The word horsepower comes from engineer James Watt. Back in the early 1800s he was working with horses to pull coal out of a mine. He needed a way to judge the power that the horses were exerting. He came up with 33,000 foot-pounds of work was being done every minute by the horse. This translates to one horse exerting 330 pounds of work 100 feet per minute.
In terms of engines horsepower gets hooked up to a dynamometer to determine the power. The dynamometer places a load on the engine and measures the amount of power that the engine can produce against the load.
Horsepower determines the performance power of a vehicle. A high performance vehicle is determined by power relative to the weight of the car. Therefore the lighter a car is the faster it can go.
So next time you hear someone refer to horsepower you will know that they are talking about how much power the vehicle can produce in relation to its weight. SUVs tend to have a high horsepower because they have larger engines and need to be able to tow with all the weight of the vehicle. However, just because the big engine is in a SUV doesn’t mean that it’s fast. Smaller vehicles with more horsepower are built for speed.
Come see us today at Brannon Honda and experience all of the ponies under our Honda hoods firsthand!
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