How Does Horsepower Work?

Do you find yourself bragging that your sports car has over 300 horsepower? Do you find yourself wondering what the difference is between 100 and 200 horsepower? Have you ever ridden a horse and wondered how much horsepower your horse has? We can answer all of these things for you, and more! Read here to find out how to measure horsepower in a 2015 Jeep Renegade.

There are a few weird measurements and tools that we use today that are straight out of the dark ages… Things like horsepower don’t relate very easily to what we understand because we don’t really use horses anymore for transportation, much less measurements. It can help to understand how horsepower was developed in order to get a grip on the idea what our engines are capable.

Way back in the day, a nice man who worked in coal mines used pony to lift loads of coal out of the mine. A mine pony could life approximately 22,000 foot-pounds of work per minute. This means that a mine pony could lift 22,000 lbs of coal 1 ft, per minute. Or 22lbs of coal 1,000 ft in one minute. He then calculated the difference in power between a pony and a horse and came up with the number 33,000 foot-pounds. A horse can do 33,000 foot-pounds of work per minute. This is the random measurement that we use today to say how powerful a vehicle’s engine is.

So, thinking about your 2015 Jeep Renegade, that has a horsepower rating of 160, it only makes sense that your vehicle holds the power to move 33,000 feet of coal 160 ft per minute. This measurement might seem relatively useless, but there you have it. The more horses you have, the faster you can move the coal.

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