Lauren Fix – Car Coach Reports
We all saw huge MPGe numbers on window stickers, but they just seemed unreal. Because they are! If you believed your electric vehicle delivered the equivalent of 120 or 140 miles per gallon, you weren’t naïve. You were reading numbers the federal government designed to look extraordinary.
Those numbers shaped headlines, policy mandates, corporate strategy, and consumer perception. And now the math behind them has been dismantled. It was a lie and tricked consumers, all of this was to try to get you to buy into electric cars. Consumers see triple-digit MPGe ratings and assume they represent a direct cost comparison to a gasoline vehicle achieving 120 mpg. That assumption is understandable — and inaccurate. Drivers do not purchase gallons of electricity. They purchase kilowatt-hours. They pay varying residential rates, commercial charging fees, and fast-charging premiums. They experience charging losses that increase the electricity drawn from the grid beyond what the battery ultimately stores. The MPGe figure does not reflect those realities in a way consumers can intuitively understand.
There is more to this lie that impacts drivers globally.