Fight for Reason – Season 2 – Episode 6. First try at a car chase! Feel free to comment. Camera used: Panasonic AG-AF 100.

www.edmunds.com He was tall, looked fit in his spandex bicycling gear and — the reason we were a bit nervous — he was glaring at the little silver roadster with distaste. Had we inadvertently forced him off the road on one of our passes while photographing the electric-powered 2008 Tesla Roadster? No. His problem, it turns out, is that the car is “too quiet.” The Tesla, clean and silent but for the hiss of tires on asphalt and the whine of the electric motor’s cooling fan, disturbed him …

When talking about the torque of a car, it is the force which is related with the engine of the car. The engine applies a certain force on the shaft and also on the transmission. This is called as torque in simple words. When we multiply torque with the rotational speed, we’ll be getting what is called as power. You would have already come across the word horsepower, hp. It is nothing but 550 foot pounds of torque per second.

Well, your car and your friends car may sometimes be producing the same power. But the torque of the two cars may not be same. Do you know why? The reason is simple. It all depends on two factors and they are :- the distance moved, and the number of pounds moved. For the same reason, if we move 550 pounds 1 feet, and if we move 1 pound 550 foot, we would be getting the same horsepower which would be equal to exactly one horsepower. So, this is the reason why two cars with different torque produce same power.

Another reason for the above fact is that, the high torque engine would be would be rotating at a much slower rate than the low torque engine. So, both of the cars, even they are with different torques, they would be producing same power.

So, if you ask me, which is more important – torque or horsepower? I would say that torque is more important and we should be having good knowledge about what it does and how it helps the driver at various situations.