Kilowatts to Horsepower Converter

Kilowatts are the SI unit for power and are used on many vehicle and motor specifications. Horsepower remains common in automotive descriptions, especially in the United States and United Kingdom. This converter uses mechanical horsepower, defined as 745.699872 watts, so one kilowatt is approximately 1.34102 mechanical horsepower.

1. 1

   Enter a value

   Type a number into the From box. It starts at 1 so you can see the basic ratio straight away. Thousands separators such as 1,250.5 are accepted.

2. 2

   Choose your units

   This page opens with its own units selected. Use either dropdown to pick any other unit in the category, or tap a unit in the all-units list to make it the target.

3. 3

   Read the result

   The answer updates as you type and the matching formula is shown underneath. There is no Convert button to press.

4. 4

   Swap, copy or clear

   Swap reverses the direction, Copy Result copies a line such as 1 km = 0.621371 mi, and Clear empties the input so you can start again.

Input

• Supported
  Whole numbers25
• Supported
  Decimal numbers2.75

  Use a dot as the decimal separator.

• Supported
  Negative numbers-40

  Calculated for every unit. Quantities such as length or weight are normally positive, while temperatures can be negative.

• Supported
  Thousands separators1,250.5

  Commas must group digits in threes. 1,234 is read as one thousand two hundred thirty-four.

• Supported
  Scientific notation1.5e6

  Useful for very large or very small values (1.5e6 = 1,500,000).

• Not supported
  Comma as decimal mark2,5

  Type 2.5 instead.

• Not supported
  Fractions1/2

  Type 0.5 instead.

• Not supported
  Numbers with unit text5 km

  Enter only the number and choose the unit from the dropdown.

Output

Results use US English formatting (1,234.56) and show up to 6 decimal places with trailing zeros removed. Very small results appear in scientific notation, such as 9.0949e-13, instead of rounding to zero.

Units available in this converter

• Watt (W)
• Kilowatt (kW)
• Megawatt (MW)
• Horsepower (hp)

Common values for the units currently selected above, in both directions.

Tips

• Multiply kilowatts by about 1.341 to estimate mechanical horsepower.
• Metric horsepower differs slightly from mechanical horsepower; check which definition a specification uses.

• Horsepower is mechanical horsepower (745.699872 W). Metric and electrical horsepower differ slightly.
• Power is not energy. To convert kWh, use the Energy converters.
• Results show up to 6 decimal places. Values are not rounded during calculation, and a non-zero result that would display as 0 is shown in scientific notation.