In comparison, electrical motors are extremely simple and maintenance-free. All while being on a level of efficiency that just can't be reached with a combustion engine.
I'm not sure it sounds particularly efficient unless you completely ignore all the work that goes into making the electricity :/
ICE engines are ~15% efficient at converting energy to movement. You must also include the cost of transporting, refining and drilling for the oil (coal is cheaper to get). This should push it down to ~10% burn to road.
Main stream coal power plants are ~30-39% efficient, electric transmission lines are ~95% efficient, battery charging is ~88% efficient and electric engines are ~92% efficient. That's burn to road of ~20-30%. Even without taking into account the extra costs of doing stuff with the oil to put it into your car, and having that priced with electric - electric is still better. There's a reason we electrified our trains, and a reason that diesel trains actually use their diesel engines to run electric motors.
Here are Tesla's calculations:
http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric/efficiency (look at the final well-to-wheel efficiency - you'll notice it's a little more than double ICE engines).
We're also ignoring the cost of pollution that ICE vehicles bring (it's a lot more than power plants - which because they are centralized, can economically mitigate the release of pollution). If you price that into ICE, they lose pretty badly - because pollution is not, and never should have been free.
It's a resource you use and abuse to the detriment of everyone else.
Fundamentally you must understand this and this only:
Electric vehicles are 2x as efficient as ICE vehicles and cost less on a total cost of ownership basis.
They have won so badly that only willful ignorance can stop one from avoiding such an obvious conclusion (Innovator's dilemma).
(despite that i totally think we should go electric. just that we should figure out ways to setup better infrastructure and disaster mitigation)
Furthermore subcontinental Asia is driving the adoption of tiny electric vehicles - China has over 130 million electric scooters (and that's from a few years ago - the numbers are going insane).
I remeber a slashdot post a few years ago about a Prius onwer who mentioned how the evacuation of Houston during Hurricane Rita was an absolute nightmare for most car owners - the roads were packed and everyone was doing 1-2mph for 8+ hours. Many SUVs were simply abandoned on the side of the road. He ended up getting 55mpg for the week.
If I didn't own a hybrid already, a Volt would be an awesome car to get - can be electric for it's full range, but like modern diesel trains - it simply uses the gas engine as a powerplant to run it's electric motor.
Sounds a little less efficient than the electricity thing when you look at the full sequence. And this is even in the case where electricity comes from dirty sources; some states, like California, have an energy mix where electricity comes mostly from renewables. (And this is something that can be improved as time goes on).
Whereas with electric cars, it happens at a power plant... then gets sent to the car via electricity, with lots of it wasted along the way.
Personally, I don't see electric cars as solving anything. We should be looking at generating the power in the car, from things that are plentiful - water, dirt, garbage, sewage etc.
Of course power plants are much more efficient.