xpensive wrote:the engine torque itself is irrelevant.
I neg voted you for this on the basis that it's factually wrong for the following reasons.
By saying engine output torque is irrelevant, you are effectively saying we don't care about the shape of the torque curve and by extension we don't care about the shape of the power curve (as the two are intrinsically linked)
As i said in an earlier post; in maths world you are fine to use a power figure and force x speed, as we don't need to worry about fixed gearing. Your tractive effort curve would asymptote at 0rpm and decay away to zero at infinite speed.
All would be well, and you would get a pretty decent, though optimistic, approximation the the car's performance.
When you do need to worry about fixed gearing (such as selecting appropriate ratios and designing gears), the engine torque output (ie the shape of the torque and power curves) becomes very, very relevant.
As you say, power is force X speed. In the real world this force is tractive effort applied at the wheels. The shape of this tractive effort curve is the engine torque curve multiplied by a ratio.
You can also select ratios by using the power curve (though it's less intuitive). You are still considering the shape of the power curve, which by extension you are considering the shape of the torque curve.