Americans, what is something that Europeans have/do that makes no sense to you?

Like A Duck@programming.dev to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 178 points –
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PS is Pferdestärke, which is just horsepower in German. I think CH is the same in French, and CV... Italian? So maybe the other ones also all mean HP. I don't know why they put all of them there, but maybe it's because since it's not a SI unit, there is no official abbreviation everyone knows.

Edit: Just looked it up and I was wrong, they are actually different units, even though horse related. Even HP (747.7 W) and PS (735.5 W) are slightly different. What a mess, that's why we need SI units.

With the inevitable arrival of electric cars, i bet that [kW] will be the new standard for engine power.

They already are.

The same way food packaging must mention the calorie content in joules and kcal is optional, cars have to be advertised with watt.

It has been for a while, horsepower is a legacy unit. Taxes and whatever are based on the kW value.

Taxes?

In some countries, your yearly car registration taxes are proportional to how much horsepower and pollution it generates.

We can only hope. A unifying measurement is the first start to cross cultural understanding and appreciation!