By this, I'm not referring to the energy consumed creating the car and the large battery itself. I'm talking about the side effects of electric car consumption characteristics, and their real efficiency (or lack thereof) when on the road.

In a conventional gasoline powered car, most energy usage is during acceleration or at slower speeds, especially the short bursts needed in stop and go traffic. There is non negligible usage just to keep the engine going when moving slowly, and also, the automatic switch from AWD to more efficient front wheel drive typically happens around 25-30. The peak mileage on a modern car is probably around 50-55mph, while in cars from previous decades it was more like 80mph. The best way to keep good mileage in a conventional car is to avoid braking , throwing away the KE gained during acceleration.

In an electric car, the energy lost to braking is (mostly) reclaimed by the battery, so stop and go traffic is much less of a problem. Slow speeds are also a problem, the non/slow-moving state isn't consuming anything really. Their peak efficiency is below 30mph. Basically the driving pattern that governs electric vehicle energy consumption is speed (energy lost to air resistance and tire deformation). The #1 fear of electric vehicle drivers is the limited range. The marketed ranges for the vehicles are in slow city traffic, and at room temperature, which is their ideal condition. Most of the heavily marketed cities have winter temps where these ranges are cut in half. Driving at a normal highway speed also cuts this range in half, or worse: https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range

So a winter highway drive in an electric car rated for 150 miles will only make it ~40 miles if you are lucky if you drive the speed of the rest of traffic. Because of this, I keep seeing electric car drivers slow to 25 on the highway, with nobody in front of them. The right lane is occupied by traffic crawling because of people that don't know how to safely merge/exit highway traffic, exacerbated by ridiculously sharp curved long island entrance/exit ramps. The left lane is stuck behind electric cars going 25. And the middle lane is stop and go from people cutting each other off escaping the other two. Effectively, the *rise of electric vehicle use is causing stop and go traffic, and forcing the other vehicles to use more fuel! Electric cars should not be allowed on the highways, both for safety and for ecological reasons!

This seems a bit organic for a "conspiracy" in and of itself, but what do you think are the real reasons electric cars are being pushed so hard the past year or two?