When a car is turning around a circle, why might its speed not change despite a continuous force acting on it?

When a car is turning around a circle, it is indeed experiencing a continuous acceleration due to the centripetal force directed towards the center of the circular path. This centripetal force causes the direction of the car's velocity to change, allowing it to follow a curved path. Importantly, while the direction of the velocity vector changes, the speed, which is the magnitude of that velocity vector, can remain constant if no net work is done on the car in the direction of its motion.

To elaborate, in uniform circular motion, the car's speed remains constant even though it is constantly accelerating toward the center of the circle; this acceleration changes the car's direction but not its speed. Thus, the key takeaway is that the constant change in direction, due to the centripetal force, allows the car to maintain its speed despite the continuous force acting on it. This principle illustrates how velocity has both magnitude and direction, and that changes in direction—without changes in speed—are possible in scenarios like circular motion.