A car can take a vehicle that weighs 2000lbs 35 miles on gallon of gas, but a lawn mower that weights 35lbs and has one spinning blade only goes 2 or 3 miles before needing a refill.
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What speed are we talking? A car is fairly streamlined, which means it uses a lot less fuel to push through the air at a higher speed.
A lawnmower has very grippy, knobby tires, which also make for poor fuel mileage on a car. Put hardcore mud tires on a car, and its mileage will drop too.
A lawnmower isn’t geared for speed. It’s at high revs when going maybe 10 mph. Car has better gearing, letting the engine barely pur along at 50 mph.
And overall, every system has its waste energy. Gas engines aren’t very efficient, and you waste the majority of your energy every second that it’s running. A car at 50 mph spends 1/5th the time driving as the lawnmower at 10 mph, so that’s a lot less time it’s wasting fuel.
In case you take that last part wrong, no there is a point where wind resistance causes far more fuel use than you can save by running for less time since velocity gets squared in the drag equation. But drive a car along at a pokey 10 mph, and your mileage will drop too.
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