5 Car Performance Numbers That Most Drivers Shouldn’t Care About

There are many factors to consider when buying a vehicle, whether new or used. Not only are there vital questions to ask oneself before committing to any new car, but there’s also the seemingly endless parade of vehicles to choose from, be they practical crossovers or svelte, two-seater performance cars.

One of the main ways that manufacturers differentiate their cars from one another, at least on paper, is through the specs. Some, like fuel efficiency and cargo room, are pretty mundane, while others, like the performance numbers that sportier cars often lead with, can be quite eye-catching. The thing is, though, not all of the latter are all that useful — at least, not for the general driver.

Figures like peak horsepower, 0-60 mph times, and lateral g are nice if you’re bench racing, but they aren’t the be-all-end-all of cars. This isn’t to say that they’re wholly unimportant for everyone, mind you; someone looking for a car to take to weekend track days should, of course, pay a lot of attention to a car’s horsepower and acceleration numbers. However, if you’re mostly driving on public roads, you really don’t need to stress out about these when you’re trying to whittle down your shortlist to a handful of vehicles.

A car’s horsepower is often one of the most emphasized numbers when marketing a vehicle, especially for performance cars. After all, more horsepower supposedly equals better. And while having 717 hp on tap does make cars like the 2025 BMW M5 we reviewed a hoot to drive, there’s more to a vehicle’s driving experience than its horsepower.

Peak engine horsepower is one of the most common ways to express an engine’s capabilities, but regardless of how you measure it, horsepower is undeniably essential for racers seeking to eke out the best lap (or quarter-mile) times possible. But how often is the average driver wringing every last bit of juice out of an engine on a long straightaway? Not very, we’d imagine — unless, of course, they’re blessed enough to have access to the unrestricted sections of Germany’s infamous Autobahn. Even then, they’ll still have to deal with start-stop city traffic and low-speed driving, where even all the horsepower in the world won’t matter as much as having a responsive, torquey engine.

Now, we’re not trying to say that one should always prioritize torque over horsepower, especially since you can’t really have one without the other. Besides, many modern high-horsepower engines will also make more than enough torque to feel responsive at low speeds, offering the best of both worlds. However, if you’re primarily driving around town and rarely, if ever, get into situations where you can stretch your car’s legs, horsepower is one number that should take a backseat to other, more practical considerations.

A car’s 0-60 mph time is often held up as a key metric to indicate its performance. And it’s not entirely baseless. All other things being equal, a car with a lower 0-60 mph time will indeed accelerate better and be objectively quicker from a standstill (well, kind of — more on this later). However, therein lies the rub: Realistically, how often will you be making high-rpm launches from standing starts on the road?

An amazing 0-60 mph time, on its own, won’t matter that much if you rarely find yourself in that sort of a situation … and we’d venture that most people won’t. This isn’t to say that acceleration is entirely pointless, though; it’s essential when pulling out to overtake cars — the quicker you can do that, the better. However, in those situations, numbers like 30-50 mph acceleration times — which some reviewers test for — are more important, as they better represent a car’s midrange power and responsiveness.

Beyond that, 0-60 mph times are often fraught with caveats that make them less definitive than you might expect. Many U.S.-based car reviewers publish 0-60 mph times that omit a 1-foot rollout — leading to arguably misleading figures. Similarly, these numbers don’t always reflect real-world situations, either. Journalists are known for treating cars roughly to get the best possible times, while manufacturers aren’t above stacking things in their favor, either. Some headline-grabbing 0-60 mph times, like the 1,250-hp Corvette ZR1X’s crazy 1.68 seconds, were recorded on prepared surfaces that do not reflect typical public road conditions. 

There’s no replacement for displacement, as the saying goes — or is there? Well, that depends entirely on who you ask and what their interests are, but we’d suggest the average driver really doesn’t need to care much about how big their engine is these days. Unless you need massive grunt for towing heavy loads — or just drive a big car, which is why so many American vehicles still have big engines — then many drivers will be fine with a smaller, turbocharged, four- or six-cylinder engine instead.

But even in those situations, bigger may not always be better. Case in point: Ram reintroduced the 5.7-liter HEMI V8 into the 2026 Ram 1500, which, if one were to go solely by displacement, would be the best engine for the truck. However, as we found out when we reviewed a 2026 Ram 1500, the 5.7-liter V8 makes less horsepower and torque than the 3.0-liter Hurricane inline-six and actually feels slower in the real world, too. On top of that, it’s less economical and doesn’t tow as much as the inline-six.

Smaller engines reduce a car’s weight, which, in turn, allows for better fuel economy. And you don’t necessarily have to give up raw performance, either. Thanks to forced induction, there are even four-cylinder engines that make more power than a traditional V8. Now, that won’t apply to all engines, but it’s a great example of how you can’t solely go by displacement to determine a vehicle’s worthiness — or lack thereof.

Ah, top speed. Is there a performance number that more readily evokes the thrills of high-end motoring? Probably not. And yet, for the average driver who sticks to public roads, top speed is a mostly pointless number — as are, arguably, ultra-high-end hypercars like the Rimac Nevera R and its many equally pointless records.

This isn’t to say that the Nevera R isn’t an impressive feat of engineering, or that we don’t respect the amount of work that it takes to get a car like the Koenigsegg Regera to hit its top speed. However, we imagine that even owners of those cars won’t be taking them to the limit regularly, if ever. Scale that down to the much more mundane lives most of us lead, and top speed is almost silly to even pay any attention to — and that’s even without taking into account the risk of falling foul of laws such as Florida’s harsh new “super speeder” law.

Some modern cars have speed limiters anyway, with German automakers like BMW, for example, restricting cars to 155 mph, rendering the spec meaningless. Two cars may have wildly different performance profiles but look the same on paper if one were to go solely by the top speed figure, rendering it a useless point of comparison.

Numbers like horsepower, 0-60 mph times, and top speed generally focus on a car’s straight-line performance, but conventional cars don’t go only in a straight line. A car’s ability in the corners is often just as important, and there’s a stat that supposedly covers that, too: G-forces measure the forces acting on objects when accelerating or decelerating.

Now, this usually isn’t a spec that automakers publish; instead, you’ll most often find it in third-party reviews from the likes of Motor Trend and Car and Driver, both of which will include a skidpad lateral g figure in their reviews. The latter calls it “roadholding,” and the idea, then, is that a car with good roadholding (and higher skidpad G-force numbers) will be able to stick to the road and maintain its direction of travel better. More gs equals more grip, generally speaking, and a bigger number will represent how hard a car can take corners.

However, while it can be a useful number, it’s not the be-all and end-all of car handling. For one, even Motor Trend itself had to admit that cars can perform significantly differently on track than the numbers might suggest, depending on various factors. One might uncharitably suggest that makes the number entirely meaningless, then, although we won’t go that far. Beyond that, there’s also the question of how often the majority of drivers will be pushing their cars’ limits and carving up corners at high speeds in their daily lives anyway, and the phrase that comes to mind is “almost never.”