Question · Power, in numbers
What is the difference between torque and horsepower?
Torque is the engine's turning force, while horsepower measures how quickly that force can do work — roughly torque multiplied by engine speed.
Torque and horsepower measure two different things, even though they get quoted together on every spec sheet. Torque is the raw twisting force the engine produces — how hard it's pulling, right now, at the crankshaft. Horsepower folds in engine speed as well: it's a measure of how fast that twisting force can actually do work, which is why the same torque figure produces very different horsepower depending on how many revs an engine is spinning at when it delivers it.
In practice, torque is closely tied to the shove you feel from a standing start, while horsepower has more to do with sustained speed and how a car keeps pulling as revs climb. Both numbers matter, and neither tells the whole story without the other — see what is horsepower for the unit itself. For the kind of person who'll happily debate which one matters more, car gifts is the section to start with.
Written by Craig Fearn, Petrol & Ink.