Have you ever tried to discuss electric cars with a fossil-fuel nostalgic? You may have heard phrases like “but hydrogen is the future” or “biofuels are cleaner”. Milena Gabanelli, in its latest Dataroom, has done what should have been done a long time ago: it has put the real numbers down on paper. Result? Hydrogen requires three times more energy than electric, biofuels cost up to 5 euros per liter, and the efficiency of battery-powered cars is already at high levels. End of discussion. Actually, let's start now: follow me.
When Numbers Silence the Chat
The Emilian journalist's Dataroom has done what politics has failed to do for years: he swept away the lies with the brute force of data. While Matteo Salvini continues to attack the traffic bans for Euro 5 diesels, Gabanelli and Rita Querze the Economy editorial team of Corriere have brought out the numbers from the Ricardo study for the International Automobile Federation.
The results are merciless: Electric cars already emit 100 grams of CO2 per kilometre against 267 of petrol cars and 197 of the hybrid diesels. These are not future projections, this is not wishful thinking, this is not “ecological fluff”. These are the data from the Life Cycle Assessment, the “cradle to grave” analysis that considers the production, use and disposal of the vehicle.
The picture is clear: electric has already won. Those who continue to preach “technological neutrality” are just buying time to postpone the inevitable. And they are talking a lot of nonsense.
Hydrogen? A Beautiful Expensive Illusion
One of the most persistent myths is that of the hydrogen car as a clean alternative. Hydrogen “only emits water vapor,” say its supporters. Too bad that Producing hydrogen requires three times more energy than directly recharging a battery. It's a bit like saying that it's better to walk around the block to visit your neighbor.
In Italy only 65 hydrogen cars are in circulation, served by only two filling stations (in Mestre and Bolzano). The National Strategy calls for 40 distributors by 2026, but the same document admits that hydrogen “is not competitive in light transport”. Translation: it is a technology that is desperately looking for a problem to solve.
Biofuels and e-fuel: 5 euro per litre dreams
Synthetic fuels, touted as a magic solution by oil lobbyists, hide a small detail: they cost between 3 and 5 euros per litre. They are obtained by combining hydrogen with captured CO2, a process that requires enormous amounts of energy and is prohibitively expensive.
The idea is suggestive: the CO2 emitted during use is equivalent to that absorbed in production. The problem is that in the meantime you have spent as much as an aperitif at Billionaire for each liter of fuel.
Not only Gabanelli and foreign studies: Italian science also confirms the verdict
It's not just about international research. The study commissioned by Professor Bruno Notarnicola for the Ministry of the Environment comes to the same conclusions. The Life Cycle Assessment analysis confirms that “electrified cars are significantly more environmentally friendly than internal combustion engines”.
The the International Council on Clean Transportation, the organization that exposed the Volkswagen scandal, certifies that
“Electric vehicles are several times more efficient at converting energy into propulsion than petrol and diesel vehicles.”
Efficiency that doesn't lie
The most devastating data for oil nostalgics concerns energy efficiency. Electric cars convert 77% of the energy they put into motion. Gasoline cars convert just 20%, dispersing the rest as heat. It's like comparing a surgeon to a butcher: with all due respect to the latter, when it comes to operating on someone's liver, I don't have many doubts.
By 2050, while electric will reach 81% efficiency, hydrogen will stop at 42% and e-fuels at a paltry 16%. As we have previously reported, Norway has already demonstrated that the electric future is not science fiction: battery-powered cars have already overtaken petrol-powered ones.
The Bluff of Technological Neutrality
“Technological neutrality” has become the last stand of those who refuse to admit defeat. It’s a fancy term for “Let’s keep burning oil while pretending to evaluate nonexistent alternatives.”
Gabanelli unmasked this game with surgical precision: “Do not use the screen of technological neutrality to continue with ideological wars”. The transition will be difficult and will have a price, but “by telling citizens how things are”.
Europe that doesn't look back
If Italy hesitates, Europe has already chosen. The 2035 ban on thermal vehicles is non-negotiable for companies like Volvo and Ikea, who have signed an open letter to maintain the goal: "It is both feasible and necessary". And the legitimate contempt for many crazy initiatives by Von der Leyen and company does not change the reality of the facts: in our cities fossil fuel cars They kill people by the millions every year.
And if there is a way to feel better, it's not that I give up because this thing wants to ride political figures that I can't stand. The electric car must be encouraged and supported with fairer pricing policies for everyone, and infrastructure plans for charging systems and the energy network.
The debate is no longer whether electric will win, but how much more time we will waste pretending that credible alternatives exist. The answer is clear: data do not lie, ideologies do.
Milena Gabanelli did what politicians don't dare to do, and what she sometimes doesn't do on other topics: she told the truth without discounts. The electric car is not perfect, but it is the only technology available today that really works. Everything else is just expensive and polluting bar talk.
