eli5: What is horsepower in an engine
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To understand horsepower, you need to understand torque. All an engine’s torque is is how much turning power the engine can transmit to the wheels. Applying torque over a certain period of time over a certain distance on the circumference of the wheel equates to a certain amount of work being performed, which we measure in horsepower (usually) because a long time ago some dude’s horse could lift a bucket a certain distance in a certain time which was then defined as 1 horsepower.
To oversimplify, horsepower is a measure of how fast torque happens. Torque is what you want when you’re pulling a stump or getting off the line at the dragstrip. Horsepower (and aerodynamics) are what you want when you’re Bugatti or Hennessey trying to just go as fast as you can at the top end. You can make relatively little torque but still make decent horsepower if your engine redlines at a really high RPM, and conversely you can be a diesel semi-truck and make mountains of torque but make less horsepower than my SUV because those engines only rev to a fraction of what most cars will.
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