You must be confusing me with someone else...I have not once stated fuel economy figures for hybrid or electric cars.
Okay that was someone else. Apologies.
Now, take the current demand for electricity in the US, and triple it. 60%, or something close to it, of all oil in the US is used for our cars. Try to convert that amount of energy into electricity. Don't you see the problem?
Actually, that number is off. Check these REALLY BIG numbers below (I apologize for mis-matching years, it's what I got on short notice.)
36.6kWh = 1 gal gas
Gasoline - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gallons of Gas used in 2010
2010 - 3,297,528,000 barrels x 42 = 138,496,176,000 gallons (that's 138 Billion gallons of gas!)
2010 Gasoline Consumption | American Fuels
Electricity used in the US 2011
Electricity - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
3,856 billion Kilowatthours (kWh) -- that's 3,856,000,000,000 kWh or 3.856 Trillion kWh used in infrastructure in 2011
36.6 X 138,496,176,000 gallons = 5,068,960,041,600 or 5.068 Trillion kWh used in cars in 2010
So that's not quite double the current US demand for electricity. You claimed triple. Still, the numbers are pretty scary. But we're still not done yet. ICE cars only use a small percent of the energy they consume.
Typically, conventional gasoline engines effectively use only 15% of the fuel energy content to move the vehicle or to power accessories, and diesel engines can reach on-board efficiencies of 20%, while electric drive vehicles have on-board efficiency of around 80%.
Electric car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, 5,068,960,041,600 kWh (energy used by ICE cars) X 0.15 = 760,344,006,240 kWh or 760.3 Billion kWh actually moved all the ICE cars around in 2010.
If all those ICE cars were electric (and electric cars get a whopping 80% efficiency at the wheels) then we get the following:
(this calc may not be the best math so someone correct me if I'm wrong). Since electrics have 80% efficiency, I need more than 760.3 Billion kWh, so 760,344,006,240 X 0.20 = 152,068,801,248.
I add these together to give me 20% more to account for energy lost. So 760,344,006,240 + 152,068,801,248 = 912,412,807,488 or 912.4 Billion kWh.
So what percent of 2011 demand for electricity do I need?
912.4 Billion kWh / 3,856 billion Kilowatthours = 23%
I need 23% more electricity if suddenly tomorrow ALL cars and trucks were suddenly electric. I wouldn't need triple the current electricity, I'd need about 1/4 more.
Granted, that's still a lot of electricity, but as you can see the total amount of energy we would need would be far less.
Actually, it's even lower. I'm directly comparing 36.6kWh = 1 gal gas. But the distance traveled is not equal. The Nissan Leaf needs 34kWh to go 100miles. The Volt needs 37kWh to go 100 miles. If I have an ICE car that gets 40 mpg (VERY efficient for ICE) I need 2.5 galllons to get 100 miles. That equals (2.5 X 36.6) 91.5 kWh. So I need almost three times the energy in an ICE car (a very efficient one) to go the same distance in an EV!
Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia