That's peak power. You don't run at 100kph straight for hours but you will run your gaming rig at say 500W for three hours in a day (particularly for people willing to shell out money for such a gaming rig). The total energy per day might not be that different, you'd have to account for how much is involved in commuting in traffic.

My daily commute is 48.6 miles, at about 30 miles/gallon. 1.62 gallons per day, which when combining the energy content of the gas (38.685 kwhr/gal) and the refining energy cost (4 kwhr/gal) is a daily vehicle energy usage of 69.15 kilowatt-hours, plus whatever I use getting lunch. The greenhouse effect of my gaming rig is next to irrelevant.

Tesla's claimed energy usage is around 180Wh/km.

Running your gaming rig for three hours a day at 500W (1500 Wh) would therefore be the equivalent of driving 8km (5 miles) in a modern electric car. Still ok comparatively.

You really won't run your rig at 500W all the time either. That's also peak power.

Very few people have computers capable of cooling a constant 500W.

>You really won't run your rig at 500W all the time either.

While this is true, I don't agree with your statement about cooling.

It's very possible to have sustained 500W+ draw while playing a modern game on a 3080/3090. Sometimes you might play games for a few hours with a fairly consistent 500/600W power draw - honestly I think it's cheap and easy to cool this kind of load. A few 140mm fans and a mid-level CPU cooler should be enough.

> A few 140mm fans

Yeah... Nearly nobody has a few 140mm fans on their computers. Most people won't have any fan lager than 120mm. Powerful computers usually have a pair of them. Maybe 3 if you count the PSU.

People who are using 3080/3090's are much more likely to have systems with larger numbers of fans. And they usually have far more than two.

That's not peak power. 20kW is around 30hp. Peak power for an average north American car is more like 150kW(!).

> You don't run at 100kph straight for hours

Plenty of people going on ski trips in Europe will run their car at 130kph for hours.

There are literally millions of kilometers of highway all over the world with a speed limit of 100km/h. I think the total number of man-hours spent at that speed or higher globally would be pretty shocking.

My commute to and from the office alone would be about 90 minutes at that speed.

Do you live 150km away from your office? A super commuter commutes >50 miles one way, that's a little over half of 90 miles (which is 150km). Again, the point is what matters isn't peak power or rate of any quantity but the integral, the total. Most of the time commuting is spent moving much slower than 60mph.

In Denmark, the limit is 50kmh inside the city, 80kmh on normal roads outside the city, and 110-130 kmh (68-80 mph) on the motorway, which is where a lot of people drive most of the commuting distances. So the average speed is likely not going to be at least 60 or higher.

No, I'm about 60km one direction - I live rural and work in a nearby city. Each direction is still only 40 minutes or so, so it's not as onerous as it might sound.

Stop and go traffic uses more than 20kW of power.

The grandparent gave specific examples of "foreign ski holidays, gasoline-powered road trips". Extra context for those was provided with an example benchmark by the child comment. Original hypothesis was not about everyday car use.

> That's peak power. You don't run at 100kph straight for hours

Have you been to the US? I regularly drive 4+ hours at 125kmh+ anytime I'm trying to get to the Sierra, or Utah or Arizona, which is often.

In fact, almost every weekend I drive at least 3 hours round trip, half freeway half mountain roads, if I go to the closest good climbing. 5+ if I go to my preferred locale. The distances people regularly cover are enormous.