eli5 Why are tractors able to pull hevier stuff than cars/trucks with 3x more horsepower?
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There are two important measurements of how “strong” something like a motor is.
The first is “Horsepower” and the other is “torque”.
Imagine using a motor to pull a rope with a heavy weight at the end of it.
Horsepower determines how quickly the the weight gets pulled in, torque determines how heavy a weight the rope can pull. So high torque, low horsepower and the engine can tow in a really heavy weight, just slowly. High horsepower low torque the engine can tow in a small weight really quickly, but probably can’t pull in a super heavy weight at all. This is a bit of an oversimplification because engines and vehicles are more complicated and you often really want a good mix of both but it’s good enough for this concept.
A tractor can pull a heavy thing because it has high torque, but a tractor isn’t going to go 250 miles and hour down the autobahn because it’s design is for torque, not horsepower.
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