This post , part of a serial we ’re running all aboutelectric car , was written by Patrick E. George from HowStuffWorks.com .

For about as long as cars have been around , the matter to say when a powerful gondola roll by has been : " How much horsepower are you running ? " But now that we ’re moving to an age of galvanising vehicles , that may interchange to " How many kilowatt does that babe have ? "

Both H.P. and kW are measurements of mogul . Steam railroad engineer James Watt coined the terminus horsepower back in the 1700s . It have-to doe with to his theory that one horse can do33,000 understructure - pounds of employment in a minute , i.e. it can move 1,000 pounds of coal ( or some other target ) 33 foot in a minute .

In possibility , a 300 - HP engine is able-bodied to do the oeuvre of 300 horse in the same amount of prison term . Most country expend horsepower to measure out the turnout ofgasoline - power engine . But some countries ( like Australia ) prefer to expend kilowatt to value the output of gasoline engines .

James Watt is also the reasonableness we have the measurements watt and kilowatt , most commonly used to measure electrical energy . plain , a kW is 1,000 watts .

So whenNissansays that their upcoming LEAF electric fomite ( EV ) has an " 80 kW AC synchronous motor , " what does that mean ? Well , an AC motor mean anelectric motorthat run on alternate current , which allows it to reload the electric battery in the car throughregenerative brakingand other mean . Remember , it ’s the motor and not the battery that in reality drives the wheel on an electron volt like the LEAF – but that motor is power by the car ’s 24 kW - hour battery pack . That motor issimpler and much more automatically efficientthan an internal burning railway locomotive .

So how does an 80 kilowatt motor compare to a gasoline - powered engine ’s horsepower ? To image that out , we take to do some conversion . To convince kW to horsepower , we multiply the numeral of kilowatt by 1.34 . The result is that 80 kW is roughly equivalent to 107 horsepower .

And while 107 horsepower does n’t sound like much exponent for the LEAF – a five - door , five - passenger hatchback – a likewise sized Nissan Versa has roughly the same horsepower output signal . However , number do n’t mean everything . Due to the galvanizing motor ’s flat torsion curved shape and constant power output , the LEAF promises to save brisk acceleration around townsfolk .