
How much ENERGY does my CAR use?
Sure, your car has that big 250 horsepower engine under the hood. But how many horsepower are required to push your car down the road?
Now it's easy to find out!
If you know your car's weight (easy to Google), and you have a stopwatch (your cell phone has one), then you can measure precisely how much power your car needs.

Find out:
- How much power is that, in electrical terms?
- How much energy does your car need in an average day?
- How does this much energy compare to the sunlight energy
that strikes your car?
- How efficient is your car's engine at converting gasoline
energy into motion?
- How much energy does your car waste in stop-and-go traffic?
- How much more energy does your car use at high speeds?
- How many pounds of wind resistance does your car have
at high speeds?
- How many square feet of solar cells would you need to
power your car?
- How many cars like yours could be powered by a windmill
generator?
- How many cars like yours could be powered by a wave generator?
- How long could the battery of an electric car power your
home?
The workbook pages look like this (but a bit larger, 8.25 x 10.5 inches).
As you can see, all of the math has been reduced to extremely simple equations. All you need is a few measurements of your car and a calculator. It is easy, and you learn a lot.
In the end you will have a much better intuition for the energy that your car uses.
