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
A well designed analogue speedo is easiest to read when the needle is at a certain angle that is easy to recognize by only using peripheral vision. In Europe, most cars have speedos that point straight upward in the range between 120 to 140 kph, so you can easily control your highway speed without having to stare at the speedo for a couple of seconds. Euro speedos typically terminate at 240 to 260 kph, which puts 120 or 130 right in the middle of the scale.
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