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Friday, June 15, 2012

In Which I Attempt Too Much Dimensional Analysis

I did my best with the research for not having a lot of time. I made the assumption that number of passengers doesn't affect fuel economy, but this shouldn't significantly skew results. And, uh, yeah, of course cycling came out on top. I assumed that the cars (except the Leaf) ran on unleaded and the other vehicles (including the 747) on diesel; the Person-MPG equivalents were all calculated using unleaded.

Mode Efficiency (kJ/km*person) Person-MPG equivalent
Hummer H2 9036 10
Ocean liner (Queen Elizabeth 2, fully loaded) 6170 15
2011 Toyota Camry (1 person) 3475 26
LRT (Minneapolis, estimated) 1766 51
2011 Toyota Camry (2 person) 1738 52
2008 Toyota Prius (1 person) 1632 55
Bus (average occupancy = 9) 1577 57
Boeing 747-400 (fully loaded, maximum range) 1120 81
2011 Toyota Camry (4 person) 869 104
2008 Toyota Prius (2 person) 816 111
Nissan Leaf (1 person) 768 118
2008 Toyota Prius (4 person) 408 222
Nissan Leaf (2 person) 384 236
Bus (full) 355 255
Running (16 km/h) 267 339
Walking (moderate speed) 205 442
Nissan Leaf (4 person) 192 471
Cycling (16 km/h) 110 823


Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/energyexp.htm
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/08/light-rail-uses-twice-the-energy-as-driving.html
http://boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_400_prod.html

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