⚡ Power
hp to kW Converter
Enter horsepower and press Convert to get kilowatts. 1 hp to kW is 0.7457. 1 hp is 0.7457 kW, and 200 hp is 149.14 kW.
About the hp to kW Converter
Engine ratings in hp are still common in the US and UK, while electric motors, generators and European tax systems use kW. The conversion is a straight multiply by 0.7457 for mechanical hp — using 0.75 is close but drifts by about 0.6%, or nearly 1 kW on a 200 hp engine.
Metric PS is slightly smaller than mechanical hp, so a car quoted at 150 PS is 110.3 kW while one quoted at 150 hp is 111.9 kW. The difference is small but real in specification comparisons.
How the calculation works
- kW = hp × 0.7456998716
- hp = kW × 1.3410220896
- 1 PS = 0.73549875 kW
Reference values
| Horsepower | Kilowatts | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| 1 hp | 0.746 kW | Small pump |
| 10 hp | 7.457 kW | Workshop motor |
| 50 hp | 37.285 kW | Tractor |
| 100 hp | 74.570 kW | Family car |
| 150 hp | 111.855 kW | Warm hatch |
| 200 hp | 149.140 kW | Hot hatch |
| 300 hp | 223.710 kW | Performance car |
| 500 hp | 372.850 kW | Sports car |
Worked examples
- 1 Mechanical horsepower = 0.7457 Kilowatt.
- 2 Mechanical horsepower = 1.491 Kilowatt.
- 5 Mechanical horsepower = 3.728 Kilowatt.
- 10 Mechanical horsepower = 7.457 Kilowatt.
- 50 Mechanical horsepower = 37.28 Kilowatt.
- 100 Mechanical horsepower = 74.57 Kilowatt.
Checking the answer
Multiply the Mechanical horsepower figure by 0.7457 to get Kilowatt, and divide by the same number to come back. Twenty-five Mechanical horsepower should land at 18.64 Kilowatt; an answer near 33.53 means the division went the wrong way. A quick sanity check is that Kilowatt 7.457 must always be smaller than the matching Mechanical horsepower figure when the factor is above 1.
Common mistakes
- Mixing mechanical hp with metric PS, which differ by 1.4%.
- Using 0.75 kW per hp as exact.
- Comparing motor output with engine output without drivetrain losses.
Using this conversion
The Mechanical horsepower to Kilowatt relationship is fixed, so one factor covers every value you will enter: a household quantity and an industrial one behave identically. What changes with size is only how much the rounding matters, which is why the table above stops at a round number rather than at whatever figure you happen to need today.
When precision matters
For a rough Mechanical horsepower to Kilowatt estimate one decimal place is plenty. For a contract, a shipping document or a lab result, keep the full figure from the converter and round only on the final line, so no intermediate step throws the Kilowatt total out.
A last check on the numbers: 37 Mechanical horsepower works out to 27.59 Kilowatt, and reversing that with the same factor brings you back to 37 Mechanical horsepower. Because Mechanical horsepower to Kilowatt is a single multiplication, any tool that gives a different figure for the same input is rounding somewhere in the middle rather than only at the end.