If one car consumes almost twice as much gas as the other one for driving at the same speed, where does the excess power go to?

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So let’s assume we have two cars. One is a really eco-friendly family car sedan, and the other one is a lamborghini. Both drive at a speed of 100kmh (62mph), And lets say we load up the lighter of the cars with some weights, so that they weigh the same. So lambo would on average, consume more fuel.

My question is, where does this extra power vanish to? Since fuel makes an explosion and explosion drives the torque of the car, where does this explosion power vanish to in a lambo? Since it generates more explosion, but still drives at the same speed.

In: Engineering

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

To twist everyone else around, it’s also horses for courses. Top Gear put a Prius and a powerful BMW M3 on a track. The Prius driver drove as fast as he could around the track, and the BMW driver was told to just keep up. In the end the BMW got better gas mileage.

Why? Because of lower power the Prius driver had to drive like a maniac, pedal to the metal, and the BMW driver just cruised because of his much higher power. He didn’t have to floor it, his engine stayed within efficient power bands.

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