Question For Australians

"MtrRider Just Wants Doritos" (MtrRider) 02/13/2014 at 05:00 • Filed to: None

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So I was poking around the Holden website building a Commodore SS-V Sportwagon and I noticed something strange. You use Kw, not horsepower, as your unit of power. The car has a 6.0 v8 making 270 Kw. Without Google, which tells me that equals 367 hp, this is about as helpful to me as Melbourne's weather forecast.

What the fuck is a Kw and why don't you use horsepower like the rest of the developed world? No wonder nobody wants to build cars there any more.

Desu-San-Desu > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:01

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Kilowatt.

MtrRider Just Wants Doritos > Desu-San-Desu 02/13/2014 at 05:02

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Light bulb.

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:07

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It's not only in Australia, South African publications and websites also list power in kW.

ToyDeathbot > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:09

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because scientific accuracy.

ToyDeathbot > Goshen, formerly Darkcode 02/13/2014 at 05:12

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it must be something to do with the southern hemisphere!

JustWaitingForAMate > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:12

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Because metric system is best system.

MtrRider Just Wants Doritos > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 05:15

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Not by miles!

JustWaitingForAMate > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:18

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Why is there such push back from the US to move to the metric system? It's easier to teach, convert and understand.

JustWaitingForAMate > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 05:19

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And your 6 inches becomes 15 cm! Sounds bigger doesn't it?

MtrRider Just Wants Doritos > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 05:25

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And 270 kw becomes 367 hp. And since I'm more likely to discuss engine output with people than... other things, I'll take my horsepower. As does Europe, Florida and most other places.

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > ToyDeathbot 02/13/2014 at 05:26

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Or Commonwealth.

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:30

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Continental Europe uses PS (also spelled as PK for Sweden, CH for France, CV for Portugal, Spain and Italy, and probably a few more) as a power measure, which is slighlty more than the Anglo-American (B)HP.

Dusty Ventures > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 05:57

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Feeling generous? ;)

Tentacle, Dutchman, drives French > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 05:58

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One watt is the rate at which work is done when an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton .

Easy really. One unit of power (Watt) is based on one unit of time (second), one unit of force (Newton) and one unit of distance (meter). At the same time, that one unit of force and one unit distance are also a unit of energy (Joule).

Whereas horsepower is somewhat arbitrarily defined (because which horsebreed do you use as proverbial yardstick?) as

33,000 foot-pounds of work in one minute.

It works out that one horsepower = 745.69 Watt. Well, for one version of horsepower. With a lot of digits left out. Because there are several versions. There is also

One metric horsepower is the power to raise a mass of 75 kilograms against the earth's gravitational force over a distance of one metre in one second.

Which is 735.49 Watt. Again with missing digits. Electrical horsepower dispenses with the extra stuff and rounds it off to 746 Watt.

So a TL;DR here: Metric (Watt) is much easier to define (no conversions, no fractions) and much clearer to define than non-Metric.

aeternitas > Goshen, formerly Darkcode 02/13/2014 at 06:06

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Germany is using kW and PS

Dusty Ventures > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 06:08

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I like the metric system for most things. Length, weight (mass), volume, speed. The only one that bothers me is temperature. In Celsius the difference between freezing and a fairly hot day is about 35 degrees. I'm used to 35 degrees being the difference between freezing (32 F) and just cold enough that you need to contemplate a sweater (67 F, or about 19.5 C). After living with the Fahrenheit system all my life it's hard to become familiar and comfortable with a system where such a small numeric change can represent such a large sensational temperature change.

EDIT: That said, I also wish there were a commonly-used unit of measure between the centimeter and the meter, much as we have the foot between the inch and the yard. I realize there is an in-between unit, the decimeter, but it isn't used. which I suppose makes sense considering how long a decimeter actually is.

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > aeternitas 02/13/2014 at 06:16

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Germany uses PS. kW is only used for official technical statements and whatnot.

Conan > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 06:16

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We're stubborn. Just like you.

aeternitas > Goshen, formerly Darkcode 02/13/2014 at 06:27

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you said it: official.

Audi A3 : kW and PS in Parantheses

Volkswagen doesn't list PS at all: http://www.volkswagen.de/de/models/golf…

spanfucker retire bitch > Dusty Ventures 02/13/2014 at 07:20

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67 degrees? Sweater weather? What the hell is this crap?

Saf1 > Goshen, formerly Darkcode 02/13/2014 at 08:38

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Actually no one else in the commonwealth is using this hipster unit!

Jon-o > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 09:11

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I was watching an Australian car review and they use "newton meters" as torque figures. I was very confused.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > JustWaitingForAMate 02/13/2014 at 09:14

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I prefer to think of it as 100 mm.

RazoE > MtrRider Just Wants Doritos 02/13/2014 at 10:02

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Dusty Ventures > spanfucker retire bitch 02/13/2014 at 11:11

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I've been told (admittedly mostly by Texans) that 67 is cold. I've been in t-shirts down to -9 F, so I figured maybe they're a better judge of what's considered cold than I am.

spanfucker retire bitch > Dusty Ventures 02/13/2014 at 11:17

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If it's not 85 degrees, Texans think it's cold. 67 degrees is practically pool weather!

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > Saf1 02/13/2014 at 13:17

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Good, then. Just the kangoroos and the impalas :P