GTO LTD VIN MSRP GLC MPG AWD MG PSI GMC AMC

 

AFV - Armoured Fighting Vehicle (army)

 

IHP - Indicated Horse-Power, that developed within a steam or internal-combustion engine cylinder calculated with the aid of a pressure-measuring instrument called an "Indicator".

SHP - Shaft Horsepower. That available at the engine's output to drive the vehicle.

 

As a useful approximation close enough for most practical purposes, 1HP = 750W.

Ah - Ampere.Hour. The capacity unit for a battery - be it in your car or anything else.

'Sat-nav' - Colloquialism, in Britain at least, for 'Satellite Navigation System' (a.k.a. GPS). A very useful tool with the engaging habit of ensuring it knows where you are and how to reach your destination from there, along the most arcane of shortest routes, but you don't! One of my friends calls it "Sat-Nag".
.

So far we seem to have restricted ourselves to road traffic but the term 'vehicle' is used in other transport modes.

Such as the Railways:

HST - High-Speed Train: Britain's first, and very successful, passenger train rated for 100mph+ cruising, on up-rated existing railway lines, not specially-built ones; unlike the...

... TGV - (Train Grande Vitesse), which is France's equivalent. It is faster still but uses its own tracks built for the purpose.

DMU / EMU - Diesel / Electric Multiple-Unit Trains. Self-contained consists with the engines or motors below the coach floors, and a driving-cab at each end. This avoids the use of a separate locomotive and its associated run-round manoeuvres at each end of the trip, and is more or less standard practice in Britain and much of Europe. The HST and its descendents use a "power car" with engine and driving cab at each end of the train itself: effectively, a pair of locomotives blended in style with the coaches.

SPAD - 'Signal Passed At Danger' - a very serious offence and SPAD incidents have caused major accidents over the 170 or so years of public rail transport. Fortunately very rare.

TOC - Train Operating Company. One of the commercial entities who lease and run the trains by franchise on Britain's Network Rail lines. There are fewer than appear thanks to some of them using regional names and liveries to make them seem separate companies.

.

It might seem stretching the point to call a ship a vehicle, but it is, and we have the...

Ro-Ro Ferry - "Roll-on, Roll-off", i.e. carrying road vehicles driven directly between road and ship, using a hinged ramp to cope with tidal height changes. The term seems to fallen out of use, most likely due to such ferries becoming routine on the seas surrounding the British Isles; although its loss might also have been influenced by a very poor taste "humour" version after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.  (Until the 1960s there was a train-ferry service between England and Holland, using ships fitted with rails to carry the coaches. The locomotives and their crews stayed in their own countries.)

AUV - Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. The marine equivalent of the flying UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle colloquially called a "drone", and not necessarily a weapon). Appropriate types of AUV can carry surveying sonars or other marine scientific equipment.

HMS - now of course His Majesty's Ship - of the Royal Navy.

dwt - 'Dead Weight', of a cargo-ship.

'Reefer' - I have heard this used as sailors' slang for a Refrigerated (food-carrying) cargo ship.

MARPOL - the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).

ISO - International Standards Organisation. Although the ISO itself is not directly concerned with transport, it formulated the Systeme Internationale version of the Metric System, and various foundation standards covering for example environmental protection; used the world over now for international and domestic commerce, including transport.