As a retired engineer I say the above thinking is exactly the kind of ignorance that keeps things from ever getting done.
One must consider availability. If 65W is shed as heat and "only" 35W is converted to mechanical motion, then while this is "35% efficient" and sounds bad the real question is wether one can get more useful work out of a gallon of gasoline or not? The answer is "not realistically". So if you do not use that gallon of gasoline and get 35% of useful work out of it the alternative is that you get 0% use out of it.
The problem is while one can measure that 65% "wasted" energy that it isn't useable. Most is in the engine coolant at 180ｰF which just isn't hot enough over ambient temperatures to do much. Heat in the exhaust is needed to complete the thermodynamic cycle and get the exhaust out of the tailpipe.
Before the automobile the light hydrocarbons used to make gasoline were considered junk and flamed immediately at the refinery. The good stuff was heating and lamp oil, diesel today. We have a similar problem today with natural gas. Have too much. That much is burned at the well because idiot politicians won't allow pipelines to ship it to were it could be used. Tanking natural gas is very expensive. Takes a lot of energy to compress and even then it is not very dense. Same problem with hydrogen, only H2 can not be piped. 95% of H2 comes from natural gas because the process is cheap, natural gas is plentiful.
I say one must consider the resources consumed to bring energy to the user in usable format. I say one must consider $2.50/gallon for gasoline and what useful work one can get from it vs. $2.50 of electricity. In Gale's case no amount of electricity could trailer his new LEAF home, but gasoline got the job done. Could have found charging stations between here and there, and possibly taken 24 hours to go the distance. Or do it the way he did and burn some gasoline. How much is your time worth? Amazingly little is consumed producing gasoline because in that $2.50 perhaps 100 people got paid for their efforts.
When conditions are right one can use electricity cheaper than gasoline, and vice versa. And that is the beauty of Free Market Capitalism. No one is willing to work for free so at each stage of production the contribution of each is accumulated into the final cost of the product. If they can't do as well as another then the consumer is free to use the other. The failing is when simplistic voices latch on to terms such as "efficiency" and effect faux forces to force economics to do their will. That is Leftist economics where Those Wiser Than You decree what your effort is worth and what you must pay for goods all because They Are Smarter Than You Or The Market.
