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Coals and natural gas power plants are still a more efficient source of energy than gasoline.

Yeah, Musk talked about this in several interviews. Basically, the average efficiency for energy generation at the power plant is 60%, because the power plant is able to capture a lot of waste and reuse it. Whereas the efficiency of energy generation in an internal combustion engine is about 20%. Therefore, if all cars switched to electric, we would be looking at a 200% increase in efficiency in car transportation.

The 60% was specifically about a good, big GE combined cycle natural gas plant. I was under the impression that for a purely steam powered generator, such as you have in a coal or nuclear plant, significantly less than 60% of the heat turns into electricity.

I thought he was also saying that an internal combustion engine burning natural gas is about 20% efficient, with the implication that if you are absolutely determined to power a vehicle with natural gas, burning the gas in a big turbine and using it to charge batteries is going to be significantly more energy efficient than burning the natural gas directly in the vehicle.

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