[ChuckMcM]

Absolutely, the electricity -> chemical -> electricity cycle gets less power out than you put in.

The fuel cycle is still fossil fuel -> (stuffs) -> car moves.

There are many ways to change around the (stuffs) part of the equation. The claim is that converting fossil fuel to electricity in bulk is much more efficient than converting it into mechanical work locally through exothermic chemical reactions.

We could keep trying to detail efficiencies (or non-efficiencies) in the problem but as Glieck pointed out in his Chaos book, you can compute the length of the British coastline by drawing a line around the island and get one number, or you can zoom in and include the bays and harbors and protrusions and get another number, all the way to going around each grain of sand on the beach and getting yet another number. Clearly the closer you look at the coastline length the 'longer' it gets, but that extra length is misleading.