Just powering a proper generator with gasoline or diesel to power an EV is more efficient than blowing it up thousands of times per second inside an engine.

Just because combustion engines are 30% efficient at best (Prius-level tuning required, most are way under) and electric engines are 90%+ efficient.

>Just powering a proper generator with gasoline or diesel to power an EV is more efficient than blowing it up thousands of times per second inside an engine.

I don't follow your point - Gasoline powered generators and Gasoline powered car engines both work by "blowing up" the gasoline in the piston(s) of the device (and neither blows it up "thousands of times per second", though at 2000-3000 rpm they both do so thousands of times per minute). It's certainly possible to keep a generator charging a battery tuned more tightly into its peak combustion efficiency zone than one can typically maintain with an ICE engine tied to a gearbox and wheels, but that is I think a different argument.

> It's certainly possible to keep a generator charging a battery tuned more tightly into its peak combustion efficiency zone

That is _exactly_ what cars like the Chevy Volt did. A much smaller gas engine running at peak efficiency and sending the power to the electric motors was more efficient than burning the gasoline directly. Electric motors are very efficient, and the transmissions losses are much smaller. There's hardly any transmission to talk about, usually it's just some reduction gears.

A generator always works at the optimal RPM for power generation. Cars do not.

Range extenders like the Chevy Volt and the BMW i3 REX have taken advantage of this. The drivetrain is 100% electric, there's just a gas generator to charge the battery when needed. Even on the Prius the accelerator has no direct effect on the engine RPM, the car picks the optimal RPM and any extra power is fed to the batteries.

Dunno why this model didn't catch up more. The current hybrid model is the worst of both worlds. You've got an electric drive train with a small battery and a full gasoline engine with all of its 2000+ moving parts that can fail.

Yes, gas or NG power plants can be much more efficient than a gas car that has to handle a wide range of RPMs and loads in a wide range of environmental conditions.

So yes a gas or NG power plant providing power to an EV can be radically more efficient than a gas car. Doubly so since gas is spent delivering gas.

However a small generator is not particularly more efficient then a car, so it's silly to power an EV from a small generator.