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At typical highway speeds, roughly what share of a car's engine power goes toward overcoming air drag?
AExactly 10 percent
BAbout 5 percent
COver 50 percent
DNearly 100 percent
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. Over 50 percent
1. The drag coefficient is highlighted as a distinct kind of quantity in the discussion of cars and drag.
2. At highway speeds, over 50 percent of the power of a car is used to overcome air drag.
3. That share is well above the 5 percent and 10 percent options offered as distractors.
4. It is also clearly less than nearly all of the power, since some power still goes to rolling resistance and drivetrain losses.
_Source: OpenStax College Physics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 5 "Further Applications of Newton's Laws: Friction, Drag, and Elasticity", section 5.2 Drag Forces_
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