MY CRUSH FOR THE SCHOOL BUS

Since it is still the season of love, I will be talking about a vehicle that has recently won my heart. For a while now, I have been taking the school bus and she has been trying to get my attention. First off, she always keeps me waiting at the junction in the mornings but as a gentleman, I exercise some patience and soon enough I see her from a distance adorned in white with blue stripes on both sides outlining the school's logo. My classmates and I all jump in and she is filled to capacity but she is still able to haul every single one of us to school without breaking a sweat. A Queen indeed, purr!

The Toyota Coaster (My New Found Love)

The question now is, what gives my school bus the ability to carry such amount of load and why can't a normal car do the same, irrespective of size? The answer to this question falls under two words, TORQUE AND HORSEPOWER. Let's discuss...

TORQUE

Simply put, torque is a measurement of your car's ability to do work. So, the more torque, the greater amount of power an engine can produce. It was quite difficult getting the exact specifications for the current school bus, so we are going to use the 2023 Toyota Coaster as a reference. The 2023 Coaster is powered by a 4 cylinder Diesel engine that fires 133 horsepower and 390 Nm torque. Notice that the torque of the Coaster is literally 3 times that of the horsepower.

2023 Toyota Coaster Interior

The Coaster is a commuter, the engineers know that no one is taking it to the drag strip for quarter mile times, hence it is fitted with an engine that can haul a bunch of load and people from point A to B. But do not be deceived, the Coaster can still run meaning it won't be a snail on the high way but it would not move as quick as a 2023 Toyota Corolla but why? Because the Corolla has more horsepower, which brings us to the next subheading.

HORSEPOWER 

For cars, horsepower translates into speed. So if you want to go faster, and get up to speed quicker, you need more horsepower. Whenever you check for the fastest cars in the World, you always see a horsepower rating but rarely ever see the attached torque because when it comes to speed, no one cares how much load the car can carry but rather how quickly it can shift through all it's gears until it attains maximum speed.

Nissan GT-R

My favorite car is the Nissan GT-R, so that will serve as our base. The GT-R makes 565 horsepower and 467 lb-ft of torque. Notice that the horsepower of the GT-R is slightly more than the torque. They could be about the same figures in some cars like the Bugatti Chiron has 1,500 horsepower and 1,600 Nm of torque, so "it is as quick as it is strong" but you rarely see a car aiming to break lap or drag records with more torque than horsepower. Hence, your 2023 Corolla is faster than your 2023 Coaster but it can never carry as much load as the Coaster can, relative to their difference in size.

The picture below helps to simply the whole HORSEPOWER vs TORQUE gist;

In Summary...

So yes, my crush for the white coaster school bus is no longer a secret and I am going to miss her so much for the next three weeks. Y'all should not let her know tho, so she doesn't begin to form for me. Anyway, this is a very simplified explanation of the difference between horsepower and torque and how their numbers determine the functionality of a car. 

Thank you for reading and always remember to Turbo that engine!