Power To Weight Ratio

The term power-to-weight ratio refers to how much power a car has relative to its weight.This is one of the better ways of measuring the performance potential of a car, and is a much better way of comparing one car to another instead of simply considering power alone.The reason for this is simple – the lighter the car, the less energy that’s required to move it. Consider the below example:

• Power: 240hp
• Weight: 993kg
• 0-100km/h Time: 4.5 Seconds

• Power: 248hp
• Weight: 1715kg
• 0-100km/h Time: 6.3 Seconds

The two cars both have a similar amount of power, but the X3 SUV is much heavier than the lightweight 4C so takes 40% longer to hit 100km/h.

Two cars may have an identical power-to-weight ratio but that doesn’t mean that they will have identical performance.There are a number of other factors that impact a car’s performance as well, power-to-weight ratio simply serves as a good starting point for your performance comparison.