Why do they say "horse power" when dealing with cars?

Answer 1

The story goes that Watt was working with ponies lifting coal at a coal mine, and he wanted a way to talk about the power available from one of these animals. He found that, on average, a mine pony could do 22,000 foot-pounds of work in a minute. He then increased that number by 50 percent and pegged the measurement of horsepower at 33,000 foot-pounds of work in one minute.

1 hp = 33,000 foot - lbs of work per minute

Horsepower in High-performance Cars

A car is considered to be "high performance" if it has a lot of power relative to the weight of the car. This makes sense -- the more weight you have, the more power it takes to accelerate it. For a given amount of power you want to minimize the weight in order to maximize the acceleration.

After all of this is explained. The auto maker wants you to think that they have a car with plenty of hp and people related high hp with speed. So, they want it.

Answer 2

Horsepower is work done over time.

1 hp = 33000 pound - ft / 1 minute

that is moving 33000 pounds a foot in a minute.

The term was first used by James watts to sell his Steam engines. He wanted a way of rating the capabilities of the engine, so he measured the amount of coal that 1 horse could move up from a coal mine to 1 foot in 1 minute.


The standard for rating horsepower has been available for over 200 years, clever car manufacturers found ways to change the ratings of their engines to suit their needs. During the famous horsepower wars of the 1960s, manufacturers could get higher figures by testing without auxiliary items such as alternators or even water pumps.

Manufacturers sometimes responded by listing lower horsepower figures, forcing enthusiasts to look at the magazine test reports to determine what was going on.

In the early seventies the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) stepped in with standardized test procedures and the fiqures were more consistent.


Between 1922 and 1947, the Royal Automobile Club used a horsepower rating that was the basis for an automobile tax. The horsepower of an engine was determined by multiplying the square of the cylinder diameter in inches by the number of cylinders and then dividing that figure by 2.5. Using this dubious method, What we know of as a 385 horsepower motor found in the 2001 Z06 Corvette would be rated at only 48.67 hp!

Answer 3

the horsepower of a car represents the number of horses that would pull it to go as fast as it goes isnt it? hopefully someone can give u a better answer

Answer 4

because the person that invented the word "horse power" looked like a horse.

Answer 5

The original transportation was pulled by horses.

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#History_of_the_term_.22horsepower.22

James Watt was the first to use the term, according to an article on Widipedia. Or maybe John Smeaton. You'll have to read the article.

Answer 7

i hp means 746 watts and the appliance working at 1 hp means that it can do 746 watts of work in a sec

Answer 8

a unit of power equal to 550 foot-pounds per second (745.7 watts)

kinda weird, though, isn't it?