Horsepower vs Torque - A Simple Explanation

Now I understand how my wife feels when I explain something to her about cars...

Perfectly Understood. Now can you repeat the part where you said all the stuff about the things.

Thanks, I almost understood.

I think it’s easier for cyclists to understand this because at some point you cannot press harder any faster, but you can drop a gear press just as hard much faster and make the vehicle go faster.

This Guy : Explains everything perfectly My mind = ok we need a longer car for more power 😆

This is how it would be thought of in a physics lesson. It might help. Torque is a turning force. And you can use that force to turn, or revolve, something - like a screwdriver. And by applying torque, you can make that screwdriver turn a revolution. By doing so, you have completed 'work' (though a fairly small amount). Torque is measured in either Newton Metres, or Lbs Feet. In this explanation, we will just keep things simple - think of torque as brute strength. Horse Power is a method of measuring how much work is done in a given time. You need to know how much torque is applied, multiplied by how many revolutions per minute that torque is applied, to work out how much horsepower is achieved. This is the way I think of it... There are two piles of bricks, one hundred in each pile, and they need moving across a building site. A muscle man and a marathon runner challenge each other to a race. To see who can move a pile of the bricks the fastest. The chap with a lot of muscle and strength (we will think of him as having the strength to apply lots of torque) is built like Ronnie Coleman. He is big and immensely strong but heavy and quite slow as a result. He is quite capable of scooping up a whole load of bricks and carrying them. He can carry 20 bricks at once, but he SLOOOOWLY.... walks with them. He could move all the bricks in 5 trips and take 10 minutes. The seriously fit runner, who is light and fast on his feet (think of Mo Farrah) might only carry 2 bricks - 1 in each hand - and sprints across the ground. He has a low amount of muscle (or torque) but his legs can run (a form of revolution for our example) at a really fast rate. It takes the runner 50 trips to move the bricks. Also in 10 minutes Now if they both complete the task in the same time, then they have both done equal amounts of WORK (which can be measured in Horsepower or Kilowatts) and It's a draw. However, if Ronnie Coleman could manage to carry 25 bricks per trip, at the same pace, he does it in 4 trips, and in just 8 mins. He will have put out more horsepower. He carries bricks at a slow pace compared to Mo, but by applying more strength (or torque), each rpm is doing more effort. Then it's just a case of multiplying the two together. Torque X RPMs. However, Mo Farrah - still only carrying 2 bricks - refuses to be beaten!!! He hasn't got the strength (or torque) to carry more than 2 bricks, but he can pick up the pace instead. So he runs faster and his legs are a blur!!! . He finishes the task faster than Ronnie, let's say 7 mins. His body, although weaker at lifting, has now worked harder, because his low amount of torque, could be multiplied by very high revs. Think of a motorbike screaming along at 16000 rpms.... Lots and lots and lots of small, easy efforts, all added up to one huge effort to beat Ronnie. And he has now worked the hardest Mo Farrah's incredibly hard work (measured in horsepower) meant he was moving more bricks in a given amount of time. Keep this example in mind and think of your car engine. Horsepower is simply a way of measuring work done in a given time. It is not a unit of force, or a measure of how fast it can travel. The ability of an engine to provide power is achieved either by applying large amounts of torque at low revs, or applying low amounts of torque at high revs. In real life Ronnie Coleman is built like a truck and would most likely win the competition in our example. He would be more efficient as he wouldn't be wasting time picking up and putting down bricks 50 times. Plus Mo Farrah would probably have to run at some ridiculous speed like 40 mph. It's just not feasible. You couldn't expect a motorcycle to carry bricks - it's not designed for it. The truck is. An articulated lorry tractor unit or semi - truck (if you're in America), might have 600 or 700 horsepower but that is only an indication of how much work it is capable of. If comparing two vehicles to see which is faster, then look at POWER TO WEIGHT ratio. Although so many other factors affect performance: air drag, rolling resistance, a final drive ratio affects acceleration, fwd,rwd, awd, tyre traction.... etc etc etc. Its never simple. When office workers talk of how much work they have done that day - scientifically that's not really the case. It does not take a lot of horsepower or Watts to pick up a few pens, or shuffle some paper. The man who's outside, lifting and carrying all day long, has worked much harder. Something my boss could never understand when I tried telling him that office work is not real work! (sorry office workers. I mean no offence; that's physics!)

I understood the introduction. you lost me at 99 percent of the video.

Rewatched some of your early videos after being a viewer of about two years and the progress of how you come across on camera is incredible. Practice makes perfect and you can tell that you’re far more comfortable on camera now than you once were. Long time fan, love the videos.

Jason, you’ve just answered the question that I’ve had for years! I knew of torque, I knew of horsepower, but couldn’t determine how they intermingled on a power curve. Mind blown today when you pulled it all together

there's no school like youtube

There's no denying the fact that this is the most simplest explanation one can find regarding the difference between torque and horsepower. Spectacular work Jason!

I'm on a 32 inch monitor and at 4K it feels like you're sitting and explaining this right in front of me in person while I'm sitting on the opposite side of the table. Love the quality and explanation!

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Archimedes

Man, I swear, between you and ChrisFix, I get a good dosage of car related knowledge, you two guys and a few out there are really professional when it comes to stuff like this, thanks for helping us out with these amazing vids🤘

Thanks for watching everyone! I think one question that may come up after watching this is "Why does maximum acceleration happen at peak horsepower, rather than peak torque?" It's a fair question, because in a single gear ratio, peak acceleration (the force pressing you back in your seat) occurs at peak torque. I have a video explaining this in great detail: https://youtu.be/cb6rIZfCuHI Edit: Also, if you're confused about the equation for Horsepower in this video not including 5,252, I did this to simplify the video. 5,252 is a scaling factor only appropriate for imperial units, it is not useful if you use kW or N-m, so it's inappropriate to use 5,252 in a general equation. I will include a video in the future explaining exactly where (through derivation) 5,252 comes from.

I think explicitly stating (or showing how) you can compensate for less torque with gearing but you can't compensate for less hp with anything helps clarify.

You lost me at "hello everyone and welcome"

Thumbs up for the explanation and LEGO Shell Limited Edition Ferrari F40 with pull-back action :P

Nothing causes more arguing and dissension than Politics, Harley Davidsons and the definition of torque.

Think of it like this: Torque is how much weight you can bench press, horsepower is how many reps you can perform with that weight in a certain time frame. EDIT: I tried to keep it simple by mentioning "time frame" because you have to have some way of measuring how fast the weight is being moved in the example I've given. Which is confusing some people on RPM's vs horsepower. Think of your RPM's as being your rep count. And your horsepower is how fast you can move the weight to that rep count. For example..if you have two bodybuilders that have the same torque but different horsepower, it's going to take the one with a higher horsepower less time to get to 10 reps than it will the bodybuilder with the lower horsepower. Even though they are both lifting the same amount of weight and doing the same amount of reps.