Obviously cars have terrible energy efficiency. The most efficient vehicle is a bicycle, since exercise is good for you it’s arguably negative energy usage.
As for time efficiency, you have to consider car dependent development as a package. Everything spreads out, so overall there may not be an improvement in time efficiency, especially when you factor in the longer travel time of people not in cars. You could even consider the time spent working to pay for the car, or the time lost from people killed by the car, and I doubt cars would come out particularly time efficient then.
![[image] Cars are an incredibly inefficient way to move people](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a55ce0e0-9740-4207-9d5f-64bc68231a3d.jpeg){kind=link}
Inefficient energy wise. Not timewise.
This visualization is space efficiency.
Obviously cars have terrible energy efficiency. The most efficient vehicle is a bicycle, since exercise is good for you it’s arguably negative energy usage.
As for time efficiency, you have to consider car dependent development as a package. Everything spreads out, so overall there may not be an improvement in time efficiency, especially when you factor in the longer travel time of people not in cars. You could even consider the time spent working to pay for the car, or the time lost from people killed by the car, and I doubt cars would come out particularly time efficient then.
They’re measuring how many people can pass through a fixed point in space in an hour, not how long it takes one person to get from point A to point B.
So not really time or energy, but quantity.
Or throughput, which is important in areas with congestion, like busy streets and highways.
And usage of space. And money, at least if you include all the externalities.