Hi guys, I know that you can get horsepower by knowing the watts of a eletric car/engine but which kW do I use in this situation?
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Never use the word “engine” for an electric car, and never use the word “motor” to describe a gas engine.
There are 746 watts per 1 horsepower.
So on this motor, just set voltage to 746 volts. Now amps = horsepower.
When you see a vehicle’s power being advertised, it’s always the maximum amount of power that the motor can produce.
Let’s look at the 3.5L V6 PowerBoost hybrid engine in the 2021-2022 model Ford F-150. It’s advertised as having 430hp but only gets that from around 4500-5500rpm and only with a certain octane of gas.
In this case, the electric motor would be advertised as 180kW / 240hp.
The actual power at any time depends on a number of factors, including the input power level (fuel octane/battery voltage) and RPM. For an electric engine, heat from continuous running can also reduce power output, as seen from the 30min values in the chart.
I actually doubt that most ice cars can reject heat produced at peak power output indefinitely, I just never saw that listed as a continuous power output. But yeah, peak numbers are what matter for everything but extreme use cases.
I was curious so I searched for “kw to hp” and it came right up.
116 kW = 155.559 hp
If you want the others you can do it yourself, slacker. :)
.746kW = 1 horsepower.
I use 750w / HP. It’s easier to remember and close enough for us lazy converters.
It depends on what voltage you’re running it at, first of all. Then it depends on what you’re trying to do with it. If you’re trying to market the car, you’d probably use the Pmax value (and honestly, that’s probably perfectly reasonable because you don’t usually use the entire output of the motor for more than a few seconds at a time). If you’re looking for the maximum it can sustain constantly for 30 minutes (not super relevant in a car unless you’re doing something strange like towing up a very long hill, or maybe certain types of racing), then you’d use the second, smaller number.