New car sales and BHP

Daveotto

Daveotto

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Mar 5, 2013
Messages
3,431
Reaction score
5,336
Points
113
Location
Hertfordshire, UK
Does anyone know if there are any Uk stats on new car sales and BHP.

One of the things that has been taxing my brain during the annual holiday is I am curious to know if my new 2.0 150BHP A3 will be among the top 5% or 10% of new car sales in term of BHP.

I know generally BHP's have gone up in the last few yeas but equally the global warming brigade have meant there also smaller more efficient engines on the road.

Can anyone shed any light on this.
 
I think 150 bhp is no where near that higher a percentage, theres a lot of 4WD's people carriers etc. with higher bhp but not that quick. power to weight or 0 - 60 might be more revealing depending what your trying to gauge against.
you got me curious as is a really good question, so I had a look around and found this article based on 1975, 1987 and 2010 figures, the artical is by an american so is not on uk figures? , Not sure if it is accurate and bhp quoted was much higher than i would guessed.
unless there counting all vehicals .i.e. lorries etc. but doesn't say that.

i would have guessed at uk average 125 bhp ish and 0 - 60 at 10 secs having looked around
so would put 150 bhp and it at top 30% ish as my guess, but 0 - 60 of 8.5 ish at top 20% ish

This was article
Every Car Is Now A Performance Car
Seams convincing by figures may not just be cars or something to get that high?

hope someone can find better figures than me, I would love to know.
 
I think you need your car delivered now.... definitely too much time on your hands! ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Daveotto and Fragup
hittchy said:
I think you need your car delivered now.... definitely too much time on your hands! ;)
Click to expand...

Yep on both counts, have a whole list of similar questions in my head, amazing what your mind wanders to when floating aimlessly in the pool on a Lilo.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hittchy
Fragup said:
I think 150 bhp is no where near that higher a percentage, theres a lot of 4WD's people carriers etc. with higher bhp but not that quick. power to weight or 0 - 60 might be more revealing depending what your trying to gauge against.
you got me curious as is a really good question, so I had a look around and found this article based on 1975, 1987 and 2010 figures, the artical is by an american so is not on uk figures?
Click to expand...

Good article -US cars always have much higher BHP than UK equivalents with anything up to 25 - 30% powering the arctic like air con, so not surprised at that, typical american cars have high BHP, low torque and handle like ****....have driven a fair few and never had anything I would like to drive at home.

Would be surprised if average Uk BHP was anywhere near 125Bhp, would guess at something around 105 - 110, but maybe a better measure of where my car night lie in terms of performance would power/weight ratio.
 
Yer, americans like there gas guzzelers, 'gas' is so cheap in USA, I couldn't find a uk version.
my last car was a 2.2 Ltr. Diesel 140 bnp Honda civic s type gt, so similar performance and was very happy with that, and is the best car I've had so far.
Only ordered my S Line C.O.D (which is similar performance again this morning) so been a bit excited and geeking out a bit on A3's.
Will have to find something more productive to do for next 4 months while I wait !
 
Power will be a very skewed distribution so mean, median and mode will be quite different. Pointless to talk of an average without being more specific.
Also agree that power to weight ratio is more interesting. For example the Kia Sedona has at least 185bhp but also weighs at least 2000kg so takes 10.9 to 15.7 seconds to get to 60. Not a performance car! :)
 
RossR said:
Power will be a very skewed distribution so mean, median and mode will be quite different. Pointless to talk of an average without being more specific.
Also agree that power to weight ratio is more interesting. For example the Kia Sedona has at least 185bhp but also weighs at least 2000kg so takes 10.9 to 15.7 seconds to get to 60. Not a performance car! :)
Click to expand...

Good point let's rephrase the question.

Does anyone know the distribution curve of car sales in the uk when sales are plotted against power weight ratio, or alternatively does anyone have the % sales figures for the upper and lower quartile and deciles of power weight ratio
 
Daveotto said:
Good point let's rephrase the question.

Does anyone know the distribution curve of car sales in the uk when sales are plotted against power weight ratio, or alternatively does anyone have the % sales figures for the upper and lower quartile and deciles of power weight ratio
Click to expand...

Now I'd be very interested in those figures. I'll be impressed if anyone can find them though. Might be more likely to find statistics for 0 to 60 times.
 
There are several ways you could work this out if you have the time. You could use a site like:How Many Left?

They list cars by both the manufacturer and the model. You'd have to do a lot of BHP spadework yourself but it could be done.

You could ask DVLA via a Freedom of Information act request but they'd probably say they only collect model information and not BHP, same for the Office of National Statistics - though that might be worth a try they collect all sorts of weird stats!

However I agree with RossR what average are we talking about. I like the old pun: "Bill Gates walks into a bar, on average everyone in the bar is a millionaire".

I'd look at it this way. The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. So the UKs most popular car is the Ford Fiesta (that's our 20% for now) and until the ST was released none of those made 150bhp. I'm guessing based on that alone the UK's 'average' BHP is well below 100 let alone 150.

Why do I say that? Because the 80/20 rule repeats across all sectors so the top 1% (99th percentile) of cars are many times more powerful than those in the top 2% and so on. Reverse this with the many older cars on the road in the UK and there is no way the average is 150bhp.

For a more practical experiment next time you're in a small car park count the number of cars with more or less than 150bhp! I suspect it will be a tiny percentage (*law, accountancy or IT firm car parks excluded - for that see the 80/20 rule!).
 
audi upgrades
  • Like
Reactions: Daveotto
According to the IICT the average power output of uk new car sales in 2010 was around 91kw, my 2.0Tdi is 110kw so approx 122% of average. Comparing power weight ratio's the 2010 Uk average was 65kw/ton the 2.0tdi is approx 85kw/ton so approx 133%.

With these type of percentages I would guess the 2.0tdi is likely to be within the top 5% of new cars and existing road stock with regard to power and power weight ratio.

By way of quick comparison the 1.2TFSi gives figures of 77kw (85% of average) and 70kw/ton (108% of average)
 
You need the standard deviations on that data to work out which percentile you'll be in, not just the average :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Daveotto
Started to read it quickly (there's a lot)
Average power for UK is 91 kws for 2010 and rising. which is 122 bhp (so my guess of 125bhp was fairly accurate.)
Average engine size 1.7 ltr for UK
Average top speed UK 116 mph
Average weight 1210 kgs uk
Average power to weight 61 kw / ton
Average price £19350 inc tax

so roughly speaking a Audi A3 Sportback SE 1.4TFSI 122 ps manual (120 bhp) with no extras
Is Very close (just above) to the average performance / weight / price for a new UK car !

So average 0 - 60 must be just under 10 seconds (which was my first guess)

Now that's geeky !

That means virtually anyone who buys an a3 will have an above average car, but we knew that already

He he :)
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Daveotto
Fragup said:
Started to read it quickly (there's a lot)
Average power for UK is 91 kws for 2010 and rising. which is 122 bhp (so my guess of 125bhp was fairly accurate.
Click to expand...

yea good estimate, was actually fairly surprised it was that high TBH
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
New Member and New Car
Replies
9
Views
1K
pburv
pburv
S32B
And they wonder why people don't trust car sales advisors.
Replies
22
Views
3K
S32B
S32B
wiggsy
Jan sales
Replies
7
Views
1K
wiggsy
wiggsy
Ice Kay
New Car
Replies
8
Views
1K
Ice Kay
Ice Kay
Antjos1
New car
Replies
12
Views
937
Antjos1
Antjos1
Top
Back