eli5: what is torque in a car
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Torque is a measure of how strong the car can turn its wheels. Turning the wheels strong is different from turning them fast.
For example, imagine a wheel in a lab that is connected with 1:1 gear ratio to the engine. The wheel will be turning ridiculously fast like 2000RPM mid air, but if it’s touching the road, it’s gonna lose a lot of energy from friction and take a lot of time to accelerate, not to mention having limited top speed.
But if the wheel:engine has 1:10 ratio, the wheel turns only once for 10 engine rotations. That is, compare to 1:1 ratio, that same engine is doing 10 times more work to turn the wheel once. Torque tells you this characteristics.
Horse power is a performance of the engine and only the engine. Torque involves not only the engine but also crank shafts, transmission, wheels etc.
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