Mmmm, careful with that axe, Eugene. Internal combustion engines make peak efficiency at peak RPM. Electric motors make peak efficiency at zero RPM. That's why electric cars can forego transmissions and transmissions are teh suck from an efficiency standpoint. Combine that with the fact that thermal efficiency on Diesel runs 50-70% on herkin' big mills; otto cycle will be less than that. Electric motors on the other hand can hit 95% efficient all day long. Assume your battery conversion is only 65% efficient and you're still at 61% efficiency (and you don't have a transmission to worry about). What's the efficiency of hauling gas to the station vs. powerlines to your house? What's the efficiency of refining diesel out of petroleum vs boiling water in the desert? There's a lot of places where the electric system stands to gain efficiency while the petroleum system is pretty much stuck at state of the art.Anyway, there's no way that electric cars will ever be more efficient than gas/diesel cars.