How many joules or watts does an average car use?

Answer 1

You're not quite sure of the difference, are you ! ? Come on, tell old Al the truth.

The power output of a car's engine changes, depending on how much you need

at the moment. That's why you have a control on the floor and you keep your

foot on it, so you can make large or small adjustments in the engine power quickly.

I don't know much about cars, but I think I've heard somewhere about a car

with a "300 horsepower" engine. That would be the maximum power that the

engine is capable of, when you push the power-control to the metal and rev

that baby up to screaming.

300 horsepower means 223,800 watts (223.8 kilowatts) of power.

When it's running at that level, it's delivering 223,800 joules of energy every second.

You know how your electric bill shows how many "kilowatt-hours" of electrical energy

you used last month, and that's how many you pay for ? Kilowatt-hours of electric energy

cost anywhere between 5¢ and 30¢ each, and maybe you use a few hundred of them

in your house in a month.

Well, if your engine is screaming and you're burning rubber and you're flying down the

strip and everybody else is eating your dust and you're turning 300 horsepower, then

your engine is delivering a kilowatt-hour of energy every 16 seconds.