kW, hp, bhp and PS - what's the difference?

Moses7

I was browsing used car ads and noticed.

On one end we have kW and then we have hp, bhp and ps.

Same thing is if you read car news. What's the deal with HP, BHP and PS. Which one should we use when talking about power output?

Atomic Pineapple

PS or BHP is what I look at, for example my car standard from the Factory had 190PS or 187bhp there just different units of measurement

Moses7

So when we are talking about car specs we should usually talk about kW and PS?

CharlieCroker

PS, HP and BHP all work out at pretty much the same figure.
Kw is more of a European thing i think, if you multiply it be roughly 1.3, you get the BHP figure.

Tefral

Moses7 wrote: »

So when we are talking about car specs we should usually talk about kW and PS?

Not really. PS is a german method of measurement. Think it means horse strength or something. Its not really used except in japan or germany or the likes. Its very very close to BHP in terms of meaurement.

In Ireland and England we use BHP or kilowatts. This is like miles and kilometres. Hp (Horse Power) is an imperial measurement (used to determine steam engine output) and Kilowatts is a metric unit of power (now the standard)

BHP is mostly used and that is measurement of an engine's horsepower without the loss in power caused by the drivetrain and other auxilliary items such as waterpumps, aircon etc.

Suppose its also worth mentioning that when a car is dyno'd your given two figures, one at the wheels and one at the flywheel. The one at the fly wheel is closest to BHP in terms of measurement, but BHP at the wheels is actually a more accurate representation of the cars power. Mostly you will see massive BHP figures been quoted and these are at the flywheel because they sound better and sell cars.

If your every buying a car, torque is the fiqure that should most interest you, this is more true of the cars pulling power.
theres an saying amongst the modified car world:

"BHP sells cars, Torque wins races"

Moses7

thanks for clarifications.

btw. automakers should sit down and decide which one to use. Just went through some press releases and some of them use PS, some of them HP and some BHP.

Marlow

you can use any. Best is always to have both kW and bhp values in there.

The automakers and others made their minds up .. That's why kW came about, in Europe that is. However, us lazy arse users didn't cop on and now we've got several values

If you check, your logbook says the value in kW, if the VRO stuck it in there that is

/M

Moses7

thanks all.

I got confused as I was browsing a German site and there they had PS and here we have bhp.

Marlow

Moses7 wrote: »

thanks all.

I got confused as I was browsing a German site and there they had PS and here we have bhp.

As said earlier. It's nearly the same thing, just slightly differently measured, so there might be a variation of 3-5 bhp. But in general, you can anticipate, that the PS value nearly is the same as if measured in bhp.

PS = Pferde stärken, translated "horse power".

Oh yeah .. and then there is "HK", in Denmark ... .... that's "hestekræfter" and means "horse power", too ... calculated the same as PS.

/M

peasant

kw (Kilo Watts) is the officially sanctioned EU unit of power ...for decades now.

But lots of people just to refuse to understand it (me included ) and that's why PS/BHP still gets banded about.

Kinda like hectopascal and millibar

Marlow

peasant wrote: »

But lots of people just to refuse to understand it (me included ) and that's why PS/BHP still gets banded about.

Yep. Same with pints and pounds and various other traditional measurement methods.

/M

peasant

I just think kilowatt is somewhat inelegant.

I feel more flattered if someone tells me that my van has the power of 70 horses ...sounds so much better than the power of 51 standard hairdryers ...doesn't it just?

I mean the van is wheezy either way ...but 51 hairdryers just makes it so bleedin' obvious

tossy

cronin_j wrote: »

"BHP sells cars, Torque wins races"

Coined by a famous American who made cars that couldn't go round corners.

Torque is for puling livestock trailers.

Marlow

peasant wrote: »

I feel more flattered if someone tells me that my van has the power of 70 horses ...sounds so much better than the power of 51 standard hairdryers ...doesn't it just?

I'd love to see 1 or 2/3 of a hairdryer pull a horse carriage

/M

Alun

Marlow wrote: »

Oh yeah .. and then there is "HK", in Denmark ... .... that's "hestekræfter" and means "horse power", too ... calculated the same as PS.

In Dutch car tests you'll see references to pk as well ... paardekracht in Dutch means horse power.

T-Maxx

peasant wrote: »

kw (Kilo Watts) is the officially sanctioned EU unit of power ...for decades now.

But lots of people just to refuse to understand it (me included ) and that's why PS/BHP still gets banded about.

Kinda like hectopascal and millibar

Actually the hectopascal is a official metric (SI) unit.