To start, I know that cars can go faster than typical speed limits because if you went on a freeway at 100km/h with a car that had the same top speed, you would essentially be pushing it to the limit constantly, which is not really good for the car.
My question is why do cars have their speedometers marked way higher than they can actually go? For example, my dad’s 2017 Toyota Yaris marks up to 220km/h but it could probably go no more than 150km/h tops, so could they not just mark the speedometer up to 150km/h because it’s not really going to go above that?
EDIT: FYI I live in Australia
In: Engineering
They are likely to be common parts that are shared between various models/manufacturers for economy purposes.
Additionally, whilst in a practical normal use sense the Yaris you mentioned may only go to that speed, don’t forget modification of the vehicle/engine and specific conditions (for example, going downhill, un-laden etc) can affect the achievable speed.
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