They fall for literally every trap.
(media.scored.co)
I crunched the numbers back in school (~20 years ago) because I was interested in EVs. It's significantly more efficient to burn gasoline in a power plant and then transmit the power over lines to charge batteries than use individual engines, simply because your car engine is almost always running at inefficient RPMs. That's also why hybrids are more efficient than full gas, even though they weigh more.