Work (energy) is force times distance. Since we're talking about energy divided by distance, it's actually just average force.
Actually newtons are just a constant factor (3.6) compared to Wh per km, since there are 3600 seconds in a hour while there are 1000 watts in a kilowatt. For example 144 Wh/km (or 14.4 kWh/100 km) would simply be 518 N. This also means that pushing along a Tesla on the highway at constant speed is roughly as hard as holding a 50 kg weight, giving you an intuitive sense of how "hard" it is to keep things moving.
Of course, in everyday life, since we buy electricity from our utilities in kWh rather than joules, it's more convenient to talk about kWh per km (or per mile).
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Work (energy) is force times distance. Since we're talking about energy divided by distance, it's actually just average force.
Actually newtons are just a constant factor (3.6) compared to Wh per km, since there are 3600 seconds in a hour while there are 1000 watts in a kilowatt. For example 144 Wh/km (or 14.4 kWh/100 km) would simply be 518 N. This also means that pushing along a Tesla on the highway at constant speed is roughly as hard as holding a 50 kg weight, giving you an intuitive sense of how "hard" it is to keep things moving.
Of course, in everyday life, since we buy electricity from our utilities in kWh rather than joules, it's more convenient to talk about kWh per km (or per mile).