Definitely. Natural gas burns cleaner than coal, and even the dirtiest coal power plant is still cleaner than an internal combustion engine. Internal combustion engines are extremely inefficient. Even felt the tailpipe of a car with a running engine? (Don't!) It's hot. That's all wasted energy.

Most of the energy used by a car goes into producing wasted heat (power plants are much better at winning back useful energy from that heat). Most of the rest of the energy used by a car goes into moving the weight of the car itself. Only a tiny part goes into moving the actual occupants of the car. That's why even electric cars are still wasteful: they're still too big and heavy and moving their own weight around. Bikes or mass transit are far more efficient. But EVs are still more efficient than ICE vehicles, even if the energy they use is dirty.

Larger stationary engines are typically far more efficient than the engines that we find in our cars. Natgas is up to 55% efficient, where cars are 35% at the top-end. On top of that, the fuel you use in your car has to be transported to your gas station by another car. Natgas and coal are transported over pipes and rails.

Even if an EV is powered by 100% coal, it still only produces the same CO2 as a 50mpg ICEV. Natural gas produces significantly less CO2 than coal. Most locations have a mix of power sources that are at partially or majority renewable.

An EV gets cleaner as the grid it charges from gets cleaner over time. A petroleum powered vehicle remains dirty for its entire lifetime. EVs allow you to electrify mobility and transition to renewables in parallel.

(Global renewables investment is hovering around $1.5T/year)

Yes natural gas has less Co2 emissions per BTU than oil and natural gas can be burned very efficiently in a power plant at nearly 60% vs say 40% for diesel or 30% for gasoline in an ICE.

Natural gas burned at scale is incredibly efficient. It's one of the reasons Obama was such a big proponent - that and we have an ocean of it in Texas.

People have forgotten that you used to have to power wash buildings yearly in the Northeast from all the coal pollution. Natgas is NOT perfect, but it's about as good as fossil fuels can be - no tailings, no ash piles, easy to transport via pipeline.

I still think Offshore Wind is going to get us to the finish line though. It acts a lot more like baseload generation than onshore.

Isn't the usual answer to this something about how those power plants have to adhere to pollution control regulations as well as there being regenerative braking?

Don't forget air pollution as a positive factor for evs