Eli5: How come cars With more than 10x the horsepower of a normal car only has a top speed that is about 2-3x higher than one of a normal car.

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Fx: The Bugatti Chiron has just under 1500hp and a top speed of MAX 500kmh, while a Volkswagen Golf has 150hp and a top speed of around 200kmh.

In: Physics

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There are a lot of forces (namely friction and air resistance) that work to actively stop a car from speeding up past a certain point.

This all comes down to energy being proportional to mass but also to velocity squared; as you go faster, the harder the air is hitting you and pushing back, and it goes up exponentially as you keep speeding up. Similarly, all of the moving parts heat up exponentially more from friction as you increase the speed they rub against each other.

Because of that, you end up needing an exponential increase in power to maintain linear gains in speed.

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