eli5 How can a car move according to Newton’s third law?

Question

So a car moves, because the wheels exert a force on the ground which exert an opposite force back on the wheels causing it to move forward. The car then exerts this force on the air and the air back onto the car. Shouldn’t the resulting force on the car be 0 Newton then? Because the force the ground exerts on the car is the same as the force the air exerts on the car, thus cancelling each ofher out?

In: 0

Answer 1

When you are cruising on the highway at a constant speed, those forces do balance out to zero.

While you’re accelerating, the force pushing you forward exceeds air drag.