Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine.
The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18%. Coal plants with secondary steam turbines can be as efficient as 50% extracting energy from the same amount of hydrocarbons.
Electric cars can have efficiency of 60% to 90%, so if tomorrow we replace all the gas cars with electric cars powered from coal power plants, we still be better off; then to that all the effort and energy that it takes to get oil from the ground, refine it and then get it to the gas tank of car, whereas in electric car its all power line transmission losses.
Coal is still bad, and there are much better alternatives like solar, wind and nuclear and natural gas; where solar wind and nuclear take no hydrocarbons, natural gas doesn't emit all the nasty things that coal plants do.
>Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18%
I'm not saying a coal power plant isn't more efficient but this is a one sided fanboy comparison if there ever was one.
What's the efficiency of the coal power plant after it's been used to charge up a battery and then discharged to power a car (i.e "at the wheel")? The fact that it's being used to drive a car around is the dominant term in the efficiency equation, not the form factor of the hydrocarbons. You did touch on supply chain but lithium batteries have some pretty nasty environmental impacts. I'm not sure whether they're better or worse than supplying liquid fuel.
Coal is still bad, and there are much better alternatives like solar, wind and nuclear and natural gas; where solar wind and nuclear take no hydrocarbons, natural gas doesn't emit all the nasty things that coal plants do.