Firn
Well-known member
Since you had to bring a condescending tone into it we will go ahead and keep it that way.There's no agree or disagree. It's true or false.
Take 2 identical trucks to a drag strip and run them each 5 times. The 1st truck you floor it every single time. The 2nd truck you accelerate gracefully. Do you really think that after 5 runs they're going to use the same amount of energy?
Incase you still don't understand lets compare it to something that everyone can agree on. You get better mileage going 65mph than you do going 80mph. By your logic both trucks should use the same amount of energy because at 80 mph you're driving for a shorter period of time.
Your two arguments show you don't understand the point at all.
In the drag strip situation of course the truck that accelerated slower used less energy, it reached a lower speed. It went from zero kinetic energy to a value LOWER than the truck that accelerated the whole way, of course it expended less energy doing so, it's final kinetic energy is lower. But that's not how people drive, they accelerate up to their predetermined speed. That may be 35 after leaving a stop sign, or 75 on an on ramp, in the end their final speed isnt determined by how hard they accelerated to get there.. In both cases they used a set amount of energy to go from zero potential energy to the SAME kinetic energy. Read up on the conservation of energy if you don't get this. If two vehicles have the same efficiency and weight you cannot put more energy into one than the other and still end up at the SAME SPEED.
As for your 60mph argument vs 80, that shows you don't even understand that the conversation is about energy at all. If between two trucks one of the truck went half as fast and that use HALF THE ENERGY PER MILE, and completed the trip in twice the time then yes, they would both use the same amount of energy. But that isn't how it works, the amount of energy needed to push something through the air is exponentially higher the faster it goes, so the truck going twice as fast uses FOUR TIMES the energy. But in the end that has NOTHING to do with acceleration. You seem to have gotten lost on the time component and didn't think about what is being discussed.
Physics 101 tells you that ignoring efficiency the amount of energy you put into a system results in the same end case, you cannot put more energy into one of two identical systems and yet reach the same end point. What CAN happen, and what does happen, is that in ICE vehicles the EFFICIENCY changes depending on power output, in that case less energy goes into accelerstion and more into heat. This is not the same for EVs, and although system efficiency MAY change the harder you accelerate the difference is very small. In fact I expect the biggest difference would likely comes from the fact that the faster accelerating truck spends more time at a higher speed than the slower accelerating one, but since you are speaking of seconds on a trip that takes tens of minutes the difference is miniscule in comparison to energy expended elsewhere.
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