It can be, even though many electric vehicles apparently use a fixed-ratio gear as well. But it's still an apples-to-oranges comparison since traditional ICE-driven cars tend to publish engine torque, not wheel torque.

Of course, they weren't trying all that hard to alleviate any confusion, and it worked even on the fairly tech-savvy HN crowd.

Ed: improved both facts and wording.

Even if there is not a traditional transmission, there is still a gearbox behind the electric motor.

Tires only rotate at ~1000 RPM on the freeway where the electric motor in a Tesla might be at 10k rpm. That 10x reduction still needs to be factored in.

Honest question: did you just make up these numbers, or are they based in fact? I was expecting the motor to turn slower.

Not OP, but Tesla Model S has approximately 1:10 fixed gear reduction.

Motor RPM will go higher than 10000 RPM at really high speeds.

Right. And electric motors are more efficient at higher RPMs. At high RPM, the voltage drop due to back-EMF (i.e. actual work) is higher but your voltage drop due to coil resistance is about the same, so you lose proportionally less energy in the form of coil resistance at higher rpm.

> electric motors are more efficient at higher RPMs.

How big is the difference?

It must be pretty substantial to offset both friction losses and gearing efficiency.

Gearing and friction losses can be fairly small.

Consider that at ~0mph and ~0rpm, producing any kind of torque at all is done with ~0% efficiency, all just resistive losses as the back-EMF is effectively zero. (Note this is no different for an internal combustion engine, although the heat generated is in the clutch or similar such device...)

Friction losses don't change much as a proportion of power as you increase speed. For aerodynamic drag, however, your losses do proportionally increase with speed, so "windage" (i.e. drag from spinning parts of the motor) needs to be cleverly reduced by making the rotor aerodynamic if you're planning on operating at high rpm.

EDIT: for properly designed electric motors (i.e. thin wire windings, iron core optimized for low eddy current losses), coil resistance usually dominates even at high rpms.