Page - 19 - in Our Car as Power Plant

19 And if that isn’t bad enough: the car is not always moving, it stops for a traffi c light, is stocked in a traffi c jam or has to be parked. So we have standby- or idle losses, which are estimated to range between 15 to 20%. And then the rotating motion has to be transmitted to the wheels by the gearbox, at an effi ciency loss between 5 and 6%. Besides these transmission losses there is also energy consumption in our auxiliary equipment, such as cooling, lights, fans, heating/pumping and electronics. This consumes about 2 to 5% of the energy. Our car is moving, but then we have resistance losses from the wind and the road and there are losses from braking and accelerating again. Another 10 to 15% energy loss.