What is torque in cars/vehicles? And why do pickups have such low hp but alot of torque?

Question

What is torque in cars/vehicles? And why do pickups have such low hp but alot of torque?

In: 3

Answer 1

Torque is a measure of rotational force. Horsepower is a measure of power to the wheels.

Torque helps your car get started from being stopped – i.e it’s job is initial acceleration. Horsepower helps your car to reach and maintain the speed you want.

For towing, torque is the most important. With low torque you’ll never get the vehicle moving if it’s towing too much. For speed, horsepower is more important because the higher horsepower vs weight a car has the faster it can go. So sports cars will generally have high horsepower for their weight.

Torque is the wrestler or weight lifter that can push your car from stopped, but once it’s moving isn’t really good at getting it to go fast. Horsepower is the sprinter or runner that’s able to push the moving car to go really fast, but isn’t strong / heavy enough to actually get it going from stopped.