Section 1: The Great Gasoline Myth Uncovered

Introduction

For more than a century, gasoline has been sold as the lifeblood of mobility. Since Henry Ford’s Model T, it has been a fuel and a symbol: progress, freedom, the open road. It built the suburbs, the interstates, and a postwar economy. The symbol is cleaner than the machine.

The pitch was that gasoline is the sensible fuel. Dense. Cheap. Convenient. Necessary. The record is that it is one of the most wasteful fuels ever put in a mass-market car. Useful in 1920. A burden now.

This section is the gasoline car and the internal combustion engine (ICE). The waste, the bill that does not appear on the pump, and the habit of calling that normal.

Spoiler: the emperor has no gas cap.

How Gasoline Won

At the start of the 1900s, gasoline was not the obvious winner. Early cars were electric and steam. The U.S. Department of Energy cites a 1900 figure of about 38 percent electric among American automobiles, and electric taxis were ordinary in New York. Gasoline was a volatile byproduct of kerosene refining, useful in lamps. [1]

The engine got lighter and stronger. Standard Oil and the companies around it owned the well, the refinery, the tank wagon, and a say in the car. By the 1920s the system was gasoline, and it fed itself.

The Efficiency Myth

From the moment the engine fires, most of the energy in the gasoline does not reach the wheels.

The Department of Energy puts a gasoline car at about 12 to 30 percent of the fuel energy delivered as motion. The rest leaves as heat, friction, and idle. A battery-electric vehicle (EV) puts about 77 percent of the energy from the plug to the wheels. Rooftop solar makes that energy cheaper. It does not change the 77 percent. [2]

1.     Of 100 units of energy in the gasoline, as few as 12 move the car.

2.     Of 100 units from the plug, about 77 move the car.

Buy 100 gallons and the energy of 12 to 30 gallons is what moves you. The rest is heat. No tune-up closes that gap. Heat is the point of a flame. An electric motor is simpler because it does not need the flame. Fewer parts. No oil. No timing belt.

The myth lasts because the waste is invisible, and because looking is work. The marketing is the same shape as the old cigarette ads and the old food ads. Familiar. Repeated. Easier than the physics.

What a Gallon Already Cost

The waste starts before the tank. Oil is drilled, moved, refined, and trucked. Argonne’s GREET model puts the upstream energy to get a gallon into the tank on the order of 6 kilowatt-hours of energy, mostly process fuel at the field and the refinery, not a 4-to-7-kilowatt-hour electric bill. That energy would move an efficient EV 15 to 25 miles. It is spent before the gasoline car turns a wheel. [3]

The Bill Past the Pump

1.     Fuel. The price moves with wars and traders. Americans spent about $564 billion on gasoline in 2022, a spike year. The bill is smaller when the price is, and it never goes to zero while the car burns it. [4]

2.     Maintenance. Oil, plugs, belts, transmissions. Consumer Reports has put EV repair and maintenance spending at about half that of gasoline cars. [5]

3.     Health. Exhaust is tied to asthma and heart disease. The American Lung Association has put the health cost of vehicle pollution in the tens of billions a year. The closed garage is the same fact, smaller. [6]

4.     Security. A 2018 estimate from Securing America’s Future Energy put oil-related military cost above $80 billion a year. That is an estimate from that year, not a current line item. The point survives the year: the tanker routes were not free. [7]

Who Pays the Subsidy

Oil and gas are subsidized. The kind of subsidy matters.

The International Monetary Fund’s 2025 update put explicit fossil-fuel subsidies, the cash and the underpriced fuel, at $725 billion worldwide in 2024. Implicit subsidies, mostly the air pollution and climate damage not on the invoice, were $6.7 trillion. The old “$7 trillion” line was those two added together. Most of it is not a check to an oil company. It is the damage nobody billed. [8]

Direct help is the visible piece: tax breaks for drilling, below-market leases, credits written into law. Indirect help is the health bill, the spill, and the military cover that do not appear on the company’s books. Taxpayers hold those.

The federal tax credit for buying an EV ended for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025. What remains is smaller: some state rebates, some utility discounts, and manufacturing credits aimed at plants. Calling the old buyer credit a handout, and the unpriced damage of gasoline a free market, was backwards even while the credit existed. It is backwards now that the credit is gone.

