Originally published at: Here's why your car's speedometer goes to 160 mph even though that will never happen | Boing Boing
…
12 Likes
Well past the operating speeds of your car.
6 Likes
I’m going a 160 mph, right now.
29 Likes
“this one goes to 11”
22 Likes
Except that 160 mph spedometers such as the ones shown in the stock image above have 80 at the apex. If that was the reason, they would use ~120 mph spedometers so 60 would be at the top and 40-80 would be the comfortable reading range near the top of the dial. That would also more closely correspond to the top speed of many cars and their tires.
A more likely reason is: some people like to see big numbers even if their car can’t go that fast. A few cars can go that fast and it is easier for the auto makers to have a single spedometer gauge than different ones for different models. Possibly with a side of “that is what people are used to seeing” which would also explain why digital spedometers also often go to 160 even though it would be trivial to change.
17 Likes
OUR IDEA OF A FLYING CAR
11 Likes
2 Likes
Almost all? My Honda Fit and my family’s two Toyotas all go to 140. But maybe we’ve just got an especially slow fleet of vehicles.
6 Likes
My folks took German delivery of a Mercedes 300SD in 1980 and not only did the speedometer only go to 85, when they dropped it off at the dock in Hamburg, they had to sign some piece of paper from NHSTA that said they acknowledged the 85 mph speedometer might not reflect the top end speed of the car but they pledged to never exceed 85. Or something like that.
(On that same trip my Dad smuggled an HP41C to an East German scientist in East Berlin he met while working for LBL 12 years earlier).
13 Likes
dials are so 1960, go digital if you want easy to read. 1" high numbers is a lot easier to read. Heck you could tie it to GPS maps and have it turn red when you are over the speed limit.
6 Likes
Actual DeLoreans sold in the U.S. had speedometers with the legally mandated 85 mph maximum, so for the movie they made a prop speedometer that went up to 95.
12 Likes
My 1940 LaSalle hearse was made to run slow. So they gave it a redline in the middle of the 100 MPH speedometer.
17 Likes
Yeah, it was a kinda silly law but some companies basically flaunted it:
5 Likes
6 Likes
I most certainly prefer an analog (or analog look) dial. Though my wife’s car also has a heads up thing that projects the speed on the bottom of the windshield.
For speed limits, you can in fact set a lot of modern cars to alert you when you hit a speed that you designate in the infotainment system.
2 Likes
I’ll go with future-proofing. 85mph speedos wouldn’t be able to tell me whether I’m into the 10mph over zone where cops ticket, when driving on 85mph roads, which are a thing in the USA.
When I learned to drive in the 55mph max era, the idea of going legally 70mph was a crazy fantasy.
3 Likes
I ‘hear ya’ …however an analog dial (even if it’s just an image) can give one a sense of the current acceleration which flipping digits lack. now if there was a numeric read-out below the speed which was speed/time and then one for jerk, snap, crackle, and pop…
15 Likes
Tell that to KITT:
(Sound effects along with speeding up the footage always helps)
9 Likes
