly more expensive than electricity. Well-designed electric batteries can already quite easily give you a range of 70 miles or so, which is enough for most commutes. They could also be used for a wide range of short range delivery job (milkvans already done, postvans, delivery vans for shops etc.) we don't need to increase the energy density by a factor of 20, all you need is to maybe increase the lifespan by a factor of 4 and decrease the recharge time by a factor of two and you have a product that is economically competitive for a nuimber of functions.
3) I think you need both. Past experience shows that a large number of technologies we now take for granted were not developed by private companies but were instead developed through large scale government funding either to the military or to universities (Jet Engines, Computers, Radar, the internet etc.) while subsidies are not a long term solution for any technology, sometimes they can help get them down the learning curve while they are at the initial stage of development in order to become economically competitive at a later stage.