Anons argue in comments
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Humans are actually unusually energy efficient for mammals when walking and even more so when cycling. Here's a little info graphic showing a breakdown.
One thing to keep in mind if you have a dog is they're less energy efficient than humans. While dogs can run faster, a reasonably fit human can easily out distance an equally fit dog when walking or distance running.
Nice graphic. ~~But it seems like it doesn't factor in kg of mass moved. A human and a bike is a lot lighter than a car or a horse. You could also argue that the vehicle weigh should be ignored but then again you could easily argue back that weight of goods move can possibly be a lot higher with a car if you load it up to capacity~~. Ignore that. I did not see it said 5 riders for the car
I'm back with better data. I'm assuming the travel path is perfectly flat because I don't feel like modeling elevation changes. I'm being energy efficient (read: lazy).
For cycling, I'm using the global average human weight of 62 kg, assuming the cycle is 8 kg, and the pace is 10 kph, which is pretty relaxed.
For walking, I'm using the 62 kg person walking at 4 kph.
For driving with petrol, we'll use the same spherical 62 kg human and a 2024 Toyota Prius with a fuel efficiency of 4.8 L/100 km and a mass of 1570 kg. One liter of petrol is approximately 8174 kcal. Double the energy expenditure for an estimate for your typical SUV.
For electric, I chose a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N with an energy efficiency of 21.2 kWh/100km and a mass of 2235 kg. One kilowatt-hour is approximately 860 kcal.
Walking: 0.74 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Cycling: 0.34 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Driving(p): 0.24 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Driving(e): 0.08 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Edit: keep in mind this includes the energy required for each vehicle to move its own mass. If we calculate the energy required just to move a single person and NOT the vehicle, we get:
Walking: 0.74 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Cycling: 0.38 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Driving(p): 6.32 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Driving(e): 2.96 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^
Only in an electric car jammed with 5 people (0.59 kcal•km^-1^•kg^-1^) do we begin to get close to walking efficiency again.
@[email protected]: this update might be closer to what you're looking for.
If only I could up vote your comment again. These numbers are really nice to have.