July 1, 2022 — The metric is new to most, but it doesn’t have to be as confusing as it sounds.
When you read that a new electric car gets, say, 115 MPGe, it’s easy to understand why you might be confused. After all, electricity doesn’t come in gallons, and if it’s so efficient, why wouldn’t the car go further? Some may disregard it entirely. But it’s not that tough to understand and, when you do, you’ll know why it’s important.
The purpose of MPGe as a concept was to make EV efficiency comparable to gas-powered vehicles. Introduced in 2010, the “Miles Per Gallon Equivalent” wanted to translate new tech into an old language. The obsession with range is understandable, but range and efficiency are two different things.
A hyper-efficient car with a tiny pack may go less on a charge than a behemoth with a 200-kWh battery, but that doesn’t tell you anything about how much those few hundred miles will cost or how much of an impact they’ll have on the environment.
