shingles wrote: HP this, HP that... that doesn't matter... it's the torque that matters.
You are right, most in the US wouldn't buy it because there's "not enough rated HP". But let's not confuse HP and torque. at 221lb-ft @2000rpm, that's way more torque than the 2.4 in the CRV today. Torque is what moves the car...
You obviously know nothing about how HP and torque relate to each other, the effects of gearing, the importance of gearing vs powerband, power to weight ratio, or any of the other variables that go into performance.
hp is the power, power can do a work over the time, and work can do a force over a distance...
torque is how fast that power can be delivered.
CR-V has a lot more of drag force from air (than a civic), so to move the CR-V across the air that acts like a fluid, you need to have power and 120 ps (118.36 hp) are not quite the best combination you want to have to reach 80mph in a blink entering a ramp in a interstate...
so, those 221 lb-ft are how fast those "Whatever HP" that engine delivers at 2000 rpm are delivered, which might be around 40 hp... aren't that much good in a freeway...
that is why the 140 hp passat in the highway passing times are not that good... even with the torque it has... and is a passat, not CR-V (talking about the drag force from air)...
Torque is "how fast that power can be delivered"? In what part of the torque/moment equation and unit is there a time variable? In other words, how is "lb. ft." or "Nm" related in any way to time, and therefore how "fast" power can be delivered? It has nothing to do with it! Horsepower is how much work you can do over time, in other words how "fast you can deliver torque"!
Your other statement is also weird. The torque is not "how fast" the engine delivers engine rpm. The engine's horsepower curve is a derivative of its torque curve, not the other way around. Multiply the torque curve X engine rpm / [550 lb.ft. / (2pi/60)].
An engine's torque curve is what defines the engine's horsepower- a lot of torque early in the rev band would also mean more power at low rpms; but engines of this design usually have rapidly falling torque at higher rpms, meaning they actually have less power at high rpms (hence peak power happens at lower torque). That's how diesels work, and that's why petrol engines usually produce more power even while having less peak torque and why they have faster acceleration times.
Torque is just that, how fast the angular speed changes against time or angular acceleration X moment of Inertia.
Power is defined by torque, I know, but also by angular speed (or angular velocity, if we are using vectors).
Torque is how fast that energy is delivered, no matter if it is just a few or a lot.
In the top end rpms of an engine, even with low torque, dragforce is beaten by power (which not only depends upon torque, but rotational speed as well), but it is just that, depends on HP (not torque only, but torque X rotational speed).
I think you need to refresh your physics, you've got everything flipped.