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
The fuel released energy but the engine doesn’t capture all of it as mechanical energy
The big engine in the Lambo is going to have a lot more moving parts that are heavier so it’ll lose more energy there than the smaller engine. This ends up being pretty significant for big engines and results in the no load fuel consumption being significantly higher.
The eco car will also have a eco tires which are much stiffer and provide less rolling resistance for better fuel economy but also less traction which is bad for a performance car
The eco car will also have a turbo. Your engine is trying to expand the hot gas to extract the energy from it before it exhausts it but it can’t get it all. The turbo provides another chance to extract missed energy and let’s you use a smaller engine (less friction and weight) to get the same power.
When you look at turbocharged sports cars they end up getting decent fuel economy numbers. Lambos are all big naturally aspirated engines(no turbos) but something like a Mercedes AMG C63 with a 4L V8 putting out 500 HP can still do 27 mpg on the highway
Tweak the engine parameters for efficiency over power and swap the tires and drive gently and it’ll compare pretty well to most eco cars, probably 35ish
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