WIde open throttle/ Basically when youre on the freeway mashing the gas pedal

 

I think that the average person will do fine with 150. How many people out there have a 335i but will never utilize that power? Alot.

 

true...but 150 is not sufficient enough to curb road rage when you are merging onto the freeway at an overly small on ramp.

 

There is going to be an obvious trade-off between size (weight), fuel economy, and all out 1/4-mile times. If you are looking at something in the 14-second range, obviously it's going to be a torque monster or very tiny. Name your poison. It can produce reasonable fuel consumption numbers if it's small, but if you believe size matters, for whatever reason, be prepared to pay at the pump.

I love the guy down the street who drives a Charger SRT-8 and whines about his fuel cost. Like it's some great honor to pour over $100 a week into his fuel tank, and it gives him an exclusive license to cry about it. My friend with the SMART has to check the weather forecast before he drives east or west with a high north wind predicted. He wishes it were a little faster merging, too.

Where do people get the idea that cars should be 20 feet long, haul all of their friends, contain every conceivable luxury, travel 40 miles on every gallon of gas, rocket through the quarter mile in under 13 seconds, and still cost about 14 grand? We have to decide what is important to us and accept the consequences of our selection.

If you want to go fast, it's going to be expensive in terms of fuel, insurance, registration, service, and repair. You may not be able to carry the dining room table to the refinisher, you probably won't fit three kids and all of that kidgear, it's going to be a bear to maneuver in the parking lot at the mall, it will certainly have all of the luxury amenities of a NASCAR stocker, it will ride like a lumber wagon, and those side exhausts will have your ears ringing for a week.

On the other hand, it's really fast.

 

I think 200HP is a good average to have. My ES300 that had 170 or so HP was pretty slow when trying to merge onto a freeway up hill. It really couldn't get out of its own way. Every car I had with at least 200-230HP though felt okay for me. I can barely merge onto a fast moving freeway from a dead stop with my 94 Accord. Going up hill over the mountain to the other side of the Island is chore for that car as well. Gets good gas mileage but you have to practically mash the pedal 3/4 of the way all the way up the hill for 10 miles. Not fun. I think if people just drove on flat slower city driving though 150HP would be more than enough.

 

The 158hp in my camry and 220hp in my lexus gives me enough oomph. but i barely ever take it over 3000 RPM so I dont really need more then 240hp. My wife on the otherhand mashes the throttle in every car she drives and always complains when she drives my camry or the rx300 because she says it feels "weak".

 

Maybe you need a new wife...

 

haha! that made my day (no offense)

 

I'm using the 6th gen Honda Accord, the 5th gen Toyota Camry and 5th gen Nissan Maxima as my 'average' cars (which IMHO were average) however you may note that this was the top of the line models (V6's) but that still holds true even in 2009 that the 260+ HP range is only with the top trim levels offered by the respective manufacturers.

 

HP is relative. Car enthusiast websites generally have members that drive more aggressively. Cars will get more powerful with each year so stop whining everyone and enjoy it. That said, I agree, current Camry's have more HP than older Porsches did.

 

Horsepower wars rage on. HP will continue to rise, but not as it did in the past. We have a new war now:

Who can build the most HP using the least amount of fuel?

I firmly believe that 20 years from now, your average Accord will be running around with 350-400 HP, delivering better than 35MPG. Technology will do it. Always has, always will.

 

HP power doesn’t tell the only story, we have to look at the power to weight ratio. An old muscle car may have 400 HP, but it will not go any faster than a BMW 335 from 0-60. Just like bog sedans like the LS or the 7 series, those sedans are not over powered even with 300+ HP.
At some point in the future, we as a society have to determine how much HP is enough. Do we really need 400+ HP in a family sedan? A few car companies have already gotten out of the HP war, but most of them are still in it, especially the bigger car makers. No matter what market will demand, these big car companies will always have a 1 or 2 models to show off their HP, but it is time for most of us to say, enough is enough, we don’t not need a 400 HP Camry.

 

Power is nothing without control.

 

I'm not a speeder.Maybe 10 over the limit.
However,I do love the power when merging on to a highway,passing or just pushing the accelerator down just a bit and feeling the pull going from 40 MPH to 75 MPH ina couple of seconds.
It's intoxicating.
You don't have to be a speeder to love horsepower.

 

How fast is too fast? ...When you run out of road?

Seriously, I agree with Joeb427, though I'll add that a cap on hp doesn't necessarily translate into slower speeds (relative to the speed limit). Though I have no real proof, I've seen Prius' (or other low hp vehicles) pulled over for speeding more often than I see corvettes, to use a very loose example. People will speed in whatever they happen to own, since even lower hp cars are still capable of doing 20+ mph above most posted limits, faily easily.

As someone stated ealier, I think major HP wars are done, excluding higher-end, more expensive vehicles, or at least, they will be counteracted by the weight/gearing of the vehicle to balance the overall performance package. Horsepower will still be used as a figure to sell cars, but with other cars in the lineup, there is only so far specific vehicles will be allowed to go, before stepping on the toes of the next tier offerings; I wouldn't put it past some makes to underrate more cars, as well.