I recently got into cars.
In: Engineering
A gear ratio is, essentially, about the number of teeth on each gear.
Imagine you have a gear with 20 teeth connected to a smaller gear with only 10 teeth.
There is a handle attached to the first gear.
If you rotate the first gear once, the second gear will rotate *twice*. So we would say these gears have a 1:2 ratio.
This has all sorts of applications in tons of things, not just cars. But, in cars, a “lower gear” has a lower gear ratio. Let’s just say it’s 1:1. Every turn of the crankshaft turns the axel one time. This means there’s more *torque*. That’s how much rotational force is being applied. High torque is really important to get the car moving from a stop, as it takes a lot of power.
Once you’re moving a bit, you’ll want to go to a higher gear. Let’s say 1:2. Every turn of the crankshaft results in *two* turns of the axel. Now the engine doesn’t have to run at such high rpms to maintain your speed.
As you go faster and faster, you generally want higher gears so you’re not straining the engine.
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