This one's been bugging me off and on, too. For starters, the Netflix you watch is probably a couple streets away. Netflix OCAs have just been getting smaller and more efficient, same as anything else in networking. If the box pulls down a peak of 300W and it's literally ALL THE NETFLIX IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD we're a long way from "driving a car ten miles." Then the question becomes "how much energy actually goes into the packets" and it doesn't take too long to discover that "kWh/GB" is a statistically-significant search term, providing an answer of 5 kWh/GB in 2012 and 0.06 kWh/GB in 2018. Part of that is probably a better estimate; most of that is probably flash storage. So now the question becomes how much GB is a Netflix. Although peak data usage is substantially higher than typical data usage, you can average and discover that Netflix, at 1080p, burns between 2 and 2 1/2 GB per hour. The final question, then, is what are you watching on? Let's assume you have a reasonably new 50" LCD. The Samsung Amazon wants to sell me burns 55W. That would be 0.055 kWh. Data side: 0.06 kWh * 2.5 = 150W TV side: 55W Hour of Netflix: 205W So. This handy calculator tells me that it'll take $44 to get a Chevy Spark from my house to my wife's work (10 minutes, mostly flat, 2.9 miles) 5 days a week, twice a day, 52 weeks a year. Breaking that down, that's 440 kWh a year, or 8.46 kWh a week, or 846W per trip. The Chevy Spark can make it 0.7 miles in the amount of energy it takes me to watch an hour of Netflix. It'll run out of juice in about two and a half minutes. That's not quite far enough to get to the nearest Redbox, and then I'd have to get back. And I drive a 911 so this "Chevy Spark" nonsense is moot.