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Torque Doesn't Matter - Horsepower vs Torque!

Engineering Explained Oct 10, 2025 14:00
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Torque doesn’t matter, it’s all about horsepower. Say you have a car with 100 horsepower, but only 1 lb-ft of torque. Then take that same car, but now it has only one horsepower, but 1 BILLION pound-feet of torque. That sounds exciting, but once you learn that horsepower is the rate of doing work, in other words, how quickly you can move something from point A to point B, i.e., how fast a car is, you’ll realize the torque number becomes irrelevant. It’s like putting all your weight on a breaker-bar, lots of torque, but if the wrench doesn’t move, you’ve accomplished nothing - in other words, zero power. Take our billion pound-feet car example - if it actually had this much torque, but only one horsepower, the engine would be rotating at 0.000005252 RPM. At that speed, it would take over 132 days for the engine to rotate just one time. The car would be traveling so slowly, you wouldn’t even notice it was moving! Full HP vs Torque Video - https://youtu.be/u-MH4sf5xkY Subscribe to Engineering Explained for more videos! - https://goo.gl/VZstk7 Recommended Books & Car Products - http://amzn.to/2BrekJm Engineering Explained is a participant in the Amazon Influencer Program. Don't forget to check out my other pages below! Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/engineeringexplained Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/engineeringexplained EE Extra: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsrY4q8xGPJQbQ8HPQZn6iA
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