To accelerate a vehicle we need to put kinetic energy into it and Power is the measure of how fast we can do that.
From a technical capability standpoint, torque is a useless measure. With a motor of a given power you can always gear it up or down to whatever torque you need (assuming a lossless transmission system).
If we take two identical trucks with 10k lb trailers on them and one’s a 800ft-lb diesel and one’s a 300ft-lb gas, both with 400hp, they sould realisticly accelerate and climb a hill at the same rate. The diference is the gas engine will be screaming at 6/7/8000 rpm and guzzling gas. (This also assumes no other factors like heat cone into play, the gas may not be able to maintain as much power due to cooling system designs or other factors).
Torquey-er engines also tend to feel better from a driveability standpoint but that’s not representative of capability.
What? Torque tells you what force can be applied at what distance from the center of rotation. Acceleration is a function of mass and force. Of course more torque is going to get you to accelerate faster.
To accelerate a vehicle we need to put kinetic energy into it and Power is the measure of how fast we can do that.
From a technical capability standpoint, torque is a useless measure. With a motor of a given power you can always gear it up or down to whatever torque you need (assuming a lossless transmission system).
If we take two identical trucks with 10k lb trailers on them and one’s a 800ft-lb diesel and one’s a 300ft-lb gas, both with 400hp, they sould realisticly accelerate and climb a hill at the same rate. The diference is the gas engine will be screaming at 6/7/8000 rpm and guzzling gas. (This also assumes no other factors like heat cone into play, the gas may not be able to maintain as much power due to cooling system designs or other factors).
Torquey-er engines also tend to feel better from a driveability standpoint but that’s not representative of capability.
What? Torque tells you what force can be applied at what distance from the center of rotation. Acceleration is a function of mass and force. Of course more torque is going to get you to accelerate faster.
Remember, power is torque times RPM, which is your accelerating force. It’s a functionally useless measurement without RPM.
An engine with half the torque revving twice as fast will make an equal amount of power, and accelerate equally fast.