It depends how much accelerating and decelerating you're doing. At a constant speed it takes approximately none, and when decelerating an EV powertrain can recapture the energy.

There are ICE pickup trucks and even some luxury cars that weigh more than EVs, and some pickups have engine/trans combos that weigh well over 1000lbs on diesel models, so the weight of an EV's battery pack isn't unprecedented either.

I was wondering where the hell these garbage numbers that flew in the face of all other evidence came from - executives' assholes.

Where'd you get that number from? Immel calculated that at commercial electricity rates, it would cost $3.75/gal in electricity to produce, your suggested retail price is over 10x that.

No there are plenty of ordinary street engines over 30% (which I think is the norm these days). There is a Mazda Skyactiv that gets closer to 40%:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.automotivepowertra...

An F1 engine with TERS could get over 50%:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.motorauthority.com...

Large turbines can now exceed 60% it turns out:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.parker.com%2Fcontent...

So it's not as profitable (or sensible, but that's beside the point) as charging an EV, sure. But it looks like it could still be profitable in a lot of jurisdictions, perhaps moreso than the dinosaur juice the stations are currently selling.

The problem with hydrocarbons (apart from all the climate/war stuff) is that no use of hydrocarbons comes close to the efficiency of an electric powertrain - your typical ICE car turns around 66% of the energy in the fuel into waste heat for example, and the most efficient possible uses with either super-exotic million-dollar engines or giant turbines are in the 50~60% ballpark. An EV powertrain can turn well over 90% of the electricity that goes into the charge plug into power at the wheels. And if you're getting your hydrocarbons from e-fuels, those are fuels that are highly energy-inefficient to make. I saw a study that came out around the pandemic estimating that replacing all fossil fuels with e-fuels around that time would require world electricity generation to be tripled to quadroupled.

But there are some relatively niche roles where the energy density is critical such as in aircraft where this could make sense. The high combustion temperatures of fossil fuels are also needed for some industrial processes. The sheer inefficiency of the whole supply chain from renewable power to kinetic energy at the wheels/prop makes it useless as a mainstream transportation solution though.

At $1.50/gal ready to go in a car with just energy as an input, even with those huge up-front costs for the machine it could make sense for gas stations to have an array of these constantly filling their Regular or Economy tanks. Especially in places with more expensive gas like basically everywhere a random person walking around with an assault rifle would be cause for alarm and not just Tuesday.

Well you don't have to enable the cell modem, but if you do, you could connect it with Phreeli:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%2Fne...

A smartphone is a handheld ARM-based computer with crappy controls and an unusual network adapter, a cellular modem. All but a few of them come with shitty closed OSes, but the same is true of desktop computers. He should try a Purism Librem 5 for example.

There is nothing inherent to a smartphone that makes it an Orwellian surveillance and tracking device any more than there is anything inherent to a desktop computer that makes it an instrument of Microsoft's control over users.

They're two petrostates that are working particularly hard to reduce their use of fossil fuels.

But his ass IS fat...

FTFY, comrade! :D

Although JD Vance may not have a particular hateboner for wind he's still a fossil fuel industry lapdog like all the other Republicans, and they've already demonstrated a willingness and ability to pay more money for dirtier energy sources.

The UAE building a nuclear power plant - note how a smart dealer doesn't use the product. See also, Norway's EV adoption.

Or better yet, wait a few months and then maybe you can pick a set of super-safe batteries with a crazy charge/discharge rate that cost the same as li-ion but last multiple centuries:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Felectrek.co%2F2026%2F01%2F14...