Eli5: why are car engines never an even number? E.g a 3L engine is always 2967, a 2L is 1984 etc.. why???
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I suspect it’s partly due to the way governments assess vehicles for licensing/tax fees with different rates for engine capacity. The thresholds might be at, say 1L, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 etc. The manufacturer will design the engine to be under a threshold to make it cheaper to own.
There may also be government fees for pollution (NOx) and CO2 emissions, and the ECU (engine management computer) can be tuned to limit the performance to reduce the cost of ownership.
When I was a teenager I had a motorbike which had a 125cc engine, because that’s all I could legally ride at my age. As it happened, it turned out to be a 150, but nobody ever knew, except me and a mechanic who once rebuilt the engine after a bearing failed.
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