In school we learned ” what you save in energy, you have to increase the way.” By that rule you should use the exact same amount of energy (fuel) for the same distance no matter what speed. I’ve asked a few people, but no-one could give me a good answer.
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The rules of physics are generally applied in a vacuum. So theoretically once initial resistance is overcome the energy required to move something remains constant despite changes in rate.
But when we are discussing everyday transportation examples we are not only moving an object, but also constantly encountering friction and displacing air. Each of those episodes requires the moving object to change the state of the other things it encounters and that is where the additional energy is used. Not to move the mass itself but to overcome outside forces. And the faster an object moves the more outside influences it encounters in a given period of time. Hence more energy expended/ unit of time as speeds increase.
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