Kilowatts to Metric Horsepower (kW to PS)

1 kilowatt equals 1.359621617 metric horsepower (rounded).

How to convert kilowatts to metric horsepower

To convert kilowatts to metric horsepower, multiply the number of kilowatts by 1.359621617. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply metric horsepower by 0.73549875.

metric horsepower = kilowatts × 1.359621617

Example: 10 kilowatts = 13.59621617 metric horsepower.

Several different horsepower units exist. This site lists mechanical (745.7 W), metric (735.5 W) and electrical (746 W) horsepower separately.

About these units

Kilowatt (kW)

Metric (SI)Current unit

1,000 watts. Used for the power of motors, cars and household appliances.

A kilowatt is simply the watt with the SI prefix kilo, meaning a thousand, attached. The watt was adopted into the SI in 1960 and is small next to machinery, since an incandescent night light uses about 4 W, so the thousand-watt multiple suits engines, electric motors, tools and heaters. For readers used to older units, one kilowatt is roughly 1.34 horsepower.

Small electric heaters with a single element can use about 1 kW, and a domestic electric kettle or microwave oven draws a similar amount. The average household in the United States uses about 1 kW of electric power over time. On a clear midday near the equator, a square meter of Earth's surface receives about 1 kW of sunlight. Do not confuse the kilowatt with the kilowatt-hour on an electricity bill: the first is a rate, the second is the energy used by running one kilowatt for an hour, which equals 3,600,000 watt-seconds.

1 kilowatt = 1,000 watts (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilowatt; Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (power); BIPM: SI prefixes

Metric Horsepower (PS)

Metric (SI)Current unit

Exactly 735.49875 watts, the power to lift 75 kilograms by one meter in one second. Called PS, CV or pk and used for car engines in Europe and Asia.

Continental Europe built its own horsepower on kilograms and meters instead of pounds and feet. The metric horsepower, written PS from the German Pferdestarke, is the power needed to lift 75 kilograms by one meter in one second, or 75 kilogram-force meters per second. The German standard DIN 66036 gives its value as 735.49875 W, about 98.6 percent of the imperial horsepower. It goes by many local names, among them cv in Italian and Portuguese, pk in Dutch, ch in French and hk in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

It had a French predecessor in the poncelet, a 19th-century unit based on 100 kgf-m/s. In 1972 the European Economic Community replaced PS with the kilowatt as its official unit for power, yet car brochures in many countries still quote PS or its cousins alongside kilowatts. When comparing a European car with an American one, remember that the two horsepowers differ by about 1.4 percent.

1 metric horsepower = 735.49875 watts (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Metric horsepower; Wikipedia: Horsepower

Related conversions

See all power units.