Convenience, and the Storm

A gas station can be out of the way, dirty, and dependent on a truck. In a hurricane it can be dark, because the pump is an electric pump.

Home charging flips the errand. J.D. Power has found that about four-fifths of EV charging energy goes in at home. The car is full in the morning. [9]

The storm line from the gasoline side is: where do you charge when the power is out? The same place you were going to buy gasoline. If the station can pump, the grid is up, and a charger on that grid can run. A car that was full at home before the storm has a head start the empty tank does not.

Oil, and What “Independence” Means

In 2025 the United States imported about 7.9 million barrels a day of crude and products and exported about 10.7 million. It was a net exporter, by about 2.8 million barrels a day. That does not mean the pump is detached from the world price. It means the old picture, a helpless importer, is out of date. [10]

A lot of U.S. tight oil is light. A lot of Gulf Coast refineries were built for heavier crude. So the country exports light oil and imports heavy oil at the same time. “Only 40 percent of our oil can be refined here” is too round. The mismatch is real. The fraction moves with the refineries.

An EV does not make the United States energy-independent. It deletes a gallon. The mile can be met with domestic electricity: nuclear, gas, solar, wind, hydro. That is a smaller exposure than a fuel that is priced in a global barrel, even when the country exports more than it imports.

The Noise

Coverage of EVs informs and misleads, often in the same week. The pattern is familiar.

1.     One fire, treated as the nature of the machine.

2.     A rare failure, treated as the fleet.

3.     A grid scare with no denominator.

4.     A chart from 2018, posted as news.

InfluenceMap found major oil companies spending about $4 million a week in 2023 on digital ads that talked up fossil fuels and talked down the alternatives. A lot of it arrived looking like a tip from a friend. [11]

The job is not to ignore a bad charger. It is to ask for the rate, the year, and the source.

Conclusion

Fear travels faster than a table. I know people who will say the government cannot make them drive electric. When the mandate rant is done, the question is simple. When the easy oil is harder to get, and the gallon is not there, are you riding a bike or walking? That usually ends the rant. Sometimes it ends the conversation.

The business of the holdouts is fear, uncertainty, and doubt. FUD. The sentence is always “yeah, but.” The ads look like articles. The lobby looks like concern. One of the reasons this book exists is to put a number next to that sentence.

The fight is not only under the hood. It is in the feed, and in the price on the sign, and in the heat leaving the tailpipe that nobody itemizes.

Footnotes

[1] U.S. Department of Energy, early electric-vehicle history. The about-38-percent figure for 1900 is the Department’s cited share.

[2] U.S. Department of Energy. Gasoline vehicles convert about 12 to 30 percent of fuel energy into motion. Electric vehicles convert about 77 percent of grid energy into motion at the wheels. AFDC

[3] Argonne National Laboratory, GREET model. Upstream energy to deliver a gallon of gasoline is on the order of 6 kilowatt-hours of process energy, not 4 to 7 kilowatt-hours of retail electricity.

[4] U.S. Energy Information Administration. Motor-gasoline spending was about $564 billion in 2022, a high-price year.

[5] Consumer Reports, EV ownership costs, 2020, and the 2023 fact sheet. Repair and maintenance spending about half that of gasoline cars.

[6] American Lung Association, health burden of vehicle pollution. The tens-of-billions figure is the Association’s estimate of health damages.

[7] Securing America’s Future Energy, “The Hidden Costs of Oil,” 2018. An estimate from that year, not a current budget line.

[8] International Monetary Fund, “Underpriced and Overused: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Data 2025 Update.” Explicit subsidies $725 billion in 2024. Implicit subsidies $6.7 trillion. IMF

[9] J.D. Power EVX Home Charging Study, 2023. About four-fifths of EV charging energy at home.

[10] U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2025 petroleum imports were about 7.9 million barrels a day and exports about 10.7 million. Net exports about 2.8 million barrels a day.

[11] InfluenceMap, “Big Oil’s Real Agenda on Climate Change,” digital-ad findings reported in 2023. About $4 million a week on digital promotion of fossil fuels and delay of alternatives.