In the case of cars with infernal combustion engines, it’s even worse. Even for very efficient road car engines, more than 50% of the energy in the fuel is expelled as waste heat, through either the exhaust or cooling system. Of that smaller than 50% fraction, indeed most of the energy is spent overcoming aerodynamic drag of the car body, and friction from the tires.
Sidenote: F1 made headlines a while back they had achieved >50% thermal efficiency, with an incredibly complicated hybrid system that recovered excess exhaust energy from the turbo.
It gets better: a human on a bike is the most efficient mode of locomotion there is in terms of mass moved per unit of energy invested.
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In the case of cars with infernal combustion engines, it’s even worse. Even for very efficient road car engines, more than 50% of the energy in the fuel is expelled as waste heat, through either the exhaust or cooling system. Of that smaller than 50% fraction, indeed most of the energy is spent overcoming aerodynamic drag of the car body, and friction from the tires.
Sidenote: F1 made headlines a while back they had achieved >50% thermal efficiency, with an incredibly complicated hybrid system that recovered excess exhaust energy from the turbo.
Talk about hell on wheels!
Link to source?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-human-on-a-bicycle-is-among-the-most-efficient-forms-of-travel-in-the/