How Much Gas Do ICE Vehicles Burn Up Just Idling At Red Lights?

Further to my previous post on CO2 in Evs and ICE vehicles, how much gas is burned over a car's lifetime idling away at red lights and stop signs? And then accelerating up to speed again?


A Honda Accord gets approximately 25 MPG in city driving, and 31 MPG on the Highway

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Assume 25 MPG for a Honda Accord in city driving.

200K miles / 25 MPG
= 8000 gallons of gas in the car's lifetime

8000 Gallons * $4.00 per gallon:
= $32,000 for gas in the car's lifetime

$32,000 / 200,000 Miles
= 16 cents per mile, just for the gasoline

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Assume 31 MPG for a Honda Accord for highway driving.



200K Miles / 31 MPG
= 6452 gallons of gas in the car's lifetime

6452 Gallons * $4.00 per gallon:
= $25,808 for gas in the car's lifetime

$25,808 / 200,000 Miles
= 12.9 cents per mile, just for the gasoline

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To approximate, assume that if the Accord drove (in the city) at a constant speed of 35 MPH, it would get the same mileage as on the highway, about 31 MPG. Actually, since there is much less wind resistance at 35 MPH, instead of 65 MPH, it would actually get even better gas mileage than 31 MPG.

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Over the 200K mile lifetime of the car:

8000 Gallons - 6452 Gallons
= 1548 gallons is spent idling away at red lights, and accelerating

1548 Gallons * $4 per gallon
= $6192.

1548 Gallons * 19 pounds of C02
= 29,412 pounds of CO2
= 14.7 tons of C02!


To summarize, here is what an ICE vehicle wastes idling away at red lights, and accelerating:

1548 gallons of gas!
29,412 pounds / 14.7 tons of C02!
$6192 spent doing no work at all!


Some might argue that ICE vehicles are sometimes on the highway, therefore, these numbers might be high. Ok, what percent of the time are they on the highway? 10%? 20%? 30%? Multiply the number appropriately, say, by .7 for 30% of the time on the highway. So, instead of 1548 gallons and 14.7 tons of CO2, it's "only" 1083.6 gallons that are wasted, and 10.29 tons of CO2 generated over the 200K lifetime of the vehicle.

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By contrast, when an electric vehicle is stopped, the motor is not idling, it is completely stopped. At that point, the EV is only using a small amount of electricity for the control systems and any accessories.

Only when an electric vehicle actually accelerates, does it use any electricity.

So, not only is an electric car much more efficient than an ICE vehicle at using energy while driving, it is also infinitely more efficient when stopped.

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What do you think? Do the oil companies like it when ICE cars burn up so many thousands of gallons of gas in their lifetime just idling away, but producing no useful work?