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Originally Posted by willravel
Still, what Tesla is doing (putting electric cars back on the street) is more important than anything Toyota or Ford has done in the past 50 years. Hybrids are a joke. If you want to have an efficient car, Tesla is paving the way.
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The idea that electric cars are more efficient is something of a fallacy. All having an electric car does is offset the energy production from the vehicle itself to some generating station. Given that 85% of the energy generated in the United States comes from fossil fuel generating stations which to my knowledge are not significantly more energy efficient than a standard internal combustion engine, and given that there's an inherent loss in every transformation of that energy, electric cars could only really be considered more efficient if one only looks at it from an individual perspective. Easier on your pocketbook maybe, but not more efficient.
Hybrids are a whole different ballgame, though. A hybrid is all about more efficient use of the energy being generated by the internal combustion engine and is a self-contained system. While it's true they're hardly the saviour of mankind they're touted to be, they are slightly more efficient than your typical car that lacks an electric motor